英语论文The Social Significance of Oliver Twist.doc

原创英语毕业论文 请咨询QQ253771735第12页 The Social Significance of Oliver TwistI. IntroductionCharles Dickens is considered as one of the most famous novelists in 19th century, and the greatest English critical realists during the Victorian age. Dickens also achieved a very high prestige in his works.Oliver Twist is Charles Dickenss second novel, and it is one of Charles Dickens masterpieces, reflecting the terrible lives of the people who were in the bottom of the world in London. This novel takes London as the background, narrating an orphans pitiful life experience and the bitter experience encountered. The main character Oliver Twist grew up in the orphanage, experiencing the career of apprentice, fleeing from calamity difficulty, entering the nest of thieves by mistake, experiencing numerous hardships. Finally, with the help of good people, he found out his own background and gained happiness.At that time, the British society was reforming. And the economy required high-speed development. The upper class was collecting the wealth, while the lower classs lives were becoming more and more difficult. Besides, the social contradiction aggravated, the society threw all the un-adaptable people to the gloomy corner. The author protested against the unfairness of the society, and aroused the public opinion, implemented economical and political reforming, by describing all sorts of darkness at that time, and the hard lives of the lower class, and by uncovering the oppressive essence of the Capitalism. The author hoped the poor people who were in the bottom of the society to be rescued. This paper will dig out the significance of the society reflected by the books, by analyzing the main characters characteristics.II. Charles Dickens and the Background of Oliver Twist2.1 A Brief Introduction of Charles DickensCharles Dickens (1812-1870) is considered as a representative of the greatest English novelists of the Victorian period. He was born on 7th February, 1812, at 13 miles End Terrace, Land port, Portsmouth. He was remembered as the most popular novelist who had ever lived in 19th century. He still stayed his place as the greatest English writers, an original genius whose novels are an essential link in the canon of English literature. The early memories and influences on him are very important. His father John Dickens is a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and his mother Elizabeth is a pretty woman. They were both from the lower middle classes. John Dickens income was only enough for the family to live modestly. However, he was irresponsible and always makes his family into debt and financial crisis. He ended up in Marshallese Debtors prison. When Dickens was 10 years old, there was no school to go to. That was a great shock to the bookloving boy. After the sliding into debt, he worked at Warrens Blacking Factory at Hungerford Stairs, he hated his job. The blacking factory left him with a lifelong insatiable need for recognition and approval; a degree of emotional reserve; and an obsession with cleanliness and order, which he himself admitted, was almost a disorder. He was haunted by the experience for the rest of his life. In May 1827, Dickens began to work at Ellis and black more, a lawyers firm in Holborn Count in the city of London. After that he often wrote about lawyers, judges and barristers in his novels. Dickens began his professional writing career before his twentysecond birthday. The Pickwick Papers were his first novel, and it was very successful. In 1836, he married to Catherine Hogartha beautiful woman. They have ten children all together. In 1838, Dickens began to write Oliver Twist, it was not completed until November 1839. In 1842, Dickens and his wife visited American. When they returned from American in the summer of 1842, he threw himself back into work with his characteristic energy. Over the next three decades, Charles Dickens would write another nine large and complex novels and many shorter pieces of fiction. During these middle years, his life was very creative. These included David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorr it (1855-1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1860-1861). On June 9th, 1870, he was dead and buried in Poets corner in Westminster Abbey. The Legacy of Dickens left has a great many sides. He not only wrote about the burning issues of Victorian Society, but also reported some political subjects. He was the greatest critical realist. Dickens captured the meanings of Victorian Britain actively, so he has become the greatest symbol of his age.2.2 The Background of Oliver TwistOliver Twist was Dickens second novel, but it was Dickenss first fully crafted novel. Mounting a direct attack on the impersonal cruelty of the workhouse system, Dickens contrasts it with an ideal of individual dream; He also used the novel to reflect on his own early life. That its general purpose was dear in his mind was evident from his laterwritten preface. “I wished to show”, in little Oliver, the principle of good serving through every adverse circumstance. The companions among whom he was to be tried were the criminals of Londons underworld. This novel shows the miserable reality .Dickens knew it a lot through observation, which had newspaper sketches of London streets and criminal court. There was also another reason that is he knew it by his own experience. He was born in a provident way .When he was young, he suffered a lot. He knew these kinds of feeling and he could share the solitary childs pain for he bewildered in those years when he hand labored hopelessly in the blackingwarehouse. That period of time was so bitter and galling to this sensitive boy that many years later. When he was very successful, he could not look back upon it without tears in his eyes. Maybe it was the main reason why he took much more attention to this novel. So in 1838, Dickens wrote Oliver Twist. He didnt finish this novel until November 1839.III. Analysis on the Main CharactersWith Good V.S. Evil as one of the major conflicts, in such categories are the secondary characters found as well. Three main auxiliary characters of Oliver Twist aid the elaboration of the story; these significant characters are Mr. Brownlow representing purity, integrity and goodness, Nancy as partially righteous, partially villain and lastly on the other extreme of the scale: Fagin, the symbol of evil, corruption and manipulation. Throughout the story we are introduced to each of these characters through an omniscient point of view, and are able to categorize them according to their personalities, thoughts and actions. With their differing levels of honesty and social status, each of them plays a crucial role in the development of the storys theme.3.1 Analysis of Oliver TwistOliver is born in a workhouse to an unknown woman whose name, the reader learns much later, is Agnes Fleming. He is sensitive, compassionate, kind, loyal, and gentle, and no matter how much he is abused and mistreated, he retains these qualities as well as his deep faith in the innate goodness of people. At times he seems rather nave; for example, when he sees the members of Fagins gang practicing picking Fagins pockets and when he goes out with them to steal but has no idea they are thieves until they run off and he is apprehended for the deed.As the hero of a melodramatic novel of social protest, Oliver Twist is meant to appeal more to our sentiments than to our literary sensibilities. Oliver is not a believable character, because although he is raised in corrupt surroundings, his purity and virtue are absolute. Dickens uses Olivers 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. How can such a little boy who had already suffered oppressive affliction remain pure in body and mind? In the authors opinion, the reason is the goodness of human nature.By reading this novel, we know that Oliver Twist was a pure, brave, strong, unbending, frank, candid, kindheart, clever boy and had a strong resistible spirit. There is a sentence: destiny rest with personality. Olivers personality made his life happy in the end, though the society was dark.3.2 Analysis of NancyNancy was a member of thieves Group. She was an unlucky girl. When she was very young, she was caught by thieves Group, and as Sikes lover. The character Nancy has an abundant and a complex inner world. In the thieves Group, she couldnt see any other prospect. But her genuine humanity revealed earlier in the novel by the simple moving language of her movement of compassion for the suffering wretches with the walls of jail, is debased by the plot into the conventional clichs of cheap melodrama. Nancys education is countered almost at once by one of the great episodes of the novel. Though she worked for the thieves, she was kindhearted. She pretended to be Olivers sister and was asked to catch Oliver. But her deep heart was full of contradiction. When those thieves wanted to ask the dog to hurt Oliver, Nancy cried: “keep back the dog! Keep back the dog; he will tear the boy to pieces”. “Stand off from me, or Ill split your head against the wall” cried Sikes, “I dont care for that”, (Charles Dickens, 2002:152) screamed the girl, “the child shouldnt be hurt by the dog, unless you kill me first. When the Jew gave a heavy blow on Olivers shoulders with a club, and was raising for a second, when the girl rushing forward, took it by force from his hand and threw it into the fire, “youve got the boy and what more would you do? Let him be-Let him be. I wont stand by and see the poor boy be punished.” said Nancy. “Youre a nice one”. Sikes, as he looks at her contemptuously, “to take up all the good characters of humor beings. (Charles Dickens, 2002:154) This was Sikes judgment to Nancy. When Nancy was very young, she had been a thief for twelve years for them. She was drove on the street, and steal for Sikes. She suffered a lot, she worked for those thieves, but she had sympathy to the poor boy like Oliver Twist. Nancy was also a clever girl. She had promised that Oliver would be quiet and silent. What she had done is to prove that Oliver was honest and made them believe him. She tried her best to send massages to Rose, in every Sunday night, in the risk of losing life. Nancy had another personality. She was kind and true to her lover Sikes. When she met Rose, Rose said she could help her and asked her not to return to those thieves. Nancy said with tears in her eyes: “I must go back, becausebecause I cant leave one of them. He will die without me.” Miss Rose once again tried to persuade Nancy not to go back, but it is of no use doing so. Nancy insisted on going back to the man she loved. For Sikes, she could do anything. When Sikes wanted to kill her, she also said for Gods sake, for your own, and for mine, dont kill me, for I have been true to you.”(Charles Dickens, 2002:378) But at last, Nancy was dead, that was such a horrible scene to look at. She died in her lovers hand. Through these paragraphs, we saw that Nancy was an unlucky, nature, virtuous, brave, clever and kind girl. She had the complex feelings in her deep heart. Though she worked for those thieves, I think she was a kind girl .What she had done was forced by those thieves. She was guiltless.3.3 Analysis of FaginFagin was the leader of thieves group. He lived on stealing. He controlled many people. Oliver was one of them. When Oliver met Fagin for the first time, the Jew whose name was Fagin grinned and bowed to Oliver. He took him by the hand and said he was glad to make friends with Oliver. From here, we can see that Fagin was very hypercritic. Actually, he was glad not because of making friends with Oliver, but Oliver became a new member of thieves group.Fagin was a sensitive, sharp man. He is the strongest figure in the book certainly the most troubling. He is more figure than character, and more force than figure. He barely exists as an individualbarely needs to. We learn nothing about his interior life, we are not invited to see him as “three dimensional,” except, minimally, in the glittering chapter toward the end, 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 rights have they to butcher me” but this has little of the generalizing moral resonance of Shylocks “Hath not a Jew eyes?” Clever and cunning, with a talent for mimicking the moral axioms of the respectable world, Fagin is all of a piece, monolithic a creature of myth. He never rises to Shylocks tragic height. He never so much as becomes a character at all. Fagin is an emanation of historical myth, emblematic, immensely powerful. Having so created himor better yet, having so dredged him up out of the folk imaginationDickens had no need to worry about nuances of depiction.Because British parliament at that time announced a new poverty law, the Artful Dodger represented by Fagin appeared. The den was under the name of charity to exploit and victimize the poor. Fagin lived in the society of predominance of materialism and seized the opportunity to let the children who have no parents make money for him. Fagin was very lucky. When first met native Oliver, he acted as a gentleman so that Oliver thought him was a kind person and followed him to his den. After that he tried to train little Oliver as a thief and let him steal. However, Oliver learnt that he would be asked to rob, he was afraid of it. And he clasped his hands together and involuntarily uttered a subdued exclamation of horror. A mist came before his eyes; the cold sweat stood upon his ashy face, his limbs failed him; and he sank upon his knees and later, he said: “Oh! Pray have mercy on me, and do not make me steal.” Dickens make such a plot in order that he wanted to express himself would not be mixed into the corruption society. Fagin was very angry with Olivers cowardice and beat Oliver. Another time Oliver was asked again to rob, but Oliver did not please Fagin and was beaten again.Due to the poverty, Fagin went to ruin the young children. This leaded to a terrible and passive spirit in the society. However, many of criminal existed in that society, but it had still another good side.IV. The Social Significance of Dickens to Write Oliver TwistBy reading this novel, youll see that its not difficult to see that the three major characters leave a deep influence. Oliver was the center in this novel. His destiny was very miserable. When he was born, he lost his mother and he never knew who his father was. Wherever he was, he was always ignored. He was ever sent to workhouse, coffinmakers, he was caught by those thieves, the life in thieves group was terrible. He did what he wouldnt like to. But whatever the thieves ask him to do; he always kept his pure mind and kind heart. He wasnt influenced by environment; he kept his own opinions all the time. He was all the other peoples model. In the end, he received a good payment; he was adopted by an old gentleman. His experiences stood for all the underworld peoples destiny. He was a kind, brave, strong and likable boy. From his experiences, we know that the entire people underworld should learn how to resist, insist and protect ourselves, but not to fear and bow.Nancy was a member of thieves group, but she was innocent. When she was young, she was forced to steal for the thieves group. She did this job all for make living. Against that social background, if she didnt follow them, she would no road for live. But she has a complex inner world; she was also a kind girl. In order to help Oliver, she could send messages to Rose in the risk of losing life. Though Nancy was a thief and was Sikes lover, we had to admit she was a kind girl. She worked for them, but she held justice. She knew that how to protect and love others. She could distinguish what is good and what is bad. She helped Oliver a lot and left Oliver a great influence. All the people should learn from this type of people.Fagin stood for thieves in the novel. He was the leader of thieves group, and he controlled Oliver 、Nancy and other thieves. Exclude social background, the painful and grieved life of Oliver Twist、Nancy and other underworld people was caused by Fagin. Social atmosphere is a part of reason that caused his characteristics, but social problem is hard to solve. But in the same world and in the same period, why Nancy、Oliver and other people who held justice still keep their pure and kind mind. Fagin is the person who we should exclude. He was cruel and sharp. What he did tell us what ugly and darkness was. We should exclude this type of people. From these three major characters, we can see the miserable reality of London. It shows a social problem.4.1 The Social Ironic Significance on Oliver Twist4.1.1 A Realistic Picture of the People Living in the Bottom of the Society.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 Twists childhood in it. He gave realistic pictures of the horrible existence in workhouse.One of the important characteristics of Oliver Twist was the real and specific description of people who lived in the bottom of society. Her miserable lives, including all the details, gave the readers a real feeling: these were fictions. Also, it was the first time that many small potatoes appeared in English literature.The author depicted the cr