我的论文An Analysis of the Character Portrayal in Oliver Twi

本科生毕业论文

题 目： An Analysis of the Character

Portrayal in Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》中人物塑造的分析

学生姓名： 彭征 学 号： 200607010302 专业班级： 英语06103班 指导教师： 胡蓉

完成时间： 2010年5月

An Analysis of the Character Portrayal in Oliver Twist

THESIS

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

The degree of Bachelor of Arts In Hunan University of Arts and Science

By Peng Zheng

Supervisor: Hu Rong

May 2010

Hunan University of Arts and Science

毕业论文任务书 论文题目 学生姓名 指导教师 起止时间 彭征 胡蓉 An Analysis of the Character Portrayal in Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》中人物塑造分析 专业班级 教研室 英语06103班 学 号 200607010302 英语基础教研室 2009 年 10 月 15 日 至 2010年 5 月 18 日 毕业论文任务、目的与基本要求：

主要参考文献与资料： Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist[M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 1992. Catherine Peters. Charles Dickens[M]. Xi?an: Xi?an World Publishing Corporation, 1998. John Kichetti. The Columbia History of the British Novel[M]. Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press Columbia University Press, 2005. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. History of Jewish Philosophy[M], London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 鲍文. 反抗与探索——十八、十九世纪英国孤儿小说人物性格论[J]. 安徽教育学院学报, 2003, (1): 13- 15. 钱青. 英国19世纪文学史[M]. 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社, 2001. 陈嘉. 英国文学史[M]. 北京：商务印书馆，1983 摩迪凯·开普兰. 犹太教——一种文明[M].黄福武, 张力改译. 济南: 山东大学出版社, 2002. 胡晓华. 《雾都孤儿》中的仁爱与暴虐[J]. 黑龙江农垦师专学报, 2001,(2): 11- 15. 刘精香. 《雾都孤儿》中南希的形象剖析[J]. 中南民族学院学报, 2005, (2): 12- 19. 毕业论文进度安排： 选 题：2009年10月10日 下 达 任 务 书 ：2009年10月30日 开 题：2009年12月8日 撰 写 论 文 ：2009年12月8日——2010年5月18日 中 期 检 查 ：2010年3月2日——2010年3月30日 答辩与成绩评定 ：2010年5月18日 课 题 申 报 与 审 查 学院院长（签名）： 年 月 日 教研室主任（签名）： 年 月 日 指导教师（签名）： 年 月 日

毕业论文成绩评定表(一) 毕业论文 题目 学生姓名 彭征 An Analysis of the Character Portrayal in Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》中人物塑造的分析 专业班级 英语06103班 学号 200607010302 指导教师评语： 建议成绩： 指导教师签名： 年 月 日

毕业论文成绩评定表(二) 毕业论文 题目 学生姓名 彭征 An Analysis of the Character Portrayal in Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》中人物塑造的分析 专业班级 英语06103班 学号 200607010302 评阅人评语： 建议成绩： 评阅人签名： 年 月 日

毕业论文成绩评定表(三) 毕业论文 题目 学生姓名 答辩时间 答 姓名 辩 小 组 成 员 彭征 An Analysis of the Character Portrayal in Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》中人物塑造的分析 专业班级 英语06103班 学号 200607010302 答辩地点 职务(职称) 姓名 职务(职称) 姓名 职务(职称) 答辩委员会评语： 答辩委员会主任签名： 年 月 日 学院毕业论文(设计)工作领导小组审查意见： 评定成绩 组长签名： 年 月 日

本科生毕业论文开题报告书

题 目： An Analysis of the Character

Portrayal in Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》中人物塑造的分析

学生姓名： 彭征 学 号： 200607010302 专业班级： 英语06103班 指导教师： 胡蓉

2009年 12月 8 日

论文题目 An Analysis of the Character Portrayal in Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》中人物塑造的分析 课题目的、意义及相关研究动态： 目的： 《雾都孤儿》是查尔斯·狄更斯的第二部长篇小说，是以作者儿时的坎坷经历为模版而写成。本文通过对小说中人物塑造的分析，结合小说的写作背景，揭露出十九世纪英国资本主义社会的黑暗，以及底层人民生活的困苦，并揭示出作者内心深处坚守的邪不胜正的信念。 意义： 通过对小说人物塑造的分析，特别是对主要人物的解析，促使人们认识到十九世纪资本主义英国的黑暗以及其对人们生活所造成的巨大痛苦，同时肯定社会中纯洁品质的存在，也坚定了人们的邪不胜正的信念。 研究动态： 作为英国十九世纪著名的批判现实主义作家查尔斯·狄更斯的代表作品，《雾都孤儿》自1838年出版以来，就在英国文学界乃至整个欧洲引起了强烈震动。国内 外很多学者对雾都孤儿进行了剖析，有分析其现实主义，象征手法，反犹太主义，也有对其中单个人物塑造的分析，如刘精香教授的《<雾都孤儿>中南希的形象剖析》，又如乔国强的《从<雾都孤儿>看狄更斯的反犹主义倾向》，对于该小说的研究从未中断过，也证明其拥有不朽的艺术魅力。 课题的主要内容、创新之处： 主要内容： 本文通过对《雾都孤儿》中不同人物角色塑造的分析，结合小说的写作背景，揭露出十九世纪英国资本主义社会的黑暗和统治阶级的腐朽，也揭示了当时社会底层人民生活的困苦，与此同时，也充分肯定了人性中纯洁品质的存在，并试着体会出作者所坚守的邪不胜正的信念。 创新之处： 本文与以往的分析有所不同，主要从不同人物角色塑造出发，结合小说的写作背景，着力分析小说通过人物所塑造所表达出的对当时社会的不满，以及对底层人民的苦难的同情，同时也表达出作者对人性光辉的肯定，以及对美好未来的憧憬。

研究方法和论文撰写提纲： 研究方法：通过大量文本解读、归纳，采用对比法、分析法分析人物角色的塑造。 论文撰写提纲： 引言 第一章：小说的写作背景 1.1 十九世纪中期的批判现实主义作家 1.2 对狄更斯的简介 第二章：对奥利弗的分析 2.1 奥利弗的角色塑造 2.2 伦敦的环境对角色塑造的影响 第三章：对费金的分析 3.1 费金和他的魔窟 3.2 费金的绝对邪恶 3.3 “犹太人” 这一绰号的起源 第四章：对南希的分析 4.1 南希的角色塑造 4.2 南希的纯洁品质 结论 完成期限和预期进度： 选 题：2009年10月10日 下 达 任 务 书 ：2009年10月30日 开 题：2009年12月8日 撰 写 论 文 ：2009年12月8日——2010年5月18日 中 期 检 查 ：2010年3月2日——2010年3月30日 答辩与成绩评定 ：2010年5月18日 主要参考资料： Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist[M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 1992. Catherine Peters. Charles Dickens[M]. Xi?an: Xi?an World Publishing Corporation, 1998. John Kichetti. The Columbia History of the British Novel[M]. Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press Columbia University Press, 2005. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. History of Jewish Philosophy[M], London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 鲍文. 反抗与探索——十八、十九世纪英国孤儿小说人物性格论[J]. 安徽教育学院学报, 2003, (1): 13- 15. 钱青. 英国19世纪文学史[M]. 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社, 2001. 摩迪凯·开普兰. 犹太教——一种文明[M].黄福武, 张力改译. 济南: 山东大学出版社, 2002. 胡晓华. 《雾都孤儿》中的仁爱与暴虐[J]. 黑龙江农垦师专学报, 2001, (2): 11- 15. 刘精香. 《雾都孤儿》中南希的形象剖析[J]. 中南民族学院学报, 2005, (2): 12- 19. 指导教师意见： 签名： 年 月 日

开 题 报 告 会 纪 要 时 间 与 会 人 员 姓 名 职务（职称） 姓 名 地 点 职务（职称） 姓 名 职务（职称） 会议记录摘要： 会议主持人： 记 录 人： 年 月 日 院工作小组意见 负责人签名： 年 月 日

摘要

查尔斯·狄更斯是英国文学史上最伟大的批判现实主义作家之一。《雾都孤儿》是他的早期的杰作之一，也是狄更斯最喜爱的小说。狄更斯把很大精力花在《雾都孤儿》的写作上，以作者儿时的坎坷经历为模板，赋予它特定的写作背景和写作意图。小说自出版以来，引起了相当大的争议，它通过塑造不同的人物角色，揭露出十九世纪英国社会的黑暗和底层人民生活的困苦，以及统治阶级的麻木。本文试图通过对小说中主要人物塑造的分析，结合小说的写作背景，使读者对小说中的人物有一个更深入的了解，并体会作者在小说构造中所表达出的邪不胜正的信念。

关键字：《雾都孤儿》；写作背景；人物塑造；困苦

i

Abstract

Charles Dickens is one of the greatest critical realists in English literature history. Oliver Twist is one of his early masterpieces. It is also Dickens? favorite novel. Dickens spent great energy on the writing of Oliver Twist. It is based on author?s miserable childhood experience. Dickens endowed it with certain writing background and writing purposes. Since published, it has caused considerable controversy. Through the portray of different characters, it exposes the darkness of the society and the miserable life of the poor, and the numbness of the ruling class. This paper attempts to analyse the portrayal of main characters and the writing background, so that the reader have a deep understanding of the novel?s characters and appreciate the idea expressed in the novel that evil can never prevail over good.

Keyword: Oliver Twist; writing background; character portrayal;

misery

ii

Contents

摘要 ………………………………………………………………….….i Abstract ……………………………………………………….….……..ii Introduction ……………………………………………………….……1 Chapter 1 Novel’s Writing Background. ……………………………...4 1.1 The Critical Realists in the Mid-19th Century………...……...……..4 1.2 Brief Introduction to Dickens………………………………..……...5 Chapter 2 Analysis of Oliver Twist…………………………….………9 2.1 The Portrayal of Oliver Twist……………………………...………..9 2.2 London?s Influence on the Character Formation……………..……10 Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin………………………………….……….14 3.1 Fagin and his Den...……………………………………………..…14 3.2 Fagin?s Absolute Evil………………………………………..….....15 3.3 Origin of the ?Jew? ………………………………………………...16 Chapter 4 Analysis of Nancy……………………………………….…20 4.1 The Portrayal of Nancy……………………………………………20 4.2 The Goodness of Nancy…………………………………………...23 Conclusion …………………………………………………...………...25 Bibliography …………………………………………………………...27

iii

Acknowledgements

iv

B.A .Thesis Introduction

Introduction

Oliver Twist was Dickens? second novel, which marked the beginning of Dickens? literary life. It began to appear in a monthly magazine. “I had perhaps the best subject I have ever thought of, I have thrown my whole heart and soul into Oliver.” (Peters, 1998:22)

That its general purpose was clear in his mind was evident from his later—written preface: “I wished to show, in little Oliver, the principle of Good surviving through every adverse circumstance and triumphing at last” (Peters, 1998:25). What the author portrayed is the criminals of London?s underworld. The author depicted it not in a romantic mood just as his contemporary novelists, but showed much miserable reality. That reality was the great and enduring strength of the book. Dickens knew it a lot by close observation, which he had already demonstrated in his newspaper sketches of London streets and criminal court. Also, he knew it by his own experience. When he was very young, he suffered a lot. He knew those kinds of feeling and of course he could share the solitary child?s pain, for him, be confused in those years when he labored hopelessly in the blacking-warehouse. As he said much later, he himself might have become a little robber or a little vagabond. That period of time was so bitter to this sensitive boy that many years later, when he was

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B.A .Thesis Introduction

very successful, he could not look back on the main reason that why he took much attention to common people?s lives and their feeling.

Oliver Twist is one of the most important social novels in Dickens? early works. Also, it was the first time that Dickens led readers into a very sad world. The description of the criminal slums of London that little Oliver lived brought Dickens a new class of serious reader interested in social reform. People started to think about social reason for all of those criminal phenomena. And, in this novel, Dickens advocates his view of charitable person will have good recompense.

Oliver Twist was famous for exposing the dark sides of people lived out that time. It exposed the hypocritical and cruelty of parish workhouse through depicting the little orphan boy Oliver Twist?s childhood in it. He gave realistic pictures of the horrible existence in workhouse. One of the most important characteristics of Oliver Twist was real and specific description of people who lived in the bottom of society. Their miserable lives, including all the details, gave the reader a real feeling: these were not fictitious.

Dickens carried the good traditions of critical realism novels since 18th century of England and also developed it. He created his unique technique and formed his own style. Dickens? works are very important in English literary history. They established the base of critical realism

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B.A .Thesis Introduction

and had effect upon the development of the whole European realistic novels.

Through the analysis of character poratrayal in Oliver Twist, Nancy, Fagin and his gang, this paper gives a general introduction of the novel?s character and exposes the miserable life of commom people in the 19th century capitalist England. At the same time, this paper will make the readers have a deeper understanding of the character of Dickens? novel and make it convenient for people to appreciate Dickens? idea that good can never prevail over good.

3

B.A .Thesis Chapter 1 Novel?s Writing Background

Chapter 1

Novel’s Writing Background

1.1 The Critical Realists in the Mid-19th Century

There were a number of novelists between those conservative poets and prose writers in the mid-19th century of England. They had a world of sympathy for the miseries and a strong feeling for the poor laboring masses. They cried against social injustice but they also did not approve of violence to fight the social wrong.(钱青, 2001) They had been know as critical of the social reality in the sense that they were strongly critical of the social reality of their time but they had never thought of overthrowing the existing social order that in this way, they could establish a new one.

These critical realists of the mid-19th century were all honest people and real artists in spite of their limitations in their general point of view on life. By exposing the social injustice and the vices of the upper class, they put their hearts into depicting the miserable existence of the common people: they gave a truthful picture of capitalist England of the time. They followed the fine tradition of their great literary predecessor of 18th century realism and early 19th century romanticism.(Kichetti, 2005) They showed their warm sympathy on those people who suffered a lot.

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 1 Novel?s Writing Background

1.2 Brief Introduction to Dickens

The greatest of the critical realists was Charles Dickens. In his early years, he worked as a reporter and this experience gave him a good knowledge of the political life of England at that time and it had a far-reaching effect upon his lifelong contempt for all the political institution in England. As a result of his ability to notice things of London life, a volume of stories and sketches of London street scenes, Sketches of Boz, was published. In 1837, his first novel Pickwick Papers appeared and established his reputation as an important writer of the time. This success was repeated again and again during the rest of his life, with the publication of some 15 novels as well as volumes of stories, travelogues and countless sketches and essays. In his very early literary period, Dickens attacked one or more specific evils in Victorian England: debtors? prison, workhouse, capital punishment and so on. The most important of these novels was one of optimism and a light and cheery tone. It was maintained, with plenty of humor and laughter with the reactionary forces of the middle class who were running more rampant, Dickens was more sensitive to the social reality and become more critical. Later, his optimistic spirit was replaced by strong feeling of depression and resentment. It was a successful period in which Dickens attained to his maturity as a great artist. The whole period was also characterized by

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 1 Novel?s Writing Background

the change and development of the great novelist?s artistic style. (陈嘉, 1983)

Charles Dickens? miserable childhood did indeed shape the person he became, as well as have a definite impact on his literary career. There are shades of young Dickens in many of his most beloved characters, including David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and of course, Great Expectations? Pip. Like Dickens, all three of these characters came from humble beginnings and were able to rise above their respective circumstances to achieve success. Similarly, Dickens? literary success is owed in large part to his unhappy childhood experiences. He did not merely overcome his past. He triumphed over it by mixing it into his best-selling works of art.

Charles Dickens? childhood and young adulthood was definitely filled with enough drama to base a novel upon. Born on February 7, 1812, to John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and his wife Elizabeth, Charles spent his earliest years in the English seaport town of Portsmouth. The first years of his life were comfortable enough, although the family did have an interest for living beyond their means. Even his birth announcement gives evidence to this, reporting the birth “On Friday, at Mile-end Terrace, the Lady of John Dickens, Esq. a son” (Peters, 1998:8). This is a pround pronouncement coming from a lowly government employee, with neither money nor title to lay claim to. Due

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 1 Novel?s Writing Background

to this, Charles “considered Friday his lucky day, needing to believe he had been born with great expectations and the talent and will to realize them” (Peters, 1998:10).

When Charles was ten years old, the family was transferred yet again, this time to London. The more expensive place, followed with the decrease in pay. His father suffered for no longer being stationed “outport” did not sign well for the family, who still “had not learned the value of money management” (Peters, 1998:12). To Charles?s dismay, he was not to be enrolled in a London school, instead being send to do odd jobs around the house. Kaplan believes the termination of Dickens? education have been a major blow to his ego, as “he had already imagined himself a man with a profession, enjoying success. He would be a gentleman by talent and achievement” (Peters, 1998:18).

To help pay off the family?s outstanding debts, James Lamert, a family friend, secured Charles a post at Warren?s Blacking Warehouse, a shoe polish factory. The job, which consisted of pasting labels onto pots of shoe polish, was a tedious and disgraceful one for Dickens, especially when his boss moved him to a window at the front of the warehouse for all the passersby to see.(Peters, 1998:22) It was also a time that Charles would never be able to forget. His situation only worsened when it became clear that the extra money Charles brought home from his income would not be enough to save his father from debt. On February 24, 1824,

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 1 Novel?s Writing Background

his father was arrested and sent to a debtor?s prison for failing to pay his creditors.

Just this experience let Dickens write Oliver Twist, and Oliver is Dickens in the novel. By the portrayal of Oliver?s miserable experiences in the workhouse and Fagin?s den, Dickens gives a bitter accusation to the corrupty and degradation of the capitalist society. Through the portrayal of Fagin?s evil, Dickens exposes the darkness of London?s underground. And, by the portrayal of Nancy?s final regaining of goodness, Dickens shows his belief that evil can never prevail over good and the eternal existing of goodness in the human nature. All in all, Dickens? thoughts and experiences contribute to the writing of Oliver Twist.

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 2 Analysis of Oliver Twist

Chapter 2

Analysis of Oliver Twist

2.1 The Portray of Oliver Twist

The hero of this novel was Oliver Twist, an orphan, who was thrown into a world full of poverty and crime. In spite of the fact that he was born and brought up in the workhouse and suffered enormous pain, such as hunger, thirst, beating and abuse. He remain wants to be loved. Oliver is not a believable character, although he was raised in corrupt surroundings, his purity and virtues were absolute. Throughout the novel, Dickens use Oliver?s character to challenge the Victorian idea that paupers and criminals are already evil at birth, arguing instead that a corrupt environment is the source of vice. At the same time, Oliver?s incorruptibility undermines some of Dickens? assertions. Oliver is shocked and horrified when he sees the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates pick a stranger?s pocket and again when he is forced to participate in a burglary. Oliver?s moral considerations about the sanctity of property seem inborn in him, just as Dickens? opponents thought that corruption is inborn in poor people. Furthermore, other children use rough Cockney slang, but Oliver, oddly enough, speaks in proper King?s English. His grammatical rigidity is also unexplainable, as Oliver is not well-educated.

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 2 Analysis of Oliver Twist

Even when he is abused and manipulated. Oliver does not present a complex picture of a person mixed with good and evil, instead he is purely good.(鲍文, 2003: 13- 15)

Even if we might feel that Dickens? social criticism would have been more effective if he had focused on a more complex poor character, like the Artful Dodger or Nancy. The readers for whom Dickens was writing might not have been receptive to such a portrayal. Dickens? Victorian middle-class readers were likely to hold opinions on the poor that were only a little less extreme than those expressed by Mr. Bumble, the beadle who treats paupers with great cruelty. In fact, Oliver Twist was criticized for portraying thieves and prostitutes at all. Considering the strict morals of Dickens? readers, it may have seemed necessary for him to make Oliver a saint like figure. Because Oliver appealed to Victorian readers? sentiments, his story may have stood a better chance of effectively change their prejudices.

2.2 London’s Influence on the Character Formation

Before discussing Oliver?s separation from the city, we first must look at how he is introduced to London and examine the role that the city plays in Oliver?s life as well as in the lives of Dickens himself. “Although both boys, Dodger and Oliver, are of a similar age, the Dodger appears

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 2 Analysis of Oliver Twist

decidedly older in his grown man?s clothes and because he had got about him all the airs and manners of a man” (Dickens, 1992:78).

In due time, Oliver himself begins to get familiar with the dark and dirty surroundings of Fagin?s den and even with all of central London. In all the dreary rooms, there was but one “back-garret window, with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter, and out of which Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of house-tops, blackened chimneys and gable-ends” (Dickens, 1992:96). Here, Oliver develops a physical connection to the den and the surrounding city, as his gaze is fixed on the largely undistinguishable “crowded mass” of the city in the same manner that the “window of his observatory was nailed down” (Dickens, 1992:97). His many gazes out the window serve to connect him to the city, however, his gaze stems from a longing and desire to be someplace other than the den. In this instance, Oliver?s connection with the city is far more distant than the relationships that Fagin and the Dodger share with the city.

Oliver?s vastly different relationship with the city of London allows him to distance himself from the corruption in a manner that other characters cannot achieve. Nothing physically ties any of the characters to a specific place such as London, even if they share a distinctly clear physical relationship with that place. As wrote earlier, Oliver runs into

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 2 Analysis of Oliver Twist

the Dodger outside the city, but his relationship to the city is so embedded in his identity that he takes a part of the city?s vicious forces with him. When Fagin leaves London and his den, he too carries particular signs of those places. The evenning on which Fagin and Monks discover Oliver sleeping in his room, the mere presence of Fagin changes the scene. Still asleep, Oliver senses that “the air became close and confined, and he thought with a glow of terror that he was in the Jew?s house” (Dickens, 1992:110). Fagin?s identity is so closely mingled with his den, which represents the evil center of London, that he cannot rid himself of the connection. In crafting Oliver?s relation to the city, Dickens takes particular care to ensure that it does not damage his identity but instead only touches him on a surface level. Thus not allowing Oliver to blend in with society, unlike the Dodger and Fagin. As a result, this separation from the city?s identity allows Oliver to prosper in the care of the Maylies and Mr. Brownlow.

Dickens? decision to represent Oliver Twist as incorruptible has “exposed both author and character to considerable abuse” (Peters, 1998:55). Exactly why did Dickens pursue such a strategy? I will argue that Dickens represents his hero as morally immune from the effects of his brutal childhood environment because of an acute anxiety about the ability of the bourgeois society to inculcate a moral principle. This anxiety, far from being peculiar to Dickens, is made by the very structure

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 2 Analysis of Oliver Twist

of nineteenth-century England. At the same time, Oliver stands for the goodness and hope of the society

Last, Oliver Twist was the Dickens himself in the novel.

13

B.A .Thesis Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin

Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin

3.1 Fagin and his Den

In Oliver Twist，London is the home of spectacle, lurid and grotesque. And one of Dickens? narrative purposes is to involve us in the excitements of the discovery of Oliver. It is developed by the sequence that starts with the Artful Dodger discovering the hungry Oliver and ends when the boy is brought to Fagin?s den.

As Fagin glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the ugly old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, born in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal.

Fagin?s den is both a dungeon and a place of refuge. It is absolutely shut off from the outside world, but it is also a parody, at least, of a home, that place where one lives safely. Fagin?s den, says Dickens, is a “snug retreat,” and inside its walls we find a society leagued for common protection against the hostility of the outside world.

Those of us who have but little taste for a romantic praise of criminality will resist the temptation to see Dickens as totally caught up with the world of Fagin and Sikes. Though the accounts we hear of

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin

Dickens? public readings from Oliver Twist, in which he portrayed its characters with a terrifying vividness, suggest that part of him must have felt a secret kinship with these outlaws. We are surely persuaded by Dickens to deplore the thieves and murderers, to feel disgust and fright before them. Dickens put these outlaws in the sharpest contrast to the blandness of the “good” characters. Fagin and his gang talk like recognizable human beings. And when the Artful Dodger, in one of Dickens? most brilliant descriptions, is dragged into court, he sounds like a comic echo of Julien Sorel at the end of The Red and the Black. “Gentlemen, I have not the honor to belong to your class,” Julien tells his jurors. “This isn?t the shop for justice,” the Artful Dodger tells his judges.

3.2 Fagin’s Absolute Evil

Fagin is the strongest figure in the book—certainly the most troubling. He is a forceful figure. He barely exists as an individual and barely needs to. We learn nothing about his interior life, we are not invited to see him as “three dimensional”, except, in the last chapter, where he sits in prison waiting to be hanged and suffers that terror of death which finally makes him one of us. Nor is Fagin given the sort of great redeeming speech that Shakespeare gives Shylock. Fagin does cry out before his death, “What right have they to butcher me”, but this has little of the generalizing moral resonance of Shylock?s “Hath not a Jew

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin

eyes?”. Shylock is clever and cunning, with a talent for imitating the moral axioms of the respectable world, Fagin is wholly a creature of myth. He never rises to Shylock?s tragic height, he never so much as becomes a character at all. Fagin is emblematic, immensely powerful. Having so created him, Dickens had no need to worry about the slight difference of depiction.

3.3 Origin of the ‘Jew’

Fagin?s den, one of the grey-and-black hovels in which he hides out, is reached by a series of stairs, horrible and dark. “The walls and ceilings . . . were perfectly black with age and dirt” (Dickens, 1992:108), but, it?s important to note, there is a fire in the den before which “a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair,” stands roasting some meat.

The point is well elaborated by J. Hillis Miller: They have either ignored Dickens? fixed nickname, “the Jew”, as if there were nothing problematic or they have tried to weaken the meaning of Dickens? usage by “explaining” Fagin historically. There is, of course, something to explain. Dickens himself, in a letter to a Jewish woman who had protested the stereotypical treatment of Fagin, sought to solve the problem for the Jewish reader. “Fagin,” he wrote, “is a Jew because it unfortunately was true, of the time to which the story refers, that class of

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin

criminal almost invariably was a Jew.”(Peters, 1998:87) Whether this was “almost invariably” so is a question, but that some criminals were Jewish is certainly true. One of these, Ikey Solomons, had been tried and sentenced in a spectacular trial only a few years before Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, and it seems likely that Dickens, with his keen reportorial scent, took use of this case.

And Fagin, we cannot forget, is “the Jew”. Throughout the novel he is called “the Jew”, though in revising for a later edition, especially in the chapter which described Fagin?s last night, Dickens tried to soften the impact by substituting “Fagin” for “the Jew”. It did not help or matter very much: Fagin remains “the Jew” and whoever wants to confront this novel honestly must confront the feeling that becomes visible through Dickens? obsessive repetition of “the Jew”.(Frank & Leaman, 1997)

The spectral image of “the Jew” may indeed be “prehistoric” in the sense that it remains in the timeless spaces of myth, but it is also very much part of a continuous western history. The image of the cruel Jew has survived with remarkable persistence through the Christian centuries. Like Judas, Fagin has red hair, and like Satan, he is compared to a serpent.

I am convinced that, despite some conventionally nasty phrases about Jews in his letters, Dickens was not an anti-Semite—he had neither conscious nor stylistic intent to harm Jews. Indeed, a writer with such

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin

intent could not have created a so powerful and impressive figure as Fagin.(开普兰, 2002) For, if the fascination with criminal life that?s evident in Oliver Twist derives in some unusual way from Dickens? childhood traumas, the representative or mythic strength of Fagin comes, I believe, from somewhere else. It comes from the collective folklore. The sentiments and biases rooted in western culture as these have fixed the Jew in the role of villain: thief, fence, corrupter of the young, agent of Satan, legatee of Judas. With Fagin, as Edgard Rosenberg says, “we are thrown back to that anonymous crowd of grinning devils who, in the religious drama of the fourteenth century, danced foully around the Cross and who, in mythology, functioned as bugaboos to frighten little boys”. Dickens has come up with some prehistoric demon, an aging Santan whose depravity explains him wholly.

Novels are composed by individual writers, but in some sense they also derive from the cultures in which these writers live. Collective sentiments and collective stories merged into the body of fiction?s characters. Imagining a world, the writer must use the substance of his culture and thereby, so to say, the culture speaks through and past him. All great writers are in part players of myth—some inferior writers, are nothing else. Fagin the individual figure was conceived by Dickens, but Fagin the archetype comes out of centuries of myth, centuries, too, of hatred and fear.

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 3 Analysis of Fagin

The power of Fagin is a collective, an indefinable power. Once we realize this, the question of what “to do” about Fagin comes to seem hopelessly complicated—as if there were something one could “do” to eliminate the deepest biases of western culture! As if one could somehow cancel out the shadowy archetypes of Satan and Judas, Shylock and the wandering Jew! There is nothing to “do” but confront the historical realities of its culture, and all it has thrown up from its disreputable depths. This can lead to reflections of western culture.

Whenever we encounter such overripe language, Fagin expands into a figure other than human: he becomes a monster drawn from the bad dreams of Christianity.

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 4 Analysis of Nancy

Chapter 4

Analysis of Nancy

4.1 The Portrayal of Nancy

About Nancy?s family, Dickens did not tell us, we can find the information from Dickens? description, at the beginning of Nancy?s first step on stage. She was 18 years old, a girl thief, and belong to Sikes, but, if we are careful, we can find some material of her.

When Oliver was 10 years old, Nancy, she was force to be a thief, that time, she was 5 years old. If not do what Fagin has said to, she will be beat which had 12 years tears and blood to her. So that, where Nancy?s hometown when she was 5 years old? Where her parents? We can guess her parents may be dead or they had no ability to find up her. And she becomes orphan in the street, or like Oliver from the workhouse.

Nancy was shocked very much for she did the things which was herself catch Oliver back after Oliver himself escape from Fagin?s den. In the moment, she can imagine that Jew inflicted club to Oliver. And, Nancy wrested it from his hand. The states made she remember her unfortunate childhood:

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 4 Analysis of Nancy “….you(Fagin) villain, yes, you deserve ?em for me. I thieved for you when I was a child not as this, pointing for Oliver. I have been in the same trade, and in the same service, for twelve years since….” (Dickens, 1992:191)

“…the cold, wet, dirty street are my home; and you (Fagin) are the wretch that drove me to them long ago; and that?ll keep me there, day and night, day and night, till die.” (Dickens, 1992 194)

Nancy acted an important role in the novel. Her situation is not important and key, about Nancy?s description is less. But just the person who not attract reader?s attention, arrange fairly by Dickens, is become the fact and impetus which instructed novel?s state?s rise and fall.(刘精香, 2005: 12- 19) So, Dickens let Nancy, this girl, accuse the extraordinary darkness in 19th century England society.

The spark of compassion that still warms Nancy?s heart sets off a confrontation in which she loses her life. Neither Fagin nor Sikes can be said to have anything resembling ethical standards, and no allowances are made for Nancy?s actions in favor of the two criminals. There is no way to pardon her violation of their merciless code. Fagin applies his twisted intelligence with unbelievable shrewdness in showing Sikes how Nancy

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 4 Analysis of Nancy has betrayed them. He knows with whom he is dealing and how to insure the results he wants.

The aggravation and unleashing of Sikes? ferocious wrath produce a suspense that can only be dispersed by a terrible calamity. The vindictive murder of Nancy is the inevitable result. Her last moments are rendered with crushing pathos. There is a regretful irony in her meaningless belated appeal to the power of repentance. She is even denied a last glimpse of the sun that she so seldom enjoyed. A bitter contrast is beheld between the restorative light of the dawn and the curtained apartment where Nancy?s life was taking away.

The sensations of Sikes after the violence trace the reactions of a murderer. For the first few hours, he wanders in a kind of confusion, scarcely able to relate to what he has done. It is only when the return of darkness vividly recalls the deed that he feels the full implications of his position: “Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must sleep.” Awareness of guilt and the sense of danger become overwhelming. The horror of his crime isolates him from his fellow men. The harshness of this penalty is eloquently demonstrated by Sikes? eagerness to lend his assistance during the emergency of the fire, just so he can be near other people and find momentary forgetfulness in hard physical labor. It is an unprecedented spectacle for others to receive

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 4 Analysis of Nancy help from Sikes, an enemy of society who has never shown anything but contempt for all humanity.(胡晓华, 2001: 11- 15)

At the end of Chapter 48, Sikes is left in an ironical position: After violently slaying the one person who had affection for him, he is unsuccessful in a deliberate attempt to destroy his dog, whom he fears may be a threat to his own existence. So, in a sense, Sikes is killed by Nancy who?s death thoroughly destroy his spiritual world.

4.2 The Goodness of Nancy

As a child of the streets, Nancy has been a thief and drinks to excess. She is immersed in the vices condemned by her society, but she also commits perhaps the noblest act in the novel when she sacrifices her own life in order to protect Oliver. Without her, Oliver may have never had the chance to grow up in a loving home and leave to be proper in his actions and pure in the soul.

Nancy, who, though she considers herself “lost almost beyond redemption,” Ends up making the ultimate sacrifice for a child she hardly knows. From this action, we can find Nancy?s moral complexity which is unique among the major characters in Oliver Twist. Her ultimate choice to do good at a great personal cost is a strong argument in favor of the incorruptibility of basic goodness. Dickens also use this character to show

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B.A .Thesis Chapter 4 Analysis of Nancy his belief that goodness exists in the human nature which stands for the hope of the English society.

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B.A .Thesis Conclusion

Conclusion

Oliver Twist is about a gently-born orphan who?s always failed by the system set up to protect him. It?s also a long, bitter accusation of the willful neglect of these wretched humans, who were supposedly created in God?s image but rarely live up to the honor. This novel is famous for exposing the dark sides of people lived out that time. It exposes the hypocritical and cruelty of parish workhouse through depicting the little orphan boy Oliver?s childhood in it. He gives a realistic picture of the horrible existence in workhouse and criticizes the government?s ignorance of the weak.

But, Dickens goes far beyond the experiences of the workhouse. He presents the everyday existence of the lowest members of English society, extending his depiction of poverty to London?s dirty streets, dark alehouses, and thieves? dens. He gives voice to those who had no voices, establishing a link between politics and literature with his social commentary. He also shows his sympathy to the poor and his condemnation to the evil.

To sum up, through the depiction of different characters and their lives in the London underworld. Dickens gives us a miserable picture of the 19th century capitalist England and criticizes the failure of the

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