Oliver Twist - Zusammenfassung der Ideen PDF

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Zusammenfassung der Ideen ...

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Oliver Twist

(1837-39)

- Charles Dickens ➢ TITLE - boy named by Mr. Bumble - subtitle: “A Parish Boy’s Progress”: - orphan was referred to as Parish boy/girl; parish in which you was born cared about you -> Church of England responsible for poor people ➢ THE THEMES MES - battle between good/evil (Oliver/Fagin) - failure of charity (Poor Law 1834) - society & class (Victorian society, class system) - poverty and criminality - city life vs. countryside (corrupt vs. pure)

➢ MOTIFS - disguised or mistaken identities (other characters impose false identities upon Oliver) - hidden family relations (Brownlow, Rose, Monks) - Oliver’s face (comments on it’s particular appeal)

➢ SOCIO - CULTURAL BACKGROU BACKGROUND ND - Victorianism, industrial revolution - importance of work stressed: workhouses -> child labour (small hands, climbed into chimneys cleaning them) long working hours, bad conditions - probably based on ‘autobiography’ of Robert Blincoe, an orphan and child labourer (published by John Brown) - Poor-Law Amendment Act 1834: - population increased too fast, people tended to claim the relief of poorhouses than go to work - establish new system in which relief would be given in workhouses - conditions should be in a way that only those who were truly penniless would apply -> deterrence ➢ CHARACT CHARACTERS ERS

ACTION N ➢ ACTIO

➢ LANGUAU LANGUAUGE GE - third-person-narrator with direct speech to the reader, objective & subjective -> sometimes influences reader - rich periphrastic language -> many descriptions to create a vivid picture of circumstances - satirical, criticises hypocrisies of that time (workhouses, poverty, child labour) - lot’s of rhetorical forms and figures: metaphor, personification, simile, SYYMBOLS - symbols: - light/dark (Oliver as child of light – innocent; most people around him -> thieves), contrasts: city -> evil; countryside -> pure - London Bridge -> connecting two different “worlds”

➢ CLOSE RE READING ADING  Treats of the place where Oliver Twist was born and circumstances attending his birth (Chapter I) - uses irony and wit to criticise social circumstances of workhouse - doctor/nurse: were not there – poor people could not afford them, Oliver did not breath at first: had to fight to live (child mortality high at that time) -> class differences (where family comes from was important) - mother’s origin unknown - literary strategy: foreshadowing - power of dress: we judge people by their outfits -> criticised by Dickens  Treats of Oliver Twist’s Growth, Education, and Board (Chapter II) - term of narrator: irony, sarcasm “the poor people liked it” -> workhouse, they are starving, obviously they don’t complain - Oliver’s workpower is sold, he flees, criminality (argue that the new system of Poor Law Amendment Act forced Oliver’s behaviour -> choice between working and starving to death slowly or escape and become criminal)

- circumstances in workhouses: hierarchy -> Board and people working for the Board, starvation -> criticism: irony, description of hypocrisy and hierarchical situation in society, circumstances  Relation of City and Village (Chapter 32) - city understood as evil place that can turn you into a criminal; village as romantic and pure, foregrounds heaven for young Oliver, place to recover (opposite to pollution)...