"Oliver Twist" is directed against the "poor law", against workhouses, against existing political economic concepts. public opinion promises of happiness and prosperity for the majority. Only Oliver Twist achieves happiness, and even then thanks to the romantic mood of the author, confident that the purity of Oliver's soul, his resistance to life's difficulties need reward. However, it would be a mistake to consider that a novel is the author’s fulfillment of his social mission. “Oliver Twist” was also a kind of civil response by Dickens to the dominance at that time of the so-called Newgate novel, in which the story of thieves and criminals was told exclusively in melodramatic and romantic tones, and the lawbreakers themselves were a type of Superman, very attractive to readers. The Byronic hero moved into a criminal environment.
Dickens opposed the idealization of crime and those who commit it. Dickens is busy exploring the mechanism of evil, its impact on humans; goodness is realized in him in the images of Mr. Brownlow and Oliver Twist himself, Rose Meili. The most prominent were the images of Feigin, Sykes, and Nancy. However, Nancy has some attractive character traits and even shows tender affection for Oliver, but she also pays cruelly for it.
In the preface to the book, Dickens clearly stated the essence of his plan: “It seemed to me that to portray real members of a criminal gang, to draw them in all their ugliness, with all their vileness, to show their wretched, miserable life, to show them as they really are - they always sneak, overwhelmed with anxiety, along the dirtiest paths of life, and wherever they look, a black terrible gallows looms before them - it seemed to me that to depict this means to try to do what is necessary and what will serve to society. And I did it to the best of my ability.” True, the realistic depiction of the London bottom and its inhabitants in this novel is often colored with romantic and sometimes melodramatic tones. Oliver Twist, having gone through the life school of Feigin, who taught him the art of thieves, remains a virtuous and pure child. He feels unfit for the craft that the old swindler is pushing him into, but he feels at ease and free in Mr. Brownlow’s cozy bedroom, where he immediately draws attention to the portrait of a young woman, who later turned out to be his mother.
Evil permeates every corner of London, most of all it is widespread among those whom society has doomed to poverty, slavery and suffering. But perhaps the most gloomy pages those in the novel look like those dedicated to workhouses. Liquid oatmeal three times a day, two onions a week and half a loaf on Sundays - this was the meager ration that supported the pitiful, always hungry workhouse boys, who had been shaking hemp since six o'clock in the morning.
When Oliver, driven to despair by hunger, timidly asks the warden for more porridge, the boy is considered a rebel and locked in a cold closet. Unlike previous novel, in this work the narrative is colored with gloomy humor, the narrator seems to have difficulty believing that the events taking place relate to civilized England, which boasts of its democracy and justice. There is a different pace of the story here: short chapters are filled with numerous events that make up the essence of the adventure genre. In the fate of little Oliver, adventures turn out to be misadventures when the ominous figure of Monks, Oliver’s brother, appears on the scene, who, in order to receive an inheritance, tries to destroy the main character by conspiring with Fagin and forcing him to make a thief out of Oliver. In this novel by Dickens, the features of a detective story are palpable, but both professional servants of the law and enthusiasts who fell in love with the boy and wanted to restore him are investigating the mystery of Twist. good name his father and return the inheritance that legally belongs to him. The nature of the episodes is also different. Sometimes the novel sounds melodramatic notes.
This is especially clearly felt in the scene of the farewell of little Oliver and Dick, the hero’s doomed friend, who dreams of dying quickly in order to get rid of cruel torments - hunger, punishment and backbreaking labor. Special significance in “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” they acquire social motivations for people’s behavior that determine certain traits of their characters. The negative characters of the novel are carriers of evil, bitter with life, immoral and cynical. Predators by nature, always profiting at the expense of others, they are disgusting, too grotesque and caricatured to be believable, although they do not leave the reader in doubt that they are not truthful. Thus, the head of a gang of thieves, Feigin, loves to enjoy the sight of stolen gold things. He can be cruel and merciless if he is disobeyed or his cause is harmed. The figure of his accomplice Sykes is drawn in more detail than all of Feigin's other accomplices.
Dickens combines grotesque, caricature and moralizing humor in his portrait. This is “a strongly built subject, a fellow of about thirty-five, in a black corduroy frock coat, very dirty short dark trousers, lace-up shoes and gray paper stockings that covered thick legs with bulging calves - such legs with such a suit always give the impression of something unfinished if they are not decorated with shackles.” This “cute” character keeps a “dog” named Flashlight to deal with children, and even Feigin himself is not afraid of him. In “The Adventures of Oliver Twist,” critical intonations are associated mainly with the characters who protect order and legality in the state. Positive characters, such as Mr. Brownlow, Rose Maley, Harry Maley, Oliver, are drawn in the traditions of educational literature, that is, they emphasize natural kindness, decency, and honesty.
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Characteristics of the image of Oliver Twist in novel of the same name Dickens
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The main character of the novel is Oliver Twist. He was born in a workhouse. Mom took one look at Oliver and died. As a child, he endures bullying, hunger, and does not know what parental care is. Finding himself as an undertaker's apprentice, Oliver is humiliated and bullied by the orphanage boy Noe Claypole. Twist demolishes everything, but beats strong opponent after Noe insults his mother. Oliver is punished and runs away from the undertaker.
A boy goes to London after seeing a road sign. He meets a beggar peer - the Artful Dodger. The boy introduced himself as Jack Dawkins. In the city, the Artful Dodger introduces the hero to the leader of swindlers and thieves, Fagin. On his first outing, Oliver sees the Artful Dodger and his friend stealing a handkerchief. He is horrified and runs, but he is caught and accused of theft. The gentleman from whom the handkerchief was stolen abandoned the claim: he takes Oliver to his house. The boy has been sick for many days, he is being treated and taken care of. Brownlow and housekeeper Bedwin notice the resemblance between a boy and a young girl depicted in a portrait hanging in the living room.
But the past does not let Oliver go. Fagin kidnaps a boy and forces him to take part in a house robbery. The hero does not want to participate in the crime and decides to raise the alarm. However, he is immediately wounded in the arm. The “partner,” the beggar boy Sikes from Fagin’s company, throws Oliver into a ditch to escape pursuit. The hero comes to his senses and barely gets to the porch of the house. There Roz and her aunt Mrs. Maylie put the boy to bed and go to the doctor. They are not going to hand him over to the police.
Old Sally died in the workhouse. It was this woman who looked after the hero’s mother, and after her death, she robbed her. Sally tells the warden that she stole a gold item from the hero’s mother, gives the mortgage receipt to Corny and dies.
Nancy finds out that Fagin is making a thief out of the hero on the orders of a stranger. The stranger Monks demands that Fagin find Oliver and bring him to him.
The hero is surrounded by care and gradually recovers. He told his story, but nothing could confirm it. Brownlow left. But the attitude towards Oliver does not change in the worst side. Then both women go with him to the village. There he meets a stranger and mistakes him for a madman. Then he sees the same man at the window with Fagin. The household members come running to Oliver's cry, but they cannot find the aliens.
Monks found Corny and bought a tiny wallet from her. It was taken from Oliver's mother's neck. Inside there is a medallion with wedding ring and curls, on inside There was an engraving: "Agnes". Monks threw the wallet into the stream. He then tells Fagin about this. Nancy hears everything and goes to Rose to tell her what is happening. She tells her the story in detail, says that Monks called the hero brother. Nancy then returns to the gang, asking not to give her away. Roz and Oliver find Brownlow and give him everything. Now they need a description of the stranger's appearance. They get it from Nancy. Fagin suspects Nancy and finds out about her affairs. He decides to punish her and tells Sikes that she has made herself a boyfriend. Bill Sikes kills a girl.
Brownlow begins to investigate. Edwin Lyford is the stranger's name. He is Oliver's brother. Their father was friends with Brownlow. He suffered in his marriage, his son was vicious even in his youth. Oliver's father fell in love with Agnes Fleming, but, having gone to Rome on business, fell ill and died. They found an envelope with my father's will. He allocated part of the money to his eldest son and wife, leaving Agnes the rest. The boy will receive an inheritance if he does not tarnish his honor. But the will was burned by Monks' mother. The letter was kept to shame Agnes. Her father died. Agnes's younger sister is Rose, Mrs. Maylie's adopted niece. Monks runs away from home at 18 and commits a lot of crimes. His mother tells him about the history of the family, he sets himself the goal of discrediting his brother. Under pressure from Brownlow, Monks leaves England.
Fagin was arrested and executed, Sykes died. Oliver finds a family, Rose agrees to Harry (her admirer), who became a priest instead of pursuing a career.
The main character of the novel about the adventures of Oliver Twist is a boy whose fate cannot be called easy. Growing up without parental care, he managed not to harden his soul and not become a notorious villain. Life in orphanage only tempered the main character, made him courageous and decisive.
An equally interesting character is Fagin. This is the leader of thieves and swindlers. He is distinguished by treachery, cruelty and greed. Fagin, without a doubt, has a negative influence on children, because learning to steal and cheat has never brought happiness to anyone. This hero did not tolerate disobedience. He simply kicked out the most obstinate students into the street, condemning them to certain death. But in the end, the evil was punished - Fagin was sentenced to death.
The exact opposite image is Mr. Brownlow. This gentleman is the most in the best possible way influenced Oliver. Without him, the boy's fate would undoubtedly have been much more sad. The generous man adopted Twist and cared for him sincerely. The fact that his house was filled with books speaks in favor of Brownlow. The adoptive father helped Oliver get into reading and enrich his soul priceless treasures knowledge.
The following characters also played an important role in Oliver’s fate: Mrs. Maylie and Rose, as well as Nancy (despite her unseemly profession, she knew how to remember decency and sympathy). Each of them loved the boy in her own way and tried to help him in difficult life situations.
Oliver Twist image
The work of Charles Dickens "Oliver Twist" tells about difficult life poor boy. Through this image, the author showed in what plight turned out to be English people, who was forced to steal, cheat and even kill in order to survive. The entire society of those times was mired in vile lies.
The description of tramp children is especially painful. These eternally hungry and unloved kids did not live, but only tried to survive. I grew up in such an environment main character- Oliver. His existence in the workhouse left no hope for improvement in the future. Among the other children, the boy stood out for his obstinacy. For example, once he dared to ask for more porridge, for which he was almost hanged. The naughty boy, in retaliation, was first brutally flogged, and then sent to the formidable chimney sweep, who had more than one ruined child’s soul on his conscience. However, the main character did not break in the face of such difficulties.
One day, Oliver managed to escape from a tyrannical chimney sweep. He found himself in an equally destructive environment of swindlers. Now a buyer of stolen goods, a robber and a woman of easy virtue took up raising the boy. Oliver was incredibly lucky to meet the good old man - Mr. Brownlow. He had a positive influence on the boy and warmed the poor fellow with the warmth of his care.
The character of Oliver Twist embodied Dickens' thoughts about social injustice, cruelty towards children and lawlessness. In this way he sought to improve the morality of his readers.
Oliver Twist
OLIVER TWIST (English Oliver Twist), the hero of the novel by Charles Dickens “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” (1837-1839), an orphan boy, the illegitimate son of Edward Lyford and Agnes Fleming. O.T. is the hero of a combination of a “novel of education” and a “novel of wanderings.” Typologically, this image is associated with such heroes as, for example, Fielding's Tam Jones or George Sand's Conzuelo, for whom wandering is a form of gaining life experience. In addition, he is also an example of the embodiment of Dickens’ archetype of the “pursued child,” which is stable in his novel world. FROM. - the only Dickensian child hero who remained a child until the end of the novel, and - what is important - alive and prosperous. At the same time, O.T. is a psychologically rather conditional personality. The situation of “upbringing” (being pursued by London scum in the company of a villainous relative) rather allows us to discover who O.T. unlike, say, his peer the Dodger (undoubtedly, according to Dickens, born for his robbery profession) he never becomes: a thief, a liar and a cynic. By his very nature, he is not initially just a sensitive and kind boy, which Dickens often found among the inhabitants of the bottom of London. Despite the fact that O. was born and raised in a workhouse, his speech, behavior and, most importantly, way of thinking are noble and aristocratic. FROM. a born gentleman. The noble nature, even the breed, is not eradicated in him by any “education” and “educators”, among whom is one of Dickens’s most colorful characters - the old Jew Fagin, the sinister Karabas-Bara-bass of the London street children serving in his theater - a school of theft. FROM. experienced many hardships and suffering, but fate was generally favorable to him. Persecution and persecution do not last forever. He turns out to be a rich heir. Due to the family resemblance of O.T. find out different people who knew his father or mother, he twice during his “wanderings” finds himself under the protection of good people- both times these are acquaintances or relatives of his parents. As a result, O.T. finds his own aunt and adoptive father, and his adventures end. It is significant that Dickens does not find room in the traditional epilogue for his novels for any specific characteristics life O.T. in new conditions. After all, its brightest, although certainly difficult, period has ended. Like a typical Dickensian child hero (if only one manages to survive the dangerous childhood), O.T. can easily get lost in prosperous world, having lost any remarkableness.
Lit.: Magsis S. Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey. L, 1965. P. 18-19, 54-91; Chesterton K. Charles Dickens. M., 1982. S. 76-78; Genieva E. Great mystery// The Mystery of Charles Dickens. M., 1990. P.15-16.
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"The Adventures of Oliver Twist" is Dickens's first social novel, in which the contradictions of English reality appeared incomparably clearer than in "The Pickwick Papers." “Hard truth,” Dickens wrote in the preface, “was the object of my book.”
In the preface to the novel Oliver Twist, Dickens declares himself a realist. But he immediately makes the exact opposite statement: “... It is still far from clear to me why the lesson of the purest good cannot be drawn from the most vile evil. I have always held the contrary to be a firm and unshakable truth... I wanted to demonstrate in little Oliver how the principle of good always triumphs in the end, despite the most unfavorable circumstances and difficult obstacles.” The contradiction that is revealed in this programmatic statement of the young Dickens arises from the contradiction that characterizes the writer's worldview at the early stage of his creative activity.
The writer wants to show reality “as it is,” but at the same time excludes objective logic facts of life and processes, tries to interpret its laws idealistically. A convinced realist, Dickens could not abandon his didactic plans. For him, fighting this or that social evil always meant convincing, that is, educating. The writer considered the correct education of a person to be the best way to establish mutual understanding between people and the humane organization of human society. He sincerely believed that most people are naturally drawn to goodness and a good beginning can easily triumph in their souls.
But to prove the idealistic thesis - “good” invariably defeats “evil” - within the framework of a realistic depiction of complex contradictions modern era it was impossible. To implement the controversial creative task that the author set for himself, a creative method was required that combined elements of realism and romanticism.
At first, Dickens intended to create a realistic picture of criminal London only, to show the “pathetic reality” of the thieves’ dens of London’s “Eastside” (“Eastern” side), that is, the poorest quarters of the capital. But in the process of work, the original plan expanded significantly. The novel depicts various aspects of modern English life and poses important and pressing problems.
The time when Dickens collected material for his new novel was a period of fierce struggle over the Poor Law, published back in 1834, according to which a network of workhouses was created in the country for the lifelong maintenance of the poor. Drawn into the controversy surrounding the opening of workhouses, Dickens strongly condemned this terrible product of bourgeois rule.
“... These workhouses,” Engels wrote in “The Condition of the Working Class in England,” “or, as the people call them, poor-law-bastilles, are designed in such a way as to frighten away everyone who has even the slightest hope of living without this form of public charity. In order for a person to apply to the cash fund for the poor only in the most extreme cases so that he would resort to it only after exhausting all possibilities of making do on his own, the workhouse was turned into the most disgusting place that the refined imagination of a Malthusian can come up with.”
The Adventures of Olever Twist is directed against the Poor Law, workhouses and existing political economy concepts that lull public opinion with promises of happiness and prosperity for the majority.
However, it would be a mistake to consider that a novel is only the fulfillment by the writer of his social mission. Along with this, when creating his work, Dickens joins the literary struggle. “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” was also the author’s original response to the dominance of the so-called “Newgate” novel, in which the story of thieves and criminals was told exclusively in melodramatic and romantic tones, and the lawbreakers themselves represented a type of Superman that was very attractive to readers. In fact, in the Newgate novels, criminals acted as Byronic heroes who turned into a criminal environment. Dickens strongly opposed the idealization of crimes and those who commit them.
In the preface to the book, Dickens clearly stated the essence of his plan: “It seemed to me that to portray real members of a criminal gang, to draw them in all their ugliness, with all their vileness, to show their wretched, miserable life, to show them as they really are , - they always sneak, overwhelmed with anxiety, along the dirtiest paths of life, and wherever they look, a black terrible gallows looms before them - it seemed to me that to depict this means to try to do what is necessary and what will serve to society. And I did it to the best of my ability.”
The author shows that evil penetrates into all corners of England; it is most common among those whom society has doomed to poverty, slavery, and suffering. The darkest pages in the novel are those devoted to workhouses.
Workhouses were contrary to the beliefs of Dickens the humanist, and their depiction becomes the writer's response to the controversy surrounding a deeply pressing issue. The excitement that Dickens experienced in studying what he saw as a failed attempt to alleviate the lot of the poor, and the acuteness of his observations, gave the images of the novel great artistic power and persuasiveness. The writer draws a workhouse based on real facts. It depicts the inhumanity of the Poor Law in action. Although the rules of the workhouse are described in only a few chapters of the novel, the book has firmly established the reputation of a work exposing one of the most dark sides English reality of the 30s. However, a few episodes, eloquent in their realism, were enough for the novel to firmly establish its reputation as a novel about workhouses.
The main characters of those chapters of the book in which the workhouse is depicted are children born in dark dungeons, their parents dying of hunger and exhaustion, eternally hungry young inmates of workhouses and hypocritical “trustees” of the poor. The author emphasizes that the workhouse, promoted as a “charitable” institution, is a prison that degrades and physically oppresses a person.
Liquid oatmeal three times a day, two onions a week and half a loaf on Sundays - this was the meager ration that supported the pitiful, always hungry workhouse boys, who had been shaking hemp since six o'clock in the morning. When Oliver, driven to despair by hunger, timidly asks the warden for more porridge, the boy is considered a rebel and locked in a cold closet.
Dickens, in the first of his social novels, also depicts the dirt, poverty, crime that reigns in the slums of London, and people who have sunk to the “bottom” of society. The slum dwellers Fagin and Sikes, Dodger and Bates, representing thieves' London in the novel, in the perception of the young Dickens are an inevitable evil on earth, to which the author contrasts his preaching of good. The realistic depiction of the London bottom and its inhabitants in this novel is often colored with romantic and sometimes melodramatic tones. The pathos of denunciation here is not yet directed against those social conditions that give rise to vice. But whatever the writer’s subjective assessment of the phenomena, the images of the slums and their individual inhabitants (especially Nancy) objectively act as a harsh indictment against the entire social system that generates poverty and crime.
Unlike the previous novel, in this work the narrative is colored with gloomy humor, the narrator seems to have difficulty believing that the events taking place belong to a civilized England that boasts of its democracy and justice. There is a different pace of the story here: short chapters are filled with numerous events that make up the essence of the adventure genre. In the fate of little Oliver, adventures turn out to be misadventures when the ominous figure of Monks, Oliver's brother, appears on the scene, who, in order to obtain an inheritance, tries to destroy the main character by conspiring with Fagin and forcing him to make Oliver a thief. In this novel by Dickens, the features of a detective story are palpable, but the investigation of Twist’s secret is not carried out by professional servants of the law, but by enthusiasts who fell in love with the boys who wanted to restore the good name of his father and return his legally belonging inheritance. The nature of the episodes is also different. Sometimes the novel sounds melodramatic notes. This is especially clearly felt in the scene of the farewell of little Oliver and Dick, the hero’s doomed friend, who dreams of dying quickly in order to get rid of cruel torments - hunger, punishment and backbreaking labor.
The writer introduces a significant number of characters into his work and tries to deeply reveal them inner world. Of particular importance in “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” are the social motivations for people’s behavior, which determined certain traits of their characters. True, it should be noted that the characters in the novel are grouped according to a peculiar principle arising from the unique worldview of the young Dickens. Like the romantics, Dickens divides heroes into “positive” and “negative”, the embodiment of goodness and bearers of vices. In this case, the principle underlying this division becomes a moral norm. Therefore, one group (“evil”) includes the son of wealthy parents, Oliver’s half-brother Edward Lyford (Monks), the head of the gang of thieves Fagin and his accomplice Sikes, the beadle Bumble, the workhouse matron Mrs. Corney, who is raising Mrs. Mann’s orphans, and others. It is noteworthy that critical intonations in the work are associated both with the characters called upon to protect order and legality in the state, and with their “antipodes” - criminals. Despite the fact that these characters are at different levels of the social ladder, the author of the novel endows them with similar traits and constantly emphasizes their immorality.
The writer includes Mr. Brownlow, the sister of the main character’s mother Rose Fleming, Harry Maley and his mother, Oliver Twist himself, to another group (“kind”). These characters are drawn in the traditions of educational literature, that is, they emphasize ineradicable natural kindness, decency, and honesty.
The defining principle of the grouping of characters, both in this and in all subsequent novels by Dickens, is not the place that one or another of the characters occupies on the social ladder, but the attitude of each of them to the people around him. Positive characters are all persons who “correctly” understand social relationships and the principles of social morality that are unshakable from his point of view, negative characters are those who proceed from ethical principles that are false for the author. All “kind” people are full of vivacity, energy, and the greatest optimism and draw these positive qualities from their fulfillment of social tasks. Among Dickens's positive characters, some (“the poor”) are distinguished by their humility and... devotion, others (“rich”) - generosity and humanity combined with efficiency and common sense. According to the author, fulfilling social duty is the source of happiness and well-being for everyone.
The negative characters of the novel are carriers of evil, bitter with life, immoral and cynical. Predators by nature, always profiting at the expense of others, they are disgusting, too grotesque and caricatured to be believable, although they do not leave the reader in doubt that they are true. Thus, the head of a gang of thieves, Fagin, loves to enjoy the sight of stolen gold things. He can be cruel and merciless if he is disobeyed or his cause is harmed. The figure of his accomplice Sykes is drawn in more detail than the images of all the other accomplices of Fagin. Dickens combines grotesque, caricature and moralizing humor in his portrait. This is “a strongly built subject, a fellow of about thirty-five, in a black corduroy frock coat, very dirty short dark trousers, lace-up shoes and gray paper stockings that covered thick legs with bulging calves - such legs with such a suit always give the impression of something unfinished if they are not decorated with shackles.” This “cute” character keeps a “dog” named Flashlight to deal with children, and even Fagin himself is not afraid of him.
Among the “people of the bottom” depicted by the author, the most complex is the image of Nancy. Sykes's accomplice and lover is endowed by the writer with some attractive character traits. She even shows tender affection for Oliver, although she later pays cruelly for it.
Ardently fighting selfishness in the name of humanity, Dickens nevertheless put forward considerations of interest and benefit as the main argument: the writer was possessed by the ideas of the philosophy of utilitarianism, widely popular in his time. The concept of “evil” and “good” was based on the idea of bourgeois humanism. To some (representatives of the ruling classes), Dickens recommended humanity and generosity as the basis of “correct” behavior, to others (toilers) - devotion and patience, while emphasizing the social expediency and usefulness of such behavior.
The narrative line of the novel has strong didactic elements, or rather, moral and moralizing ones, which in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club were only inserted episodes. In this Dickens novel they form an integral part of the story, explicit or implied, expressed in a humorous or sad tone.
At the beginning of the work, the author notes that little Oliver, like his peers who find themselves at the mercy of heartless and morally unscrupulous people, awaits the fate of “a humble and hungry poor man going through his life path under a hail of blows and slaps, despised by everyone and not meeting pity anywhere.” At the same time, depicting the misadventures of Oliver Twist, the author leads the hero to happiness. At the same time, the story of a boy born in a workhouse and immediately left an orphan after birth ends happily, clearly contrary to the truth of life.
The image of Oliver is in many ways reminiscent of the characters in Hoffmann's fairy tales, who unexpectedly find themselves in the thick of the battle between good and evil. The boy grows up, despite the difficult conditions in which the children being raised by Mrs. Mann are placed, experiences a half-starved existence in the workhouse and in the family of the undertaker Sowerberry. The image of Oliver is endowed by Dickens with romantic exclusivity: despite the influence of his environment, the boy strictly strives for good, even when he is not broken by the lectures and beatings of the workhouse trustees, and has not learned obedience in the house of his “educator,” the undertaker, and ends up in Fagin’s gang of thieves. Having gone through the life school of Fagin, who taught him the art of thieves, Oliver remains a virtuous and pure child. He feels unsuited to the craft for which he is an old swindler, but he feels light and free in Mr. Brownlow’s cozy bedroom, where he immediately pays attention to the port of a young woman, who later turned out to be his mother. As a moralist and Christian, Dickens does not allow the moral fall of the boy, who is saved by a happy accident - a meeting with Mr. Brownlow, who snatches him from the kingdom of evil and transports him to the circle of honest, respectable and wealthy people. At the end of the work, it turns out that the hero is the illegitimate, but long-awaited son of Edwin Lyford, to whom his father bequeathed a fairly significant inheritance. A boy adopted by Mr. Brownlow finds a new family.
In this case, we can speak not of Dickens’s strict adherence to the logic of the life process, but of the romantic mood of the writer, confident that the purity of Oliver’s soul, his perseverance in the face of life’s difficulties need to be rewarded. Together with him, others also find prosperity and a peaceful existence. positive characters novel: Mr. Grimwig, Mr. Brownlow, Mrs. Mailey. Rose Fleming finds her happiness in marriage with Harry Maley, who, in order to marry his beloved girl of low birth, chose a career as a parish priest.
Thus, happy ending crowns the development of intrigue, the positive heroes are rewarded by the humanist writer for their virtues with a comfortable and cloudless existence. Equally natural for the author is the idea that evil must be punished. All the villains leave the stage - their machinations have been unraveled, and therefore their role has been played. In the New World, Monks dies in prison, having received part of his father’s inheritance with Oliver’s consent, but still wanting to become a respectable person. Fagin is executed, Claypole, in order to avoid punishment, becomes an informant, Sykes dies, saving him from pursuit. Beadle Bumble and the workhouse matron, Mrs. Corney, who became his wife, lost their positions. Dickens reports with satisfaction that, as a result, they “gradually reached an extremely miserable and wretched state, and finally settled as despicable paupers in the very workhouse where they had once ruled over others.”
Striving for maximum completeness and convincingness of a realistic drawing, the writer uses various artistic means. He describes in detail and carefully the setting in which the action takes place: for the first time he resorts to subtle psychological analysis (the last night of Fagin, sentenced to death, or the murder of Nancy by her lover Sikes).
It is obvious that the initial contradiction of Dickens's worldview appears especially clearly in Oliver Twist, primarily in the unique composition of the novel. Against a realistic background, a moralizing plot deviating from the strict truth is built. We can say that the novel has two parallel narrative lines: the fate of Oliver and his fight against evil, embodied in the figure of Monks, and a picture of reality, striking in its truthfulness, based on a truthful depiction of the dark sides of the writer’s contemporary life. These lines are not always convincingly connected; a realistic depiction of life could not fit within the framework of the given thesis - “good conquers evil.”
However, no matter how important the ideological thesis is for the writer, which he is trying to prove through a moralizing story about the struggle and final triumph of little Oliver, Dickens, as a critical realist, reveals the power of his skill and talent in depicting the broad social background against which the hero’s difficult childhood passes. In other words, Dickens's strength as a realist appears not in the depiction of the main character and his story, but in the depiction of the social background against which the story of the orphan boy unfolds and ends successfully.
The skill of the realist artist appeared where he was not bound by the need to prove the unprovable, where he depicted living people and real circumstances over which, according to the author’s plan, the virtuous hero was supposed to triumph.
The advantages of the novel “The Adventures of Oliver Twist,” according to V.G. Belinsky, lie in “fidelity to reality,” but the disadvantage is in the denouement “in the manner of sensitive novels of the past.”
In “Oliver Twist,” Dickens’s style as a realist artist was finally defined, and the complex complex of his style matured. Dickens's style is built on the interweaving and contradictory interpenetration of humor and didactics, documentary transmission of typical phenomena and elevated moralizing.
Considering this novel as one of the works created on early stage the writer’s work, it should be emphasized once again that “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” fully reflects the originality of the early Dickens’ worldview. During this period, he creates works in which positive heroes not only part with evil, but also find allies and patrons. In Dickens's early novels, humor supports positive characters in their struggle with the hardships of life, and it also helps the writer to believe in what is happening, no matter how gloomy the reality may be painted. The writer’s desire to penetrate deeply into the life of his characters, into its dark and light corners, is also obvious. At the same time, inexhaustible optimism and love of life make the works of the early stage of Dickens’s work generally joyful and bright.
