Oliver twist riassunto importante e utile, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Oliver twist riassunto importante e utile e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! 10.9 Charles Dickens and children ò Oliver Twist (1837-39) Childhood in the Victorian age was generally a cruel experience. A lot of children from poor and working-class backgrounds who escaped an early death were obliged either to work in factories and mines, or as domestic servants and chimneysweep$. Others became criminals. Some government acts, like the Ten Hours Act (1847), tried to improve children's working conditions by limiting the hours worked by women and children to ten per day. Victorian literature played an important role in the sentimental portrayal of childhood. Dickens was obsessed with children, whom he presented as either innocent or corrupted by adults. At the beginning, they live through a negative situation but later rise to happy endings. The writer's nostalgia for the innocence of childhood is a critique of the oppressions associated with the world of adults. London life The most important setting of the novel is London, which is depicted at three different social levels. First, the parochial world of the workhouse is revealed. The inhabitants of this world, belonging to the lower-middle-class strata of society, are calculating and insensible to the feelings ofthe poor. Second, the criminal world is described, with pickpockets and murderers. Poverty drives them to crime and the weapon they use to achieve their end is violence. They live in dirty, squalid slums in a permanent state of fear and generally die a miserable death. Finally, the world of the Victorian middle class is presented. In this world, there live respectable people who show a regard for moral values and believe in the principle of human dignity. The story Oliver Twist first appeared in instalments in 1837 and was later published as a book. The novel reflects the economic insecurity and humiliation Dickens experienced as a child. The name Twist', though it is given to the protagonist by accident, represents the outrageous reversals of fortune that he will experience. Oliver Twist is a poor boy of unknown parents; he is brought up in a workhouse in an inhuman way. He is later sold to an undertaker as an apprentice, but the cruelty and the unhappiness he experiences with his new master cause him to run away to London. There he falls into the hands of a gang of young pickpockets, led by the Artful Dodger and trained by the elderly Fagin, who try to make a thief out of him, but the boy is helped by an old gentleman. Oliver is eventually kidnapped by the gang and forced to commit burglary; during the job, he is shot and wounded. It is a middle-class family that adopts Oliver and shows kindness and affection towards him at last. Investigations are made about who the boy is and it is discovered he has noble origins. The gang of pickpockets and Oliver's half-brother, who paid the thieves in order to ruin Oliver and have their father's property all for himself, are arrested in the end. 302. Specification 10 | Coming of Age 1-2 Scenes from ‘Oliver Twist', a film directed by Roman Polanski in 2005. The world ofthe workhouse Dickens attacked the social evils of his times, such as poor houses, unjust courts and the underworld. With the rise in the level of poverty, workhouses run by parishes spread all over England to give relief to the poor. However, the conditions prevailing in the workhouses were appalling. Their residents were subject to hard regulations: labour was required, families were almost always separated and rations of food and clothing were small and poor. The idea upon which the workhouses were founded was that poverty was the consequence of laziness and that the terrible conditions in the workhouse would inspire the poor to improve their own conditions. Yet the economic dislocation of the Industrial Revolution made it impossible for many to do so, and the workhouses did not provide any means for social or economic advances. Furthermore, as Dickens points out, instead of alleviating the suffering of the poor, the officials who ran workhouses abused their rights as individuals and cause them further misery. 2 ANSWERthese questions about Oliver Twist. 1 What was childhood like in the Victorian age? 2 What does Dickens's nostalgia for an innocent childhood stand for? What does Oliver Twist fictionalise? Where is Oliver brought up? Who eventually kidnaps Oliver? Who adopts Oliver? What is discovered at the end of the novel? What is the setting of the novel? Which social classes are depicted? 9 What were Victorian workhouses like? 10 What did Dickens criticise about this social institution? cUAUAUY GLOSSARY undertaker becchino pickpockets borseggiatori kidnapped rapito burglary furto con scasso half-brother fratellastro