英文专业毕业论文 Introduction of Oliver Twist.doc

Introduction Charles Dickens, the greatest representative of English critical realism, was the son of an English navy clerk. In his outstanding novels he masterly depicted the life of contemporized English society. Oliver Twist was Dickens second novel, which marked the beginning of Dickens literary life. It concentrates on the hard years of an orphan. It is the first novel that led the readers to a very sad world.This novel is a powerful exposure of bourgeois society. It shows the extreme brutality and corruption of the oppressors and their agents under the mask of philanthropy. Dickens, the great critical realist, gives vivid descriptions of the sufferings of the poor and oppressed. This novel was famous for exposing the dark side of people lived at that time. In this novel Nancy is a typical character of the poor people who lived at the bottom of the society; she had the same suffering with Oliver Twist, but she didnt have a happy ending like Oliver Twist. This thesis is provided to help readers appreciate the critical novel by analyzing Nancy character and her fate. Dickens described Nancy not only from the good side but also the bad side. There are many different opinions on whether people are born well or bad. In this novel, Nancy character is complex and ambiguous; sometime she is good, sometime she performs bad behaviors. It is just this complex nature that well reflects the reality of that time.Chapter 1 Introduction of Oliver Twist1.1 Abstract of Oliver Twist One of Dickens most enduringly popular stories is Oliver Twist, an early work published in 1837-8. Like many of his later novels, its central theme is the hardship faced by the people who live at the bottom of the society. Oliver Twist was born in a workhouse in 1830s, England. His mother, whose name no one knows was found on the street and died just after Olivers birth. He was brought up in the workhouse where he and other orphans were maltreated and constantly starved. One day, because that Oliver asked for more gruel, he was sent to an undertaker to work as an apprentice. Noah Claypole, a boy worked with Oliver made disparaging comments on Olivers mother and Oliver was unable to bear it, so he attacked him and ran away to London. There he fell into the hands of a gang of thieves headed by old Jew Fagin. In the thieves den Oliver was taught the skill of pocking and stealing and was forced to steal. He was rescued for a time by a kind-hearted old gentleman Mr. Brownlow. But Nancy and other gang members found him and brought him back .It finally turned out that a mysterious man Monks wanted to make the boy a criminal Once Oliver was forced to help a burglar who was called Bill Sikes in a burglary and In the course of it, Oliver was shot and badly wounded, the kindly care from Mrs. Maylie and her beautiful adopted niece Rose brought him back to health. Nancy, who now repented for what she had done and tried to help. She told Rose and Mr. Brownlow the mystery about Olivers origin and was found out by the gang and brutally murdered by Bill Sikes. Pursued by his guilty conscience and an angry mob, Bill Sikes inadvertently hung himself while trying to escape. Fagin was arrested and executed. It was now known that Monks was the half-brother of Oliver and he did all these for the purpose of seizing the whole of their fathers property. Rose was revealed in the end to be the sister of Olivers dead mother. Oliver was finally adopted by Mr. Brownlow. Monks was exiled and died in prison. Bumble, the self?important beadle of the workhouse who had conspired with Monks, became an inmate of the workhouse over which he formerly ruled.1.2 Introduction of the author of Oliver TwistOliver Twist was written by Charles Dickens. He is a British novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Charles Dickens, one of the most popular, productive, and skilled English novelist, were acclaimed for his rich storytelling and unforgettable characters. His moving, critical and sentimental stories are characterized by attacks on social injustices and hypocrisy, and offer an excellent insight into Victorian culture. Dickens achieved massive worldwide popularity in his lifetime and is regarded as one of the giants of English literature. Today his works are still widely read and regularly adapted for cinema and television. Over 75 feature films have been made based on his novels.1 He suffered a lot in his childhood, but become a great novelist at last. His main works are Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A tale of two cities, Great Expectations and many other works.1.3 The social background of Oliver Twist “In the mid-nineteenth century, England was suffering from economic instability and widespread unemployment. In the 1830s, the middle class clamored for a share of political power with the landed gentry, bringing about a restructuring of the voting system. Parliament passed the Reform Act, which granted the right to vote to previously disenfranchise middle class citizens. The middle class was eager to gain social legitimacy. This desire gave rise to the Evangelical religious movement and inspired sweeping economic and political change.”2 In the extremely stratified English class structure, the highest social class belonged to the “gentleman” an aristocrat who did not have to work for his living. The middle class was stigmatized for having to work, and so, to alleviate the stigma attached to middle class wealth, the middle class promote work as a moral virtue. But the resulting moral value attached to work, along with the middle classs insecurity about its own social legitimacy, led English society to subject the poor to hatred and cruelty. Many members of the middle class were anxious to be differentiated from the lower classes as lazy good for nothings. The middle classs value system transformed earned wealth into a sign of moral virtue. Victorian society interpreted economic success as a sign that God favored the honest, moral virtue of the successful individuals efforts, and, thus, interpreted the condition of poverty as a sign of the weakness of the poor individual The sentiment behind the Poor Law of 1834 reflected these beliefs. The law allowed the poor to receive public assistance only if they lived and worked in established workhouses. Begging carried the punishment of imprisonment. Debtors were sent to prison, often with their entire families, which virtually ensured that they could not repay their debts; workhouses were deliberately made to be as miserable as possible in order to deter the poor from relying on public assistance. The philosophy was that the miserable conditions would prevent able bodied paupers from being lazy and idle bums In the eyes of middle class English society, those who could not support themselves were considered immoral and evil. Therefore, such individuals should enjoy no comforts of luxuries in their reliance on public assistance. Because of the great stigma attached to workhouse relief, many poor people chose to die in the streets rather than seek public aid. The workhouse was supposed to demonstrate the virtue of gainful employment to the poor. In order to receive public assistance, they had to pay in suffering and misery. Victorian values stressed the moral virtue of suffering and privation, and the workhouse residents were made to experience these virtues many times over. Rather than improving what the middle class saw as the questionable morals of the able bodied poor, the Poor Laws punished the most defenseless and helpless members of the lower class. The old, the sick, and the very young suffered more than the able bodied benefited from these laws. Dickens meant to demonstrate this incongruity through the figure of Oliver Twist, an orphan born and raised in a workhouse for the first ten years of his life. His story demonstrates the hypocrisy of the petty middle class bureaucrats, who treat a small child cruelly while voicing their belief in the Christian virtue of giving charity to the less fortunate.3 Dickens was a lifelong champion of the poor. He himself suffered the harsh abuse visited upon the poor by the English legal system. In England in the 1830s, the poor truly had no voice, political or economic. In Oliver Twist, Dickens presents the everyday existence of the lowest members of English society. He goes far beyond the experiences of the workhouse, extending his depiction of poverty to Londons squalid streets, dark alehouses, and thieves dens. He gives voice to those who had no voice, establishing a link between politics and literature with his social commentary.Chapter 2 Deep Analysis of Nancy2.1 Character of Nancy in Oliver Twist In this novel, Nancy is not the heroine. She is only a supporting actress, but she is the typical one. Dickens made up this character from her bad side and her good side in order to make this character close to the real life and show the darkness of the society more clearly. People who lived at the bottom of the society led a miserable life. Oliver is a lucky dog, he is saved by his fathers friend and his mothers sister, and the most important thing is that he has a rich father. In the bourgeois society, property is the most important thing. Nancy has nothing. She became a thief when she was very young and she also has no rich father. She is just a poor orphan as other children in the gang. She was killed not was saved because she lived in a society which social status and property are most important. So her character should have two sides, one for the dirty society and the other for her clear mind. A major concern of Oliver Twist is the question of whether or not a bad environment can irrevocably poison someones character and soul. As the novel progresses, the character who best illustrates the contradictory issues brought up by that question is Nancy. As a child of the streets, Nancy has been a thief and drinks to excess. The narrators reference to her “free and agreeablemanners” indicates that she is a prostitute. 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. Nancys moral complexity is unique among the major characters in Oliver Twist. The novel is full of characters that are all good and can barely comprehend evil, such as Oliver, Rose, and Brownlow, and characters that are all evil and can barely comprehend well, such as Fagin, Sikes, and Monks. Only Nancy comprehends and is capable of both good and evil. Her ultimate choice to do good at a great personal cost is a strong argument in favor of incorruptibility of basic goodness, no matter how many environmental obstacles it may face. Nancys love for Sikes exemplifies the moral ambiguity of her character. As she herself points out to Rose, devotion to a man can be “a comfort and a pride” under the right circumstances. But for Nancy, such devotion is “a new means of violence and suffering” indeed, her relationship with Sikes leads her to criminal acts for his sake and eventually to her own demise. The same behavior, in different circumstances, can have very different consequences and moral significance. In Oliver Twist, morality and nobility are black and white issues, but Nancys character suggests that the boundary between virtue and vice is not always clearly drawn.2.2 The miserable background of Nancy Nancy was corrupted at a young age by Fagin, the receiver of stolen goods who persuades forced youths to do his bidding. Her exact age is not mentioned in the book, although she has been a thief for 12 years and began when she was half of Olivers age. Nancy is one of the members of Fagins gang and few people know about her in London. So Sikes and Fagin concerned to convince her to inquire about some news after Oliver mistakenly arrested for pick pocketing No one around here knows anything about you. Her excuse for not attending is that she does not wish anyone to know about her; nevertheless, she winds up attending it, presumably after having been physically threatened by Sikes. In the novel it is alluded to that she is a prostitute and she drinks heavily. She is described thus when she first appear “a couple of young ladies called to see the young gentlemen; one of whom was named Bet, and the other Nancy.”4 She is beaten to death by Sikes because he mistakenly believes that she has informed on him, when the truth is that she has been trying not to involve Sikes in her efforts in order to ensure his safety. Nancy, who is fiercely protective of Oliver and feels pity for him, has been trying to prevent him from being kidnapped a second time, after Oliver has finally managed to find safety in the household of the Maylie family whom Sikes tried unsuccessfully to rob. She gives Rose Maylie and Mr. Brownlow, Olivers benefactor, information about Olivers evil half-brother Monks who is in league with Fagin. However, she has managed to keep Bills name out of it. But Fagin has sent a spy out after her. When the spy reports on what he has heard and seen, Fagin, furious at what she has done, tells Sikes about her actions. However, he twists the story just enough to make it sound as if she informed on him, knowing that this will probably lead in her being murdered and thus silenced. It is her death and the subsequent search for Sikes, her killer that helps finding out Fagins gang.2.3 The evil aspect of Nancy Although most major characters in Oliver Twist were either paragons of goodness, like Oliver and Mr. Brownlow, or embodiments of evil, like Mr. Bumble, Fagin, and Sikes. Nancy behavior spanned moral extremes. Dickenss description of her manner as “remarkably free and agreeable,” combined with her position as a young, unmarried female pauper, strongly imply that she was a prostitute, a profession for which Dickenss Victorian readers would felt little sympathy. She showed her evil aspect at first time was helping Fagin get information of Oliver. Oliver was arrested by the police and Fagin was worried about if Oliver had said something about his gang, so he tried to send someone to get some news. At last Nancy was chosen. She pretended to be Olivers distraught sister. She learned that the gentleman from whom the handkerchief was stolen took Oliver home with him to the neighborhood of Pentonville. She told this information to Fagin and brought Oliver to a dangerous condition. The second proof for Nancys evil was helping Sikes catch Oliver back to the gang. After Oliver was taken to Mr. Brownlow home, he received a pretty comfortable living environment. But Mr. Brownlow friend Grimwig did not believe Oliver was a good boy, so Mr. Brownlow sent Oliver to gave one book to the bookseller and wanted to know if Oliver would go back to his gang with his book and money. Oliver took a wrong turn on the way to the bookstall, suddenly, Nancy appeared. She told everyone on the street that Oliver was her runaway brother who joined a band of thieves, and that she was taking him back home to their parents. Everyone ignored Olivers protests. Bill Sikes ran out of a beer shop, and he and Nancy dragged Oliver through the dark backstreets The third proof for Nancys evil was helping Sikes to rob a house. Sikes needed a small boy for the job. Fagin offered Olivers services. Sikes arranged to have Nancy deliver Oliver to the scene. Despite her earlier protests against trapping Oliver in a life of crime, she betrayed no further misgiving. Nancy believed Oliver would have a more miserable life than died if he lived with Fagin, but she could not help him this time, because Fagin had suspected her Although Nancy was kind in nature, she lived with Fagin and Bill Sikes for so long time and in her heart she must help them and must do what they asked. She was influenced by Fagin and Bill in some degree and did not like Oliver who was not influenced absolutely2.4 The braveness and kindness of Nancy After Oliver was grabbed by Nancy and Sikes, they arrive at a dilapidated house in a squalid neighborhood. Fagin, the Dodger, and Char