Ch. Dickens. Oliver Twist Реферат

Introduction. The novel “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” was first published from 1837 to 1839 in the magazine “Bentley’s Miscellany”. This is the second novel by Charles Dickens, which belongs to the early period of the writer's work.

The novel combines two themes: the eternal theme of childhood and the concrete historical theme of the life of poor children in English society in the first half of the XIX century.

The problem of the work is the question of the relationship between the individual and society. The answer to it and the artistic idea of the novel is the idea that the world around a person has a huge impact on the formation of personality: both positive and negative. Based on this, the concrete historical aspect of the topic should be considered as a means of revealing this idea.

Main body. The plot of the novel tells about the fate of a young orphan, a nine-year-old boy Oliver Twist, who was born in a workhouse. The workhouse in England of the XIX century – a shelter for the poor, characterized by a strict regime, close to prison. In the novel, the workhouse is one of the reflections of a "negative society", where profit is placed above the individual. For example, Mrs. Mann, who has a farm on her payroll – a branch of the workhouse for children under nine – prefers to keep most of the daily allowance for children. The result of this approach is that" in eight and a half cases out of ten " children are killed, and the fact that their death occurred through an oversight is carefully concealed in order to avoid trouble with the court [4].

In this respect, the images of people that Oliver meets on his way in the first chapters are interesting. Mr. Gamfield, the chimney-sweep, relishes the details of his abuse of the boys stuck in the chimneys; Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, echoes Bumble-beadle, indignant with him at the indignation of a poor man whose wife has died of ill-treatment; finally, one of the orphans of the workhouse, poor dying Dick, is refused his last request: to send his farewell greetings to Oliver Twist.