The Pickwick Club discussion
In which Oliver Twist is covered
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Reflections Upon the Novel as a Whole
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Starting these reflections off, I would like to ask if anyone else shares my opinion on the following:On the one hand, Oliver Twist seems to have the ambition of being a social novel in that it denounces the Poor Law with the help of relentless satire, which - as Jonathan once pointed out - may not even have been too exaggerated in some respects, and that it even indicts individual officials of misusing their power (Mr. Fang being a thinly disguised version of the at-that-time notorious Allan Stewart Laing). Oliver Twist therefore seems to have a heart for the poor, the neglected and the underprivileged.
Nevertheless, Oliver, the hero, is actually not one of those. His poverty and his neglect are not so much a consequence of society's faults but of the evil machinations of some individuals. Above that, he is not underprivileged but has genteel, if unmarried, parents, so in the eyes of the Victorian reader, he was definitely not of the other paupers' ilk. I have the slight feeling that Dickens, for all his pretensions at writing a somewhat more social novel and not just another sensationalist-romantic Newgate novel, would have been ill at ease with a truly "common" young hero, so his young hero had to be of refined parentage. This, however, lames a lot of the novel's social impetus in my eyes, because Oliver rises out of his misery not by his own deeds and merits, but rather by his (hitherto obscured) social status, and in the course of many a hard-to-stomach coincidence. Fancy his meeting by chance the two very families his personal and his parents' lots were connected with. When you think of it, the construction of the novel is so slipshod that ... but that's another matter altogether.
You could argue that there is not a lot a nine year-old boy could possibly do, but then Oliver is such a sapless, yes-sir-and-thank-you-sir, and piteous literary creation that one could call him a vacuum without doing him an injustice. The best scenes in the novel are linked with Fagin, Sikes and Nancy, which gives me the impression that Dickens, as we say in German, "hatte Angst vor der eigenen Courage", i.e. was afraid of his own courage. I mean he had the talent, and obviously the will, to give us insight into the lives of the poor and the deprived as well as the depraved but he probably had his doubts whether this would go down too well with his readers - and so he diluted his purpose - enterprises of great pith and moment, you know - and made Oliver a milksop of genteel parentage.
Doing this, however, mars the idea of his novel as it no longer tells the story of an ordinary boy born in poor circumstances and trying to make his life matter. Instead we have a misplaced orphan who is juggled back into his social position by a string of pathetic - but hardly more pathetic than he is himself - coincidences.
What's your opinion?
Mod
Hi Jonathan,as you said I'm indeed having a hard time with Oliver's genteel birth, since, to my mind, it somewhat thwarts the idea of the novel - just as though Dickens might have had qualms about going too far in his social criticism. Let's not forget: He was an ambitious young man, who had just decided to make his mark and his money as a freelance novelist, and he had a little family that depended upon him. This is probably not the best starting-point for being too much of an iconoclast, and so he took care not to alienate the reading public, by diluting his social criticism with romantic notions about his hero's genteel roots. The same was done by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Paul Clifford, which is not by half as bad as its reputation by the way, although here I think Bulwer-Lytton did not intend any social criticism in the first place.
As to what the introduction to your copy says about Dickens wanting to criticize the public's hypocrisy, I can hardly find any examples in the novel of how people treat Oliver differently - the only one being the suddenly fawning Mr. Bumble. This kind of hypocrisy might definitely have been an issue in Great Expectations, but in Oliver Twist the change of behaviour towards Oliver is not made too obvious - and if the early Dickens wanted to bring home a point, he usually was not very subtle about it.
Nevertheless, it's interesting to exchange different views on that question, and I very much appreciate your response. I was sensitized to this aspect, by the way, by the introduction to my copy of Nicholas Nickleby, which is quite preoccupied with the notion of being a gentleman in that novel. I also read a very interesting review on Nicholas Nickleby here on goodreads, and I've half a mind of inviting its author into our group.
Mod
I was thinking about the coincidences you talked about and I saw this in the introduction to one of my copies:The revelation of Oliver’s familial ties is among the novel’s most unlikely plot turns: Oliver is related to Brownlow, who was married to his father’s sister; to Rose, who is his aunt; and to Monks, who is his half-brother. The coincidences involved in these facts are quite unbelievable and represent the novel’s rejection of realism in favor of fantasy. Oliver is at first believed to be an orphan without parents or relatives, a position that would, in that time and place, almost certainly seal his doom. Yet, by the end of the novel, it is revealed that he has more relatives than just about anyone else in the novel.
And this, about his "surrogate parents":
Mr. Sowerberry and his wife, while far from ideal, are much more serviceable parent figures to Oliver, and one can even imagine that Oliver might have grown up to be a productive citizen under their care.
I had never heard of "Paul Clifford" before, and then I read this in a different introduction:
For a pocket picking he has not committed, Oliver is summarily sentenced to three months hard labor, like Bulwer-Lytton's hero in Paul Clifford.
Kim wrote: "I was thinking about the coincidences you talked about and I saw this in the introduction to one of my copies:The revelation of Oliver’s familial ties is among the novel’s most unlikely plot turn..."
One might try to rescue Dickens's plot of Oliver Twist from being criticized as relying too much on unlikely coincidences, though, by saying that he might have meant it symbolically that the orphaned outcast, who is exploited and looked down upon by all the respectable people of his town, suddenly has a lot of family, i.e. that thou shalt not despise and shun the poor and downtrodden because, after all, they art thy brothers and sisters. However, I would think that this would be stretching a point too far, and that Dickens is so great an author that he does not need his initial flaws as a young writer to be covered up that way.
As to Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry, I must say that at least Mr. Sowerberry, even though he might not have been such a warm-hearted (and well-to-do, and - I stick to it - genteel) person as Mr. Brownlow, he is not clearly cruel and inhumane, either. As to the "productive citizen", I really wonder at this expression and would like you to tell me who wrote the introduction if you don't mind. From the point of view of the Victorian reader, raising children to be "productive citizens" might have been the aim of education, and I can't help thinking that our wonderful EU also wants to degrade us to the point of being productive and easy-to-handle citizens. - I, however, while not excluding "productivity" at all, would not number it amongst the primary aims of education, which, for my money, would include happiness, critical thinking, a feeling of responsibility and respect for others, creativity and the appreciation of creativity in others. This is, of course, not quite compatible with Victorian values.
In Paul Clifford, the hero is sentenced for a crime he did not commit, but unlike Oliver, Paul Clifford joins a band of highwaymen afterwards and even becomes their valiant captain. I can really recommend the book to you, Kim, for it is better than its reputation.
I have a notebook that I write down my thoughts on books I read, and other people's thoughts on them too. A lot of what I have in my notebook is from introductions, and that's where I saw the three paragraphs I posted. I didn't bother with the authors names, just stuff I thought was interesting at the time. (haven't done it in a long time). Anyway, I just went and looked for the actual books and can only find the one with the Paul Clifford intro, that was Philip Horne. I can't find the others so I went on the internet and typed in the words and still can't find the authors, but.....the sentences show up in sparknotes.com; quizlet.com and hamiltonschools.com both paragraphs are in them. Beats me who wrote it or how I ever found something from one of these places (I didn't have a computer til a few months ago), but anyway, maybe that will help. Thanks for the Paul Clifford suggestion by the way.
Hi Kim,thanks for trying to trace down the author of the introduction. I was just wondering at the expression "productive citizen", but this is neither here nor there.
I usually put little slips of paper between pages which hold some passage of interest to me, or I underline and scribble remarks on the margin, with a pencil. Up to now I have resisted the fashion of buying an e-book reader, and I think I shall continue doing so, because there's nothing beats the feeling of having an honest-to-God book in your hands.
I hope that you'll like Paul Clifford, it's a bit more romantic than Dickens, but still most of the characters are more carefully-developed.
thanks Tristan, good idea about the slips of paper, thanks! I don't have an e-book either, it just doesn't seem the same, you have to feel the pages!!!
Mod
For this reason, esteemed fellow Pickwickians, I am making so bold as to open this thread, in which it is to be regarded as a foregone conclusion that everyone reading here has perused the book, ergo profligacy with regard to leguminous plants, i.e. spilling the beans, as it might be called in a non-Pickwickian sense, is an offense that, as a rule, cannot occur here.
So if you have not finished the book, read on here at your own peril ...