Isabelle Buerger

Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens

Political/Historical Fiction

“Despised by all, and pitied by none”, Oliver Twist is an orphaned pauper boy forced to live under the living conditions chosen for him by the middle-class of Victorian England. Written from the third person point of view, the book draws the reader into the pages and allows them to experience Oliver's twisted, cruel and complicated life along with him. Some 70 miles north of London in an unnamed village, a small boy is born into a world of hate with little kindness to make light. Wrapped up in a blanket Oliver could be the child of a nobleman or a beggar, but as his mother dies quickly after giving birth, the little boy is marked by fate as an orphan. Growing up around hypocritical and selfish caretakers, Oliver makes his escape from the village at around the age of 10 and begins his long journey to the city of London where someone will surely take pity on a little pauper. Through his misadventures (finding himself stuck in the middle of a band of criminals) Oliver makes the acquaintance of Mr. John Dawkins also known as The Artful Dodger, the 'merry old gentleman' known as Fagin, a moralistic prostitute called Nancy, kind Mr. Brownlow, and the caring Maylie Family.

Charles Dickens truly writes in a way that reached into my heart and evoked many emotions in it like anger, sadness, gratitude, happiness, and frustration, all the while making me feel gut-wrenchingly terrible for the greatly mistreated lower-class of Victorian society. In fact, the book creates such a vivid and real image of the starved and deprived children, that I had to set the book down at one point, because I could simply not stop crying. At times I found Oliver Twist incredibly captivating and I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, wanting to know what the next chapter would bring. However there were also sections that were a bit of a slower read, and took my full concentration to comprehend. Even though there were times where I had to motivate myself with cookies to read the book, I still thoroughly enjoyed every step of the way, because it was an eye-opener to me about how the cries for help were muffled and muted and opinions and ideas were privileges meant for the wealthy.

Because Oliver Twist is very complex and has many themes and ideas, I would recommend this book to those people who are interested in history- particularly the Victorian Era- and for classroom reading and analyzing. For leisure reading, I would suggest it to the more motivated and intrigued person, rather than someone who reads for thrill and action, due to the era the book was written in.