Assignment paper 6 Victorian Literature
Topic :the Parish boy's progress the
evolvolving form of Oliver Twist
Prepared: by Sima Rathod
Batch: 2019-21
Email Id:rsima144@gmail.com
I
Oliver Twist was first published in 1837 in
serial format in Bently's Misscellency which Dickens was editing at that time
Oliver Twist was Dickens second novel and his first real social novel
criticizing the harm public institution inflicted on the poor Dickens would
come to be known at the master of this form and would continue in Nicholas Nickleby which you would write while still working on Oliver Twist the novel
tells the story of Oliver young orphan raised in a workhouse 70 Miles outside
of London who runs away and finds himself taken in by thieves it was written
particularly in relation to the poor law amendment act of 1834 which among
other things essentially took the rights of citizenship away from purpose who
were entered in workhouses and forfeited their political rights in
order to receive aid.
The Parish boy's progress the revolving form
of Oliver Twist :
The subtitle of Oliver Twist the Parish boy's
progress indicates that Dickens intended Oliver story to be representative of a
General pattern the novel begins in the kind of a realistic milieu appropriate
to such a concern but by the time of the closing chapters when the mystery of Oliver's birth has been revealed and his Fortune restored he has certainly
ceased to be a typical Parish boy and the novels realism has been displaced by
the strategist sort of a melodrama along the way Dickens repeatedly violates
conventions and consistency mixing beating satire and insipid pathos
naturalistic detail & table realistic characters and theoretical stereotypes
coherent plotting and extra Wagon coincidences tensely impassioned dialogues
and vapid moralistic platitude. Modern critics have generally agreed that the
novice moments of unquestionable inside and power never be together because of
its incoherent thought and form the basic problems have long been established
Oliver Twist is inconsistent in theme and conception of character divided into
the two symbolically in-congruent words of city and countryside and marred by
the melodramatic entanglement of the plot these difficulties are indeed present
but it is there enter place is the novel develops that is crucial to is
problematic form.
Dickens progressively Transformers the controlling conventions of Oliver
Twist during the course of the novel to explore deeply rooted more retention
involving Innocence and the law. The Apparent domestic and symbolic confusion
is actually a progressive transformation of the novice mode of Representation
Oliver Twist begins in one kind of reality and ends in another because Dickens
is struggling through out to evolve or narrative mode to render the
compositions of his imagination and the truth about his society is referred to
assimilate the journalistic accuracy of observation of the sketches by Bose and
the emerging social consigns of Pickwick papers into the standard framework of
the nuget novel forces him to wrestle with the fundamental conversation by
which character action and the social world become meaningful in fiction. He labors to create a new kind of novel expressly to reveal and undiscovered
truth the former problem that he Encounters are rooted in deeply felt moral
conflicts both public and personal.
The public and personal conflicts are revealed in the troubled
ambivalence of Dickens portrayal of the criminal Underworld and his creative about the relationship between the themes and the society on which
they pray. In his preface to the third edition in 1841. Dickens himself
addresses the Apparent contradictions and inconsistencies in his depiction of
the themes and his remarks verify the central tensions in the ideas and
attitudes underline the novels form he answers that charges of coarseness and
acceleration that had been raised against his presentation of the Thieves by insisting
on the the verisimilitude of his description. "It was my attempt to dim
the false glitter surrounding something which really did exist by shewing it in
all its an attractive and repulsive truth". But Dickens does not defend
the truthfulness of his Art on the basis of its natural lipstick accuracy alone
find the value of the truth represent in its moral purpose" I wish to
shew in little Oliver the principle of
good surviving through every adverse circumstances and trumping at last."
This makes the novels nominal protagonist an allegorical figure rather than a
real boy he is tested morally have a not bi a set of allegorical wise is but by
or not of such associates in crime as really did exist Dickens defines the
opposite forces of the novel as the principle of good and the miserable reality
of Evil and the conflict of good and evil in the novel is also enacted as a
conflict in its mode of Representation Oliver and the thieves represent
incommensurate kinds of reality and opposed standards of truth and the implicit
tension between moralizing principle and naturalistic reality generous the
inconsistencies in theme and characterization realism truth of observation is
subordinated to truth of perfect just as in the development of the novel The
realistic representation of the thieves is contained within the moral fable of
the triumph of good.
Inconsistencies become coherent when seen as stages in the reorientation
and development of narrative form within the evolving context of the Parish
boy's progress the opening chapters bitterly explore the extent to which human
nature can be hardened and corrupted by an oppressed society, gradually dispatch the moral tension in Dickens presentation of the thieves
progressively polarized the novels value and lead to an imaginative impasses
Halfway through. With the introduction of the Maylies,as James Kincaid has
pointed out the novel shift its Grounds to a simplistically defined good and
bad but idealize goodness quickly proves vulnerable the simply stick morality
that briefly dominates in the countryside chapters is sheltered by Rose's
sickness when Dickens returns from the countryside to the city in the whirlwind
final third of the novel his suppress the sympathy with the Underworld
characters to re invigorate the powerful issues of the opening chapters and the
complete the typical pattern that was previously abandoned while the plot is
given to over to Brownlow monks and discovery of Oliver's Identity Dickens
structuring of the action submersible reveals the hidden similarity between the
boy and the thieves and the narrative mode he was to discover their common
inner humanity the Parish boy's progress and at the gallows but Fagin takes Oliver's place there.
Conclusion:
As a child hero of a melodrama critic
novel of social protest Oliver Twist is meant to appeal Mostly our sentiments
than two hour literary sensibilities on many levels Oliver is not a believable
character because all the he is raised in corrupt surroundings is bitter and
virtue are absolute throughout the novel Dickens uses 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 wise at the
same time Oliver's incorruptibility undermines some of Dickens assertions
Oliver is shocked and horrified when he sees the Artful Dodger(Jack Dawkins )and Charlie Bates pick-pocketing strangers pocket and again when he is forced to participate in a
burglary. The process of inclusion that leads to the capture of the things and
Wagons final imprisonment also become the organizing principle of the
progression of time and space in the closing chapters , the death of Nancy ,the
revelation of Oliver's true identity, the adoptions of Oliver constructed a
well established plot which aptly leads readers to the simple and moral end of
the story or one can say the Parish Boy's progress through Hard Times to an
glorious and Happy ending.
Work Cited :
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Oliver
Twist.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web. 7 Mar. 2020.
Lankford, William T. “‘The Parish Boy's Progress’:
The Evolving Form of Oliver Twist.” PMLA, vol. 93, no. 1, 1978, pp. 20–32.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/461817. Accessed 7 Mar. 2020.
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