1、A Review of Reading Oliver TwistI. Introduction Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic who is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period and the creator of some of the worlds most memorable fictional characters. During his lifetime Dickens works
2、enjoyed unprecedented popularity and fame, but it was in the twentieth century that his literary genius was fully recognized by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to enjoy an enduring popularity among the general reading public.Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus o
3、f his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, is one of the most influential works ever written, and it remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. His creative genius has been praised by fellow writersfrom Leo Tolstoy to G. K. Chesterton and George Orwellfor its
4、realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand Oscar Wilde, Henry James and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism.Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, att
5、orneys, of Holborn Court, Grays Inn, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828. Then, having learned Gurneys system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter.In late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he would write Bleak House, Hard Times and
6、 Little Dorrit.It was here he indulged in the amateur theatricals which are described in Forsters “Life“.In 1856, the income he was earning from his writing allowed him to buy Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent. As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was als
7、o the scene of some of the events of Shakespeares Henry IV, Part 1 and this literary connection pleased him.Major works, A Tale of Two Cities; and Great Expectations soon followed and would prove resounding successes. During this time he was also the publisher and editor of, and a major contributor
8、to, the journals Household Words and All the Year Round. In the same period, Dickens furthered his interest in the paranormal, becoming one of the early members of The Ghost Club.On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash. The first sev
9、en carriages of the train plunged off a cast iron bridge under repair. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for Our Mutual Friend, and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it. Dick
10、ens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story, “The Signal-Man“, in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He also based the story on several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861.Dickens managed to avoi
11、d an appearance at the inquest to avoid disclosing that he had been travelling with Ternan and her mother, which would have caused a scandal. Although physically unharmed, Dickens never really recovered from the trauma of the Staplehurst crash, and his normally prolific writing shrank to completing
12、Our Mutual Friend and starting the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood.II. Enjoyable QuotesThe hero of this novel was Oliver Twist, an orphan, who was thrown into a world full of poverty and crime. He suffered enormous pain, such as hunger, thirst, beating and abuse. While reading the tragic exper
13、iences of the little Oliver, I was shocked by his sufferings. I felt for the poor boy, but at the same time I detested the evil Fagin and the brutal Bill. To my relief, as was written in all the best stories, the goodness eventually conquered devil and Oliver lived a happy life in the end. One of th
14、e plots that attracted me most is that after the theft, little Oliver was allowed to recover in the kind care of Mrs. Maylie and Rose and began a new life. He went for walks with them, or Rose read to him, and he worked hard at his lessons. He felt as if he had left behind forever the world of crime
15、 and hardship and poverty. In this master piece, there are many enjoyable points which constitute to make it a masterpiece of artistic work.Such as this part:The court was paved, from floor to roof, with human faces. Inquisitive and eager eyes peered from every inch of space. From the rail before th
16、e dock, away into the sharpest angle of the smallest corner in the galleries, all looks were fixed upon one man-Fagin. Before him and behind: above,below, on the right and on the left: he seemed to stand surrounded by a firmament, all bright with gleaming eyes. He stood there, in all this glare of l
17、iving light, with one hand resting on the wooden slab before him, the other held to his ear, and his head thrust forward to enable him to catch with greater distinctness every word that fell from the presiding judge, who was delivering his charge to the jury. At times, he turned his eyes sharply upo
18、n them to observe the effect of the slightest featherweight in his favour; and when the points against him were stated with terrible distinctness, looked towards his counsel, in mute appeal that he would, even then, urge something in his behalf. Beyond these manifestations of anxiety, he stirred not
19、 hand or foot. He had scarcely moved since the trial began; and now that the judge ceased to speak, he still remained in the same strained attitude of close attention, with his gaze ben on him, as though he listened still. A slight bustle in the court, recalled him to himself. Looking round, he saw
20、that the juryman had turned together, to consider their verdict. As his eyes wandered to the gallery, he could see the people rising above each other to see his face: some hastily applying their glasses to their eyes:and others whispering their neighbours with looks expressive of abhorrence. A few t
21、here were, who seemed unmindful of him, and looked only to the jury, in impatient wonder how they could delay.But in no one face-not even among the women, of whom there were many there-could he read the faintest sympathy with himself, or any feeling but one of all-absorbing interest that he should b
22、e condemned. As he saw all this in one bewildered glance, the deathlike stillness came again, and looking back he saw that the jurymen had turned towards the judge. Hush! And the another part:He looked up into the gallery again. Some of the people were eating, and some fanning themselves with handke
23、rchiefs; for the crowded place was very hot. There was one young man sketching his face in a little note-book. He wondered whether it was like, and looked on when the artist broke his pencil-point, and made another with his knife, as any idle spectator might have done. In the same way, when he turne
24、d his eyes towards the judge, his mind began to busy itself with the fashion of his dress, and what it cost, and how he put it on. There was an old fat gentleman on the bench, too, who had gone out, some half an hour before, and now come back. He wondered within himself whether this man had been to
25、get his dinner, what he had had, and where he had had it; and pursued this train of careless thought until some new object caught his eye and roused another. Not that, all this time, his mind was, for an instant, free from one oppressive overwhelming sense of the grave that opened at his feet; it wa
26、s ever present to him, but in a vague and general way, and he could not fix his thoughts upon it. Thus, even while he trembled, and turned burning hot at the idea of speedy death, he fell to counting the iron spikes before him, and wondering how the head of one had been broken off, and whether they
27、would mend it, or leave it as it was. Then, he thought of all the horrors of the gallows and the scaffold-and stopped to watch a man sprinkling the floor to cool it-and then went on to think again. At length there was a cry of silence, and a breathless look from all towards the door. The jury return
28、ed, and passed him close. He could glean nothing from their faces; they might as well have been of stone. Perfect stillness ensued-not a rustle-not a breath-Guilty. The building rang with a tremendous shout, and another, and another, and then it echoed loud groans, that gathered strength as they swe
29、lled out, like angry thunder. It was a peal of joy from the populace outside, greeting the news that he would die on Monday. The noise subsided, and he was asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him. He had resumed his listening attitude, and looked intently
30、at his questioner while the demand was made; but it was twice repeated before he seemed to hear it, and then he only muttered that he was an old man-an old man-and so, dropping into a whisper, was silent again.When I read this book I think that how can such a little boy who had already suffered oppr
31、essive affliction remain pure in body and mind? The reason is the nature of goodness. I think it is the most important information implied in the novel by Dickens-he believed that goodness could conquer every difficulty. Although I dont think goodness is omnipotent, yet I do believe that those who a
32、re kind-hearted live more happily than those who are evil-minded. For me, the nature of goodness is one of the most necessary character for a person. Goodness is to humans what water is to fish. He who is without goodness is an utterly worthless person. On the contrary, as the famous saying goes, Th
33、e fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose, he who is with goodness undoubtedly is a happy and useful person. People receiving his help are grateful to him and he also gets gratified from what he has done, and thus he can do good to both the people he has helped and himself. To my disa
34、ppointment, nowadays some people seem to doubt the existence of the goodness in humanity. They look down on peoples honesty and kindness, thinking it foolish of people to be warm-hearted. As a result, they show no sympathy to those who are in trouble and seldom offer to help others. On the other han
35、d, they attach importance to money and benefit. In their opinion, money is the only real object while emotions and morality are nihility. If they cannot get profit from showing their kindness, they draw back when others are faced with trouble and even hit a man when he is down. They are one of the s
36、orts that I really detest. Francis Bacon said in his essay, Goodness, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity, and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin. That is to say a person without goodness is
37、destined to lose everything. Therefore, I, a kind person, want to tell those vermin-to-be to learn from the kind Oliver and regain the nature of goodness.III. Comprehension in Depth and EvaluationOliver Twist is Charles Dickens second novel.The book was originally published in Bentleys Miscellany as
38、 a serial，in monthly installments that began appearing in the month of February 1837 and continued through April 1839，originally intended to form part of Dickensserial The Mudfog Papers.George Cruik shank provided one steel etching per month to is ustrate each installment.Oliver Twist is the first n
39、ovel in the English language to center throughout on a child protagonist and is also notable for Dickens unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives.The bookS subtitle，The ParishBoys Progress，alludes to Bunyans The Hlgrims Progress and also to apairof popular 18th-century caricature ser
40、ies by William Hogarth，A Rakes Progress and A Harlots Progress.Among other public buildings in a certain town，which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning and to which one will assign no fictitious name，there is one anciently common to mosttowns，great or small：towit，a workhou
41、se； and in this workhouse wasborn；on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat，inasmuch as it can be 0f no possible consequence to the reader,in this stage of the business at a11 events；the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapten For a 10ng time after it w
42、as ushered into this world of sorrow andtrouble，by the parish surgeon，it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bearany name at all；in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared；or,if they had， that being comprised wi
43、thin a couple of pages，they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biograph sextant in the literature of any age or country. Oliver Twist provides insight into the experience of the poor in 1830s England. Beneath the novels raucous humor and fli
44、ghts of fancy runs an undertone of bitter criticism of the Victorian middle classs attitudes toward the poor. Oliver is a near perfect example of the hypocrisy and venality of the legal system, workhouses, and middle class moral values and marriage practices of 1830s England.Olivers experiences demo
45、nstrate the legal silence and invisibility of the poor. In 1830s England, wealth determined voting rights. Therefore, the poor had no say in the laws that governed their lives, and the Poor Laws strictly regulated the ability to seek relief. Since begging( was illegal, workhouses were the only sourc
46、es of relief. The workhouses were made to be deliberately unpleasant in order to discourage the poor from seeking their relief. The Victorian middle class assumed that the poor were uncontroleable due to their state of nature and immorality. Since the poor had no voting rights, the State chose to re
47、cognize their existence only when they commited crimes, died, or entered the workhouses.Dickens Oliver Twist is one sympathetic portrayal among dozens of vicious, stereotypical portrayals of the poor. However, Dickens himself exhibits middle class prejudice. He reproduces the worst anti-Semitic ster
48、eotypes in Fagin, the “villainous old Jew.“ The portrayal of Noah Claypole, the dirty charity boy, reveals some of the stereotypes of the poor that Dickens criticizes. Monks, Olivers evil half-brother, is “bad from birth,“ although Dickens clearly satirizes the middle classs belief that the poor are
49、 born crimnals. These inconsistencies weaken the larger impact of Dickens crusade against the abuses leveled against the poor.Oliver Twist is not considered one of Dickenss best novels. The plot is misleading and often ridiculous. However, it merits study for its scathing critique of Victorian middle class attitudes towards poverty.
