A short presentation for ESL students on Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist

1. Charles Dickens
1812-1870
His novel
Oliver Twist

2. The New Poor Law
• Dickens was disgusted by Parliament.
Before becoming a successful novelist,
he had worked as parliamentary
reporter. He had watched politicians
at very close quarters, rapidly taking
down their speeches word for word in
shorthand notes, and then
transcribing them for daily newspaper
reports. He had listened carefully to
many debates, and he was sickened
by the attitudes MPs expressed
towards their fellow human-beings.
• https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-
victorians/articles/oliver-twist-and-
the-workhouse

3. The new Workhouse
system
When Dickens planned and penned Oliver
Twist, new legislation was just beginning to
be implemented across the country.
The Poor Law (Amendment) Act of 1834,
otherwise known as the 'New' Poor Law,
established the workhouse system.
Instead of providing a refuge for the elderly,
sick and poor, and instead of providing food
or clothing in exchange for work in times of
high unemployment, workhouses were to
become a sort of prison system.
The government's intention was to slash
expenditure on poverty by setting up a
cruelly deterrent regime.

4. Families were separated
• The old parish poorhouses and
almshouses were to be
completely changed, no cash
support whatever would
henceforth be given out -
whatever the hardship or the
season - and the old gifts in kind
(food, shoes, blankets) which
could help a family survive
together, were now disallowed.
The only option would be hard
work, forced labour, and
only inside the workhouse
(which meant entering there to
live, full time) in exchange for a
thin subsistence. Homes were
broken up, belongings sold,
families separated.

5. Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens was well versed in the
poverty of London, as he himself was a
child worker after his father was sent to
debtors’ prison. His appreciation of the
hardships endured by impoverished citizens
stayed with him for the rest of his life and
was evident in his journalistic writings and
novels. Dickens began writing Oliver
Twist after the adoption of the Poor Law of
1834, which halted government payments
to the able-bodied poor unless they
entered workhouses. Thus, Oliver
Twist became a vehicle for
social criticism aimed directly at the
problem of poverty in 19th-century London.
The novel
• Oliver Twist is an orphan. When he is nine
years old, he is taken back to the
workhouse where he was born. Here he
lives a miserable life, is underfed and
receives no education.

6. Sir, I want
some more
This is unacceptable!

7. Oliver is punished for
his bold request
He is expelled from the
workhouse. He escapes being
entrusted to a sweep and he
is sent to work as an
apprentice to an undertaker.
Eventually, after suffering
repeated mistreatment,
Oliver runs away and heads
for London.

8. Artful Dodger takes
Oliver to Fagin’s
In London he meets Artful
Dodger on the road who tells
him to stay at the house of an
“old gentleman” with a
number of other boys.
The new friends turn out to
be a gang of young criminals
led by Fagin, an old man and
one of Dicken’s best
characterisations.

10. The young pickpockets
in action
The thieves force Oliver to
help them in their criminal
activity.
Vocabulary: a pickpocket
a thief who steals things out
of pockets or bags, especially
in a crowd

11. • On an outing, Oliver witnesses the boys take a handkerchief from Mr.
Brownlow, an elderly man, which prompts Oliver to run away in fear
and confusion. The elderly man mistakes Oliver’s behaviour for guilt
and has him arrested. However, after learning more about Oliver, Mr.
Brownlow realizes his mistake and offers to take care of him at his
home.
• Oliver assumes that he is now rid of Fagin and the pickpockets, but his
knowledge of their crimes causes them to seek Oliver out. Nancy, a
prostitute and mistress of one of Fagin’s men, Bill Sikes, is sent to take
Oliver from Mr. Brownlow back to Fagin. She does so successfully and
Oliver once again finds himself with the criminals.

12. A tragic end for the
criminals
Nancy wants to help Oliver
and secretly meets Mr.
Brownlow but news of her
betrayal reaches Sikes, and he
beats her to death. Sikes
accidentally hangs himself
soon after.

13. Fagin is taken to jail
Fagin is arrested and sentenced
to death.
After many incidents, some
involving a mysterious character
called Monks – reminiscent of
the dark hero of Gothic tales –
the gang is caught by the police
and Oliver is discovered to be
related to Mr. Brownlow. He has
finally found a family.