Charles Dickens' work "Oliver Twist", Sintesi del corso di Inglese

Scarica Charles Dickens' work "Oliver Twist" e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! OLIVER TWIST This book was published in 1847. It speaks about a child born from an unknown parentage, who spends his childhood living in a Workhouse, place where he experiences brutality and starvation. One day he leaves to London where he joins a gang of criminals and he becomes a thief. After many adventures Oliver is adopted from a gentleman and the criminals are caught and punished. “LUNCH TIME” PASSAGE lines 1-23 Setting and description of the boy’s hunger; lines 24-38 Oliver Twist asks for more food; lines 39-63 The consequences of Oliver’s request. In this passage Oliver asks for more food and he insists in his demand for more food. This is the reason why the master hits him and goes to look for Mr Bumble, the main in charge of the Workhouse. Every member of the parish board is astonished and considers Oliver’s request a sign of ungrateful. The boy is then confined to his room and five pounds are offered to anyone who wants to take him away. In this passage are used are used the voice outside and Oliver’s point of view. The story is developed through dialogues, descriptions and narrations. The descriptions are detailed as they serve at the purpose to arouse pity at the reader. It builds up a realistic picture of the scene and it makes the reader side with the poor boys. The narrations compare the world of the boys to the world of institutions. Their function is to increase the reader’s interesting in the scene. Which feelings characterize the two worlds of the passage? The children are characterized by feelings life fear, submission, hunger and starving, meanwhile the adults are characterized by the lack of pity and humanity, power and fatness. OTHER PASSAGE AT PAGE 236 OF THE BOOK Dickens is always very precise and detailed in his description of places, so has to convey images as faithful to reality as possible. Consider for example the way he prepares the reader for the shocking picture of “Jacob’s island” by prefacing a short description of the environment which surround it. In the first lines he describes a landscape typical of the poorer part of London in the Victorian age, made even more impressive by the great number of superlatives built up in the very first part of the passage (lines 1-5) IE dirtiest, most extraordinary, poorest, cheapest, …. They convey to the reader an image of an extremely poverty stricken area. To make the description more vivid he uses the third singular person, who represents a possible visitor to play the role of high-witness and gives credibility to the scene. The further he penetrates the quarter, the more he meets signs of desolation and neglect (lines 16-18), which make the all description even more objective. Lines 19-34 are finally devoted to the description of Jacob’s Island. Dickens is precise about its location; Jacob’s island offers an even worse image of desolation and neglect than the previous image. In lines 25-26 there is the description of the inhabitants who draw the filthy water up and use it. LANGUAGE AND STYLE The effectiveness of Dickens’ language mainly lies in his ability to create suspense and expectation in the reader. Even if in a purely descriptive passage like this he keeps on postponing the actual description of the mentioned place. In line 34 there is a touch of bitter irony, conveyed by the verb “ornament”. There is a change of verb form tense in line 24, from present to future to convey an impression of permanent. To emphasise the ugliness of the place, Dickens couples words two by two (lines 6-9). STRUCTURE The passage is divided into three paragraphs: 1. Lines 1-5. There is one long sentence and the result of a such long structure is to delaying revelations in order to create expectation. 2. Line 6-18. The first sentence (lines 6,7,8) introduces the narrator point of view. In the second sentence (lines 8-10) the visitor has just entered the streets. The words are coupled two by two to emphasise his nasty impression. In lines 10-14 the visitor is now walking down the streets. There is a focus on the people, in fact he makes a sort of list to point out the great quantity of people. He uses adjectives to point out the quality of people and nouns to point up the great variety of people. in lines 15-18 Dickens pushes on the subject. 3. Lines 19-… At last, after two introductory paragraphs Jacob’s island is finally mentioned, but only after a description of the muddy ditch. LIMITATIONS AND MERITS Limitations: