Oliver Twist: Chapters 44 - 53

[Katy]

Connie wrote: "Katy wrote: "Greg - I enjoyed your comments on this emotional scene. Somewhere else, I believe it is in Sketches by Boz, Dickens describes the last day of someone condemned to death. This must be a..."

Yes, "A Visit to Newgate" is the one I was thinking of. I could not remember the name or the details, just the description of the last hours of the condemned man. Thank you.

[Sara]

Greg nice to have you back. Found your comments so poignant and it took me right back to the feelings I had while reading this. It is hard to grapple with a soul that has turned itself completely toward evil. As he had no sympathy for others (particularly Nancy), it is hard to feel any for him. And yet, there is that pervasive sense that this is a life wasted and that his intelligence and abilities could have been spent so easily on better things.

I looked at Dodger as a Fagin in training and felt that his transportation at least afforded him the chance of turning that sharp mind to some better purpose. I sincerely hoped that he would be one of those that ended up as a founder of a spread in Australia, as many of the convicts did.

[Greg]

Thanks Sue, Shirley and Sara, and thanks Connie for giving the reference to what Katy was thinking of. I definitely want to read it!

[Stephen]

This was my first read of Oliver Twist and my first Dickens novel. I came to it as a Buddy Read from the Reading the 20th century group. (Strange, I know) But I am so glad I did.
I have found this group, and feel all the better for that,

Jean, thank you so much for your wonderful in depth insights and for moderating the discussion. Reading the posts and the enlightened contribution from so many enhanced my reading experience exponentially. I wish to try a 'daily read-a-long' and will join the Mary Barton read. I also will read more Dickens very soon.

Incidentally, I was at an author even forAndrew O Hagan's new novel Caledonian Road that some are calling Dickensian. I am not able to judge the accuracy of that comment but it has gone to Number 1 in the Sunday Times Hardback bestselling list.

In conclusion, thanks again, wonderful.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

What a lovely comment! Thank you so much Stephen, and I am delighted you found us - and that you will be joining in more of our reads 😊 You really do have a treat in store with all Charles Dickens's marvellous stories.

I look forward to seeing you in the Mary Barton read, and any comments/review on that new book, should you read it.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Greg wrote: "I had some things happening in my personal life that sent me away from Goodreads for a couple months (and stalled all my reading for months), but I just got back to finishing Oliver Twist recently ..."

I don't know how I missed this insightful comment Greg - my apologies! I'm really pleased that you made your way back here though, and delighted that you finished Oliver Twist - and got so much out of it.

I look forward to your future comments 😊

[Alice]

Was Nancy a prostitute? I always thought she was, but some people think the word ‘prostitute’ had a broader meaning in the Victorian era.

https://fatpigeons.com/2010/01/16/nan...

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Alice wrote: "Was Nancy a prostitute? ..."

Nancy basically worked for Fagin (just as Bet did) who ran prostitutes, pickpockets and housebreakers. Then she moved to live with Bill Sikes, who also worked for Fagin as a housebreaker. Fagin was both a fence and a pimp.

It sound like an interesting article, but the author is rather confused. 🙄 They obviously are not conversant with the restrictions on what could be openly said at the time, and how subtle authors had to be. Readers of the time would well understand what was indicated, and have no need of the more explicit details we are used to. But the author of this article thinks this lack of definition in the book "Seems more than a little odd, doesn’t it?"

No, it doesn't! Dear oh dear, Oliver Twist started publication in 1837. It is not a modern book with our free-and-easy prose! 😆

Given the conventions of literature at the time, and the fact that Charles Dickens wanted his writing to be read by everyone, from the poorest in the land listening to actors in the street, through families by candlelight round the fire, and royalty in the palace, he had to express things very carefully indeed!

As the author says, there is no question of Nancy's profession since Charles Dickens himself said so. Prostitution was an acknowledged problem in the cities of that time. In the mid-1800s London may have been home to as many as 80,000 prostitutes. Concerned Victorian philanthropists set up asylums to help what were euphemistically called “fallen women”. Dickens was responsible along with his friend Angela Burdett-Coutts for setting up Urania Cottage just a few years later, in 1846, specifically for these young women. Nancy refers to herself as "fallen", knowing herself to be: “The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the scourings of the jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the gallows itself”

and in ch 40 she says to Rose Maylie “Oh, lady, lady!…“if there was more like you, there would be fewer like me!” She had initially been forbidden entrance to see Rose, because even the servants knew what she was, and tried to turn her away from "respectable" people.

The title of this article is for effect, since the author only talks about Nancy latterly, and not her early life with Fagin. Possibly then she could be a "cohabitant prostitute", if the term also applied in the Regency era. This was not Victorian literature yet, as Queen Victoria came to the throne during the serialisation of Oliver Twist.

So at first Nancy was a prostitute working for one pimp, and then one who lives with a man. Since she still worked for Fagin - as did he - she cannot be termed a "kept woman". This applies to someone in a higher class than this gang of thieves who have no fixed abode but move from one den to another, and are well aware that they could be arrested and hanged any day, (they often refer to it). A "kept woman" is a euphemism for a mistress, who as we all know is proved with a home, food and clothes by a man in exchange for exclusive sexual favours.

She may well have had what we now call "Stockholm syndrome": the psychological condition of a victim who identifies and empathises with their captor or abuser and their goals.

The article is really all over the place! 🙄 Have you read our 6 threads on this book, Alice? We go into quite a lot of these details - including the prefaces to the different editions, which the author claims to have "managed to chase down"! And facts about both prostitution and Ikey Solomon, who Fagin was based on.

Here is a sample of posts about Nancy:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I think you might find our discussions and all the supplementary information much more interesting and informative than the website you linked to 😊

Alice said "some people think the word ‘prostitute’ had a broader meaning in the Victorian era"

For the actual facts and figures on London's social conditions, and definitions of words such as "prostitutes" please read Henry Mayhew's contemporaneous report on London Labour and the London Poor. As well as observing these for himself, Charles Dickens knew and read books by this author of several comprehensive official surveys and reports.

I hope this helps!

[Alice]

Thank you Jean for the detailed reply. It was very interesting and helpful.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Oh good! I look forward to you joining in with our discussions, Alice 😊