Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! OLIVER TWIST The plot: Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse in 1830s England. His mother, whose name no one knows, is found on the street and dies just after Oliver's birth. Oliver spends the first nine years of his life in a badly run home for young orphans and then is transferred to a workhouse for adults. After the other boys bully Oliver into asking for more gruel at the end of a meal, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, offers five pounds to anyone who will take the boy away from the workhouse. Oliver escapes and became apprenticed to a local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. After a bad fight at work, travels toward London. Oliver meets Jack Dawkins, a boy his own age, who offers him shelter in the London house of his benefactor, Fagin, a criminal. After a few days of training, Oliver is sent on a pickpocketing mission with two other boys, But he is horrified and runs off. Mr. Brownlow, the man who was stolen, takes Oliver to his home and nurses him back to health, but two young adults in Fagin's gang, capture Oliver and return him to Fagin. He sends Oliver to assist Sikes in a burglary. Oliver is shot by a servant of the house and, after Sikes escapes, is taken in by the women who live there, Mrs. Maylie and her beautiful adopted niece Rose. They grow fond of Oliver, and he spends an idyllic summer with them in the countryside. But Fagin and a mysterious man named Monks are set on recapturing Oliver. Meanvwrhile, it is revealed that Oliver's mother left behind a gold locket when she died. Monks obtains and destroys that locket. Mr. Brownlow dscovers the truth about Oliver's parentage from him. It is revealed that Monks is Oliver's half brother. Their father, Mr. Leeford, was unhappily married to a wealthy woman and had an affair with Oliver's mother, Agnes Fleming. Fagin is hung for his crimes. Finally, Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver, and they and the Maylies retire to a blissful existence in the countryside. The workhouse, chapter 2 - Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens Authorities at the workhouse send Oliver to a branch-workhouse for “juvenile offenders against the poor-laws.” The overseer, Mrs. Mann, receives an adequate sum for each child’s upkeep, but she keeps most of the money and lets the children go hungry, sometimes even letting them die. Because the parish determines that the workhouse does not have a woman in place to care for Oliver, he is "farmed" to a branch-workhouse three miles away, where he plays with twenty or so other young children. The woman in charge of this branch-house, Mrs. Mann, spends most of the parish stipend on her own purchases, and leaves only a very small amount to feed the children, many of whom die of malnourishment. But the surgeon and the local beadle make sure not to investigate the branch-house's activities, which continues operating to the detriment of the children in it. Although this "farming house" is supposed to exist to raise the children of deceased parents, it mainly serves to keep these children "out of the way." Many of the children die before they even reach adulthood, meaning that the state no longer has to look out for them or take care of them. Oliver wants some more, chapter 2 - Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens The text can be divided into three parts: the introduction (vv. 1-22), the fact (vv. 23-39) and the reaction (vv. 40-67). The introduction describes the condition of Oliver and his friends, obliged to suffer a slow starvation for three months. But one boy, tall for his age, threatened some night to eat the boy who slept next him! A council was held, and someone had to ask to the master for more food: it fell to Oliver Twist. The second part, the fact, is described in a very precise way: Dickens describes the moment of the dinner, each character and his role, and then describes the Oliver's felling. Then there is the last part, the reaction. This request has shocked the master, paralysed the assistants with wonder and the boys with fear. To judge this great form of “rebellion” was organised a board in solemn conclave and everyone believed that he would be hang or something like that. At the end the director of the workhouse, Mr. Limbkins, decided to offer a reward of five pounds to “anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of parish.” Dickens makes a very detailed description of the hunger children, obliged to a “slow starvation for three months”, or the voracity of a boy that threatened “to eat the first boy who slept next him”! With this description he wants to show to the reader the terrible condition of life in the workhouses, and he wants to arouse pity in the reader. Dickens uses the external and omniscient narrator, in accord to the role of commenting the story events. The novelist had to be external to the story to have the possibility to judge each happening and decide if it is “wrong” or “good”.