Oliver Twist depicts the harsh conditions faced by poor children in Victorian workhouses through Oliver's experience. The Coming of Yams and Mountain Honey celebrates the cultural mixing between Jamaica and Britain through food, contrasting with Oliver Twist's focus on class divisions around access to nutritious food. Both texts use their form and language to convey differing attitudes towards experiences of food, with Dickens emphasizing the dehumanization of the poor through his description and Berry celebrating cultural coming together through the poem's irregular structure.

1. Texts 5 and 28
Objectives:
•To examine two linked texts
•Explore the form, structure and
narrative stance of literary writing
• Make a comparative analysis
between two texts.

2. Context of Production
• Charles Dickens was one of the great popular writers of his day. Writing in
the Victorain era, he popularised ‘realism’ in his writing; depicting the
struggles of the poor and the tyranny of the powerful through vivid
characterisation. His writing is now seen as social commentary for the
Victorian era.
• Oliver Twist is set in a workhouse, a typical institution where poor children
would end up, working for the rich. The children were exploited and
treated poorly, often receiving meagre portions of food for hours of
labour.
• By the time James Berry had moved to Britain from Jamaica in 1948, it was
a whole different society in Britain. With the influx of immigration, came a
whole new culture of food and its availability. No longer was
healthy, nutritious food only for the middle classes.
• Whereas Oliver Twist documents the class divisions and with it the food
restrictions that poor people had to endure, James Berry’s poem
celebrates not only the closing of class divisions but also cultural divisions.

3. Exam Focus
• Typical Exam Question:
– How do the writers of these two texts convey their
attitudes towards and ideas about experiences of
food.

4. Critical Response Activity
Decide which overview best describes each text
Oliver Twist The Coming of Yams and Mountain Honey
a. A social commentary about the a. A celebration of the coming together of
hardships of the Victorian workhouse. two cultures through food.
b. A criticism of the way in which poor b. A criticism of the UK, through
children were treated by the ruling contrasting it to the beauty of the
classes. Caribbean.
c. An insight into how people in the c. A nostalgic reminiscence of the poet for
Victorian era lived and the food that they his home country
ate.
Write a short paragraph that sums up the significant similarities and
differences between the two texts.

5. Commentary
• Both texts highlight contrasts in society; for James Berry it is
the differences between Jamaica and London, and for Charles
Dickens it is the contrast between rich and poor.
• The texts are very different in their tone and mood. James
Berry’s poem is very much a celebration that two cultures can
come together despite being worlds apart and can combine
successfully. However, for Charles Dickens the contrast
between rich and poor is a division that cannot be closed;
illustrated by the difficulty in communication between the
poor Oliver and the rich Mr Bumble.

6. Key Terms - Narrative
• Stance – the position and attitude adopted by the narrator
towards the events described or narrated
• Persona – a narrator or voice created by a writer (in prose or
verse) who is different from the writer himself
• Omniscient narrator – a narrator who has a complete
overview of the story and can move freely between different
characters and scenes with full knowledge of what happens

7. Narrative
Stance Explanation Example
First Person: The author writes as himself using
author the first person
First Person: The author creates a character
persona (persona) from whose first-person
point of view the story is told
Third Person: An all-knowing author is not
omniscient directly present in the story but
simply relates it – and has access
to the thoughts and feelings of all
the main characters
Third Person: The author uses the third person
indirect/ but only to express the inner
restricted feelings and point of view of some
characters – perhaps even just
one.

8. Form Structure
In poetry: All kinds of literary text:
• what genre of poem is it? (sonnet, ballad...) • How does the text start?
• How is the poem broken down into stanzas? • What kind of sequence does the text
• Is there a regular pattern (length, rhyme, follow? Does it:
metre) being followed? - develop an idea logically, like an
argument?
In prose narrative:
- include any digressions or diversions?
• what genre of prose is it?
If a narrative, does it:
• was it written as a single text or produced in
- tell a story in chronological sequence?
instalments?
- use flashbacks and other devices that
• what is the narrative stance of the story?
break away from this order?
• how is the text broken down into chapters and
other sections?
• How does each stage of the text relate to
• how are the three elements of narrative
the previous one and lead on to what comes
employed (narration – description – dialogue)?
next?
In drama: • Where are the points of real tension, crisis
• what genre of drama is it? and climax, and how are they resolved?
• How is it organised into acts and scenes?
• what use is made of dialogue, monologue, • How does the end conclude or resolve the
soliloquy and other dramatic methods to tell the previous ideas and problems?
story?

9. Oliver Twist The Coming of Yams
How many paragraphs/ sections is the How many stanzas are in the poem and how
extract divided into? many lines are in each stanza? Is there a
pattern?
How evenly is description and dialogue Is there a rhyme pattern of any sort?
distributed?
Are there any moments of tension and if so How does the structure of the poem relate
is there anything noticeable about the to any of the feelings and attitudes being
paragraph lengths or the sentence lengths? explore?
Oliver Twist The Coming of the Yams
Set in two main sections; first of all a description 11 stanzas, 45 lines in total – unequal amount of
of the room and the boys – to emphasis the lines in each stanza
hunger and desperation of the inhabitants of the
workhouse. Secondly, the description of the
action that takes place when Oliver asks for
more...
More description than dialogue. After each No rhyme pattern
section of dialogue there is more description.
Repetition of the phrase – ‘please sir I want some The structure is irregular. This could reflect the
more’ emphasises the need for more on Oliver’s displacement felt by the narrator. It could signify
part and the shock at hearing such as phrase on the ‘irregularity’ of seeing such bright sun ripened
the part of the master. colours among the typical London scenery.

10. Critical Response Activity
• You already have lots of notes on the two texts and are almost ready to do
the exam question. There’s still more to organise though...
• In the exam you only have an hour to write about the texts. This isn’t
enough time to write about EVEYTHING in both texts
• You still need to talk about language and style, so from the list, your task is
to select the most significant features of each text – place them in rank
order

11. Oliver Twist The Coming of the Yams
Feature Rank Feature Rank
order order
Sibilance used in lines 12 – 13 Alliteration and sibilance on line 1
Animalistic imagery to describe Semantic field of unusual
the boys’ hunger Caribbean fruits
The description of the master Sensory Images
compared with the description
of the hungry boys
The use of verbs to create The tone change in stanza 9
atmosphere
Syntactic parallelism The imperative used in the
penultimate stanza which
addresses the reader directly
Repetition of the word ‘bowl’ Metaphors

12. You should now be ready to write a
response
• How do the writers of the two texts convey
attitudes towards and ideas about
experiences of food.
• word choice
• figurative language
• grammar
• sound patterns
• form and structure
• layout and presentation
• contexts of production and reception.