Social Influences in Oliver Twist

Abstract：Oliver Twist is one of Charles Dickens’ most famous novels of critical realism.Through the contrast with the modern social reality, the paper discusses the enlightenment which we get from the novel. The paper also expounds the impact which the novel brings to the social development, including negative and progressive influences. Finally, a conclusion is drawn that Oliver Twist has a far-reaching social influence.

Key words:Oliver Twist;Victorian Age; Social Reality;Social Influence

Ⅰ.Social Influences in Oliver Twist Introduction

Oliver Twist, subtitled The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The hero of this novel was Oliver Twist, an orphan, who was thrown into a world full of poverty and crime. He suffered enormous pain, such as hunger, thirst, beating and abuse. Dickens specifically showed the terrible life of the people at the bottom of society in this novel.

Oliver Twist was a serious literary which contains many social problems existing in Victorian Age. As Oliver Twist was a social novel, it tried to call the public’s attention to various contemporary evils, including the Poor Law. This novel was set in the time when the Poor Law which stated that poor people should work in workhouse, child labor and the recruitment of children as criminals had just passed.

In Oliver Twist, Dickens mixed realism and merciless satire into one way to depict the effects of industrialism on 19th century in England and to criticize the bitter Poor Law. In the novel, Dickens also attacked the hypocrisy and flaws of institutions, including the society’s government, the laws and criminal system and their ways to deal with poor people. Meanwhile, Dickens points out the sorrow inflicted by those systems and their deep injustice.

At the same time, Oliver Twist’s social influence was very significant for the people who live in the modern society of 21st century. Therefore, this paper mainly talks about the social problems and social influence of Oliver Twist through the deep analysis of social reality in Victorian and modern society. Ⅱ. Social Influence in the Novel

A.Negative Influence reflected in the Novel

Although the Great Britain became the most stronger nation after the Industrial Revolution on the surface, but there were many social problems at the same time. In the Oliver Twist, Dickens showed two major social problems: money-worship and hypocrisy. Money- worship was very prevailing at that time. In this respect, Fagin, the monster in Oliver Twist, was the representative of money-worship. Fagin was an Jewish immigrant and because of the laws of this country at that time, which Jews weren’t able to hold property, he had to became a criminal and a corrupter of young children in order to survive. Fagin represented the under class in London in the 1830s. He stole and robbed, and he even trained a number of children to stole money and precious goods for him. Without regarding these children’s spiral world, Fagin forced them to commit crime again and again. What is worse, Fagin tried to make stealing to become their career. These experiences forced these poor children to submerge in the dark life. In the novel, people even ignore the value of lives when facing the enticement of money. For example, Fagin tried all kinds of ways to escape being caught, even if once he hurt his fellow friends Nancy. In the novel, little Oliver lived a terrible life since he was born, but dramatically he was adopted by a rich man later. The contrast

between the two different lives made more people think that money is God and money is almighty. Money-worship controlled people’s mind and make them become followers of money. Everyone envied a rich life and they were greedy in nature.

Hypocrisy was also very prevailing at that time. After Oliver was born, he had no parents. He was sent into a domestic church where he had a life of hardship and misfortune. Superficially, the church was an institution with kind and would like to help the poor people. But in fact, the church treated the poor children like labors, they gave the children little to eat and often beat them. Their hypocrisy was exposed completely to the readers. In the novel, Dickens depicts the terrible life of the children in the church like this, “ every day the poor children only had a bowl of porridge, except in the special festival they could be given bread, the children’s bowl did not need to scrub, for they could eat each drop of the porridge, after that, their eyes turned to the hearth, as though to eat the bricks there.”People working in the church put constant oppression on the vulnerable children, which made the poor children can’t fine lights before the dawn in reality. As we all known, love is the most beautiful thing in the world and it represented loyalty and honest. But in

the story, Dickens showed us that there was hypocrisy even in the beautiful love. For example, Nancy and Sikes were in love with each other in the novel. While they became selfish immediately when they faced difficulties and the enticement of money. Gradually, they doubted each other. And they were separated by hypocrisy finally. At that time, poor children lived a tragic life and suffered from hunger and abuse. Among them Oliver Twist was the luckiest one as he was finally adopted by a kind person. In Oliver Twist, Dicke- ns exposed the social problems which concealed in the society and told us that money-worship and hypocrisy always existed. By desc-

ription of the lower class in Britain, Dickens tried to arouse people’s sympathy for the poor people of the lower class. B. Progressive Influence to the development of society Oliver Twist was like a mirror lit up every corner of the British, revealed the social darkness and inequality in capitalism. Thus it had a great progressive significance to the development of

society. Because of the social reform, social problems had been im-

proved to some extend. In modern society, Britain has

become a nation of social welfare with the rapid development of economy. It is one of the earliest countries that established social security system in the form of legislative and it is also a typical high welfare state. After WWⅡ, Britain has issued a series of social security acts, such as the social insurance, social relief, social benefits. All these acts have ensured people’s basic rights. Besides, there are all kinds of charity and church organizations to those in needing support. As to the labors, their rights can get well protection and respect due to the overall development of the economy and society. And for the working class, their working and living condition all have improved and they have much more rights than before.

While many great changes have happened in Britain, the gulf between the rich and the poor still exist. The orphans still suffer from hunger and thirst and have no education. Therefore, Oliver Twist still have very deep reference influence in today’s social problems.

First, to recover the nature of goodness which Dickens praised in Oliver Twist. Francis Bacon said in his essay, “ Goodness, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity, and without it , man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of

vermin.”Nowadays, young children often lack persistence and confidence to overcome difficulties. They are always protected by their parents and couldn’t bear failure. But if young people want to overcome problems in the future, they need a brave heart. Just like the old saying says, “Failure is the mother of success.” Everyone should learn from Oliver’s kindness, persist- ence and confidence.

Nowadays, as people have experienced many cheating, people barely trust each other. If things go on like this, our society will lead to a doom day. So education is the most important weapon for changing these things and it is the most important factor on the dev-

elopment of one country. Political stability and economic prosperity both seems to have connect with education. So the government should improve the education policies to ensure that every child has an equal right to go to school and a serious of laws should be issue-

d to protect their educational rights.

Children attend school at an early age and are taught to learn many kinds of things. Among them moral education should be the most important. As the society is full of enticement of money, peo-

ple don’t believe the existence of the goodness in humanity. People are turning greedy, hypocrisy, selfishness and darkness in their heart. What is worse, the distance between people is becoming more and more far away.

Oliver Twist also call our attention that man is created equal. In the novel, the lower class were looking upon by the upper class, they barely had right in economy and politics. While nowadays, this condition has changed a lot through the government’s efforts. Tod-

ay’s China is a little bit like the Britain at that time: fast growth in economy and sharp contradiction between the rich and the poor. Here a large number of lessons can be drawn for the novel and our government should take measures to improve the rights of people, especially working people.

In general, Oliver Twist is a signal novel in all the literary works. It not only guides people, who live in the modern society, to keep away from crime and to be a good man at any time. Oliver Twist indeed educates people and has a great social influence to so-

ciety both in and abroad.