Oliver Twist introduction - conflict between Christian V/S Jew

Oliver Twist introduction - conflict between Christian V/S Jew

Introduction of Author - Charles Dickens

Charles John Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, was an English novelist and social critic. He created many most memorable fictional characters. He knew as the greatest novelist of the Victorian age or period. During his life, his works gave him name and fame. He was accepted as a novelist and writer by the critics and linguistics during those days. His novels and short stories become so popular. As a prolific 19th Century author of short stories, plays, novellas, novels, fiction and non-fiction, during his lifetime Dickens became known the world over for his remarkable characters, his mastery of prose in the telling of their lives, and his depictions of the social classes, mores and values of his times. He created some of the world's most memorable fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented fame, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was broadly acknowledged by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular. On 8 June 1870, on 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Droid. He never regained consciousness, and the next day, on 9 June, five years to the day after the Staplehurst rail crash, he died at Gad's Hill Place.

His creative works are:

The Pickwick papers

David Copperfield

Oliver Twist

A Tale of two cities

Great Expectations

Among his novels, here we are concerned with Oliver Twist, which is entitled as The Parish Boy's Progress and it is the second novel by major English novelist of the Victorian age. Oliver Twist is remembered for Dickens's unromantic portrayal of criminals and their social lives. The story deals with an orphan, Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker.

Introduction of Novel: - Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist is a novel which is written by famous English Author Charles Dickens. The novel is published by Richard Bentleyin in 1838. The story is about an Orphan child named Oliver Twist. He is protagonist. Oliver Twist endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes from workhouse. He travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Naïvely unaware of their unlawful activities, Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin.

This novel is a social novel; the book has dark side of society and evils of society. It has negative parts of society like child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations, and is the basis for a highly successful musical play and the multiple Academy Award winning 1968 motion picture made from it.

Bird view on the novel:

In this novel Oliver is an orphan child, who born in a workhouse in a small town near London in the early part of 19^th century. His mother died immediately after his birth. Nobody knows who she was. It was clear that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Oliver lived in a “Child Farm” and brought up here until he is 8 years old. At the age of eight the Parish official running the child farm decided that it is time to start working. So at the age of 8 years, an orphan child has to start working. Then Oliver also sends to work house. At the working house Oliver ask for more foods with famous quotation:

“Please sir, I want some more!”

            

  

At the orphan house Oliver made some misbehave, Oliver commits the unpardonable offense of asking for more food when he is close to starving. So the parish officials offer five pounds to anyone who is willing to take Oliver on as an apprentice. Here authority got some persons who wanted to, adopt him and took Oliver to his home.  Dickens characterizes Oliver as "a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of the board." The parish officials eventually send Oliver off with a coffin-maker. Here, At the coffin-maker’s shop, Oliver got good food, Good clothes and batter condition of living life. At the coffin-maker’s shop, Oliver is treated much better than he was at the workhouse or the child farm. The coffin-maker, Mr. Sowerberry, isn’t so bad, but his wife, Mrs. Sowerberry, and the other apprentice, Noah Claypole, have it in for Oliver from the start.  Noah told something bad about mother of Oliver, so he got angry and both of the fought. Oliver badly beat Noah. Oliver gets in trouble for knocking Noah down. After being abused some more, Oliver decides to set out for London on foot. Now Oliver ran away from that family and went to London. When he’s almost there, he runs into an odd-looking young man named Jack Dawkins. He Dodger buys him lunch and offers to introduce him to a "gentleman" in London who will give him a place to stay. Once in London, it quickly becomes clear to the reader that the Dodger and his friends are an unsavory bunch. Then Dodger introduces Oliver with Fagin. Fagin was a inhuman and cunning person. The old "gentleman," Fagin, trains kids to be pickpockets, and then he sells off what they steal. But Oliver doesn’t Realize what’s up until he’s actually out with the Dodger and another one of the boys, named Charley Bates. Oliver sees the pair steal the pocket handkerchief out of a nice-looking old man's pocket. When Oliver turns to run away, the nice-looking old man sees him run and yells, "stop, thief!" Oliver is tackled in the street, but by then the nice old man - his name is Mr. Brownlow has taken a better look at him.  He realized that Oliver looks too sweet and innocent to be a pickpocket. In fact, Oliver isn’t so much a pick-pocket as he is a very sick little boy. So Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver home and cares for him until he’s well. Unfortunately Fagin, the Dodger, Nancy (a prostitute), and Bill Sikes (another criminal) are worried that Oliver will rat them out to the police, so they keep a watch on Brownlow’s house.

One day, when Brownlow entrusts Oliver with some money and an errand to run in the city, Fagin and the criminals nab the poor kid once again. Nancy feels guilty and steps in to defend Oliver when Fagin tries to smack him around. Fagin keeps Oliver shut up in a dreary old house for weeks, all the while still trying to turn him into a criminal. How long can a Nine-year-old hold out?  Not long afterwards, Bill Sikes and another thief say they need a small boy to help them break into a house outside of London; Fagin volunteers Oliver. The plan goes awry when the servants of the house wake up and catch Oliver in the act of sneaking in. The servants don’t realize that Oliver is there against his will, and was actually about to wake up the household to warn them about the robbers. So poor Oliver takes a bullet and is left behind when the rest are all running away. Fortunately, Oliver is picked up by the people who shot him, a family that turns out to be as nice as Mr. Brownlow.  They become Oliver’s caretakers. Meanwhile, Fagin is at his wits’ end wondering what happened to Oliver. He lets slip that a mysterious man named Monks offered to pay him hundreds of pounds to corrupt the young boy. Nancy pretends not to know what’s going on, but secretly resolves to help Oliver, and to figure out why Monks is so keen on having Oliver turn to crime. While Fagin and the criminals distress, Oliver learns to read and write with his new friends, the Maylies. He's also reunited with his first friend, Mr. Brownlow. Fagin and his gang are still trying to track Oliver down. Monks has managed to get hold of – and destroy – one of the few surviving tokens of Oliver’s parentage. Nancy finds out about it and gets in touch with Rose Maylie to warn her about Monks’s plot with Fagin.

 Unfortunately for Nancy, Bill Sikes (her lover) finds out about it and brutally murders her. Sikes tries to escape, but he’s haunted by what he’s done. Eventually, he's killed while trying to escape from the police: he falls off a rooftop while he’s trying to lower himself down, and inadvertently hangs himself.  Meanwhile, Mr. Brownlow has managed to find Monks. Mr. Brownlow was an old friend of Monks’ father and knows all about him. As it turns out, Monks is actually the older half-brother of Oliver, and was trying to corrupt Oliver so that he’d secure the entire family inheritance himself. Monks chooses to admit to everything rather than face the police.  Oliver ends up with what’s left of his inheritance, is legally adopted by Mr. Brownlow, and lives down the road from the Maylies. Everybody lives happily ever after. Except for Fagin, who is arrested and hanged, and Monks, who dies in prison.

Those are important characters of Novel. Oliver is protagonist and centre character of the novel.

 Christian v/s Jew

The novel has an idea of Christianity and Jewish. At some extent writer has described Christianity as a superior and dark side of Christianity has been presented. He portrayed Jew in a negative connotation.               

Christianity: -

Christianity developed out of Judaism in the 1st century C.E. It is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who follow him are called "Christians." Christianity has many different branches and forms with accompanying variety in beliefs and practices. The three major branches of Christianity are (1) Roman Catholicism, (2) Eastern Orthodoxy, and (3) Protestantism, with numerous subcategories within each of these branches. Until the latter part of the 20th century, most adherents of Christianity were in the West, though it has spread to every continent and are now the largest religion in the world. Traditional Christian beliefs include the belief in the one and only true God, who is one being and exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the belief that Jesus is the divine and human Messiah sent to the save the world. Christianity is also noted for its emphasis on faith in Christ as the primary component of religion. The sacred text of Christianity is the Bible, including both the Hebrew Scriptures (also known as the Old Testament) and the New Testament. Central to Christian practice is the gathering at churches for worship, fellowship, and study, and engagement with the world through evangelism and social action.

Christianity "the anointed one", it is a religion based on the life and oral teachings of Jesus as presented in the New Testament. Christianity is the world's largest religion, known as Christians. Most Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, fully divine and fully human, and the savior of humanity whose coming was prophesied in the Old Testament. Consequently, Christians refer to Jesus as "Christ" or the Messiah.

Jew: - 

The people of Israel (also called the "Jewish People") trace   their origin to Abraham, who established the belief that there is only one God, the creator of the niverse. Abraham, his son itshak (Isaac), and grandson Jacob (Israel), are referred to as the patriarchs of the Israelites. All three patriarchs lived in the Land of Canaan, that later came to be known as the Land of Israel.

            The history of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of srael refers to the history of the Jewish people and Judaism in Eretz Yisrael. The first appearance of the name "Israel" in the historic record is an Egyptian inscription of c.1200 BCE which speaks of an ethnic group located in the northern part of the central highlands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan valley and south of Mount Carmel.

The term Jews in its original meaning refers to the people of the tribe of Judah or the people of the kingdom of Judah. The name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. Originally, the Hebrew term Jews Yehudi referred only to members of the tribe of Judah. Later, after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, the term Jews was applied for the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, as well as scattered settlements from other tribes

According to the simplest definition used by Jews for self-identification, a person is a Jew by birth, or becomes one through religious conversion. However, there are differences of opinion among the various branches of Judaism in the application of this definition, including.

Here writer Charles Dickens has shown the conflict and misrepresentation of Jew. The mentality of writer to present Christian as superior can reflect in all characters of novel, except Fagin. Here, Fagin is monstrous and devil person, who is representing as a character of Jew. So we can compare “FAGIN as MOGAMBO”. Because Fagin is highlighting cruelty of Jew through his did and life.  Here through the character, dickens has clearly shows the conflict between Christian V/S Jew.

Two main characters support the controversy of the novel. Mr. Bumble The pompous, self-important beadle - a minor church official - for the workhouse where Oliver is born. Though Mr. Bumble preaches Christian morality, he behaves without compassion toward the paupers under his care. Dickens mercilessly satirizes his self-righteousness, greed, hypocrisy, and folly, of which his name is an obvious symbol.  Bumble's character and makes him such a misguided, self-inflating ruler of his own corrupt underworld. He personifies the negative connotations of his name, namely, a state of confusion or a person who literally "bumbles." Dickens' characterization of the bumbling beadle as one defined by "official pomposity" and "fussy stupidity" and absorbed in a Bumble-centric world paints a satiric portrait of society's "bumbles," and illuminates the need to improve the situation of the poor.

Fagin is a conniving career criminal. Fagin takes in homeless children and trains them to pick pockets for him. He is also a buyer of other people’s stolen goods. He rarely commits crimes himself, preferring to employ others to commit them— and often suffer legal retribution - in his place. Dickens’s portrait of Fagin displays the influence of anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Dickens' Oliver Twist, which ultimately celebrates a protagonist who journeys from innocence to experience without capitulating to the evil forces that hinder his progress, addresses the pervasive problem of evil in society and human nature. Dickens presents two dimensions (Christian and Jew) evil in Oliver's world through the characters of Fagin, the old Jew, and         Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle. The novel's satire emerges as the reader connects Fagin's criminal underworld with Bumble's hypocrisy and selfish plaudits, both of which comprise the malaise of Victorian society exposed through Dickens' irony, sarcasm, and biting language.  Fagin and Bumble, who fester in their cages of evil motives, illustrate the omnipresence of evil in the novel, especially as it relates to the treatment of the poor, the exploitation of the innocent, and the corruption of society. By transferring Fagin's criminality to the selfish, hypocritical Bumble, an authority figure who should promote order and justice, he intensifies his satire on life and society under the Poor Laws of 1834. Bumble and Fagin cackle with delight as they exploit others ­ namely the vulnerable Oliver ­ in search of their self-serving goals. Both characters 

"glide stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways...

seem [ing] like some loathsome reptile[s], engendered in the slime and darkness through which [they] move."

The monstrous Fagin creeps out into "a maze of the mean and dirty streets" to find Sikes, who will attempt to mentor the young outcast in a life of crime. Fagin personifies humanity's evil, a satanic underside of the humble compassion exhibited in the novel's most virtuous characters, namely Mr. Brownlow and the Maylies. The way in which Fagin ensnares youths like the Artful Dodger, Charley Bates, and Oliver Twist for his own monetary benefits parallels the way in which Bumble exploits the rights of poor children who live in his workhouse in an attempt to increase his power. Dickens employs images of confinement and hopelessness in describing the Jew's odious headquarters of evil. The darkness of Fagin's lair extends the image of the harsh prison of Bumble's workhouse from which Oliver escaped. Within the novel's discourse on evil lies Dickens' satire on the situation of the poor caused by the Poor Laws, which Bumble upholds stringently until they ultimately render him a pauper in a scene of joyous irony. Dickens' language, namely words like "dirty," "mouldering," "closed," "gloomy “and” strange shadows" create a scene of festering unwholesomeness that transfers from the criminal underworld to the situation of society at large. The fact that the workhouse in which Oliver and other orphans find their only refuge resembles the stark nihilism of Fagin's underworld exposes the brutal mistreatment of society's poor at the hands of self-serving men like Bumble. While Fagin rejects moral and legal laws by indoctrinating adolescents in a life of thievery, Bumble violates the basic code of love and compassion upon which, in a moral sense, human nature rests. Where Bumble impedes Oliver's physical and emotional growth, Fagin, at his best, takes an invested interest in Oliver driven by potential monetary reward, while at his worst, exploits Oliver and endangers his life. He represents the temptation of evil dangled before the growing Twist, who must learn to overcome the attractiveness of criminal fraternity. Bumble, however, represents what happens when one succumbs to a life of greed and exploitation; he represents what Oliver will never become. Bumble and Fagin delight in their operations as officers of evil. Fagin's philosophy unfolds toward monetary incentives; Bumble's operates toward personal fulfilment gained by asserting power over paupers. Fagin's confrontation with Oliver on the night before his hanging complements Bumble's downfall, as he attempts to regain Oliver's honour and companionship and his former way of life governed by monetary pursuits. Dickens characterizes Fagin, who assumes "a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man," as a rabid beast, for the turnkey must hold him down, for "he [like a wild animal] grows worse as the time gets on."

Fagin is pretty clearly a bad guy. But the racial prejudice apparent in Dickens’s characterization of Fagin can make readers uncomfortable. Dickens often refers to him only as "the Jew," and a lot of Traditional racial stereotypes against Jewish people are used: he’s miserly, has red hair, and is a corrupter of children. Who knew Dickens was an anti-Semite? We have to back up for a moment here. For a long time people thought that Fagin was based on a real guy who sold stolen goods Fagin came along – the limited number of careers open to people of Jewish descent did indeed drive some Jewish people to illegal activity – but certainly the majority of criminals in London at Dickens’s time were still Christian. Dickens was really only a casual anti-Semite – no more prejudiced than most of his peers, and actually less so than most. But even knowing this, the level to which he allowed various anti-Jewish prejudices color his portrayal of Fagin still makes readers uncomfortable. The final chapter about Fagin (3.14: The Jew’s Last Night Alive) shows how alienated Fagin was from the rest of society. And not just from society, but from the entire human race. He’s in a crowded courtroom, and is surrounded "by a firmament all bright with beaming eyes". The crowd of people is reduced to this one feature: their "eyes". So Fagin is made into a spectacle, and his own sense of individual identity is totally squelched by their "inquisitive and eager eyes." In this scene, Fagin seems totally numb to what is happening to him, and he ends up watching what goes on in the courtroom "as any idle spectator might have done" (52.7). And later, when he looks into the crowd, "in no one face could he read the faintest sympathy with him". So Fagin is out of sympathy with the entire mob here – no one can identify with him.  And that’s not at all surprising, given how frequently he’s cast as sub-human, or rat-like, or demon-like..

In the book Oliver Twist, Christian people, who are people generally associated with good qualities; fail to demonstrate the quality of care, which non-Christian personages, generally considered evil, demonstrate. Christian people are considered virtuous people nevertheless in Oliver Twist; they practice unchristian behavior, while criminals such as Fagin demonstrate unchristian behavior and Christian behavior when it comes to caring for a fellow being. These criminals offer resources for personal use and impart great affection upon Oliver, a haracteristic normally attributed to Christian people. Oliver is visibly moved by the kindness received from the criminals; a kindness that was unprecedented in his childhood. The care bestowed upon Oliver Twist by Fagin, rivals and surpasses the care received by people who proclaim and taint the name “Christian”despite the fact that Fagin exemplifies murderous dispositions. As a non-Christian, Fagin and his collaborators, demonstrate the Christian quality, care, by caring for Oliver Twist, incurring a positive output of emotions from his charge. Fagin’s bestowal of excessive care for one of his character is represented by the sympathy for Fagin and his accomplices, incurred within Oliver, despite being inducted into Fagin’s criminal workings. This emotion occurs within Oliver despite the fact that he abhors crime and Fagin, whom he directs his positive emotions at, Commits what he abhors. The care bestowed upon Oliver surpasses the care received by Christian people such as Mrs. Sowerberry, which is unusual because neither Fagin, nor any of his comrades are Christian, but he demonstrates some aspects of typical Christian behavior that is not demonstrated by other Christians. Even more surprising is the impact of isolating Fagin, the Jew. When Oliver calls Fagin "The Jew! The Jew!” at the beginning of chapter 35, he not only "naturalizes his position in the middle class, with Mr. Brownlow, who also later privileges the term 'the Jew' over Fagin's name", he is also severing any link that might have existed between them. In a novel of doublings and splitting so full as to be representative of Dickens's fictional world-making, this epithet ensures that Fagin is alone.

Here, Charles Dickens - an English writer has clearly shown view and reflection of idea of “Christianity” and “Jew”. Through this novel writer penetrates the controversy between Christian and Jew and white people are indicated as superior than Jew.