ThreeReflectionsonOliverTwist《雾都孤儿》三映像分析

1、Three Reflections onOliver Twist雾都孤儿三映像Abstract: Oliver Twist, as a great novel of English critical realism, is a powerful exposure of the capitalism and it reveals deeply about the situation of society in the 1830s. In the novel, the descriptions of the social background and the characters have the

2、ir own meanings and connotations. An analysis of the Poor Law and the ineffectiveness of charitable institutions associated with the social situation of that time and the incorruptibility of goodnesson the protagonist are made in this paper. Also discussed in this paper is the anti-Semitism that was

3、 indicated when the author created the character“Fagin”in the novel. And the main purpose of the paper is to get some further understanding of the novel.Key Words: Oliver Twist；Charles Dickens；The Poor Law; goodness; anti-Semitism摘 要: 雾都孤儿 是一部伟大的英国现实主义作品， 它有力地揭示了英国十九世纪三十年代的社会现状。 小说中，不论是对时代背景的选材还是个中人

4、物形象的描写都赋予了其自身的意义和内涵， 它不但体现了与当时社会现状相联系的贫民法和低工作效率的慈善机构的缺陷， 而且还对主人公的人性善良做了大量描写。本文将对这两方面及作者在塑造 “费金 ”这一人物形象时所体现出来的自身的反犹主义倾向做出分析， 以期达到对作品以及其背景有一个更深层次的了解与掌握。关键词 :雾都孤儿；查尔斯 ?狄更斯；贫民法；善良；反犹主义Contents1.The author, the story and the social background11.1Main content of the story11.2Charles Dickens the author of

5、Oliver Twist21.3The social background of the 1830s in England32. Three reflections on Oliver Twist42.1The ineffectiveness of charitable institutions and the Poor Law42.2The incorruptibility of goodness62.3The authors anti-Semitism73.Conclusion8Bibliography9Acknowledgement101. The author, the story a

6、nd its social backgroundCharles Dickens is a famous English writer as we know and his novels are popular with a lot of readers. His massive work, Oliver Twist, is one of his masterpieces. It is a story about an orphan, but it is not a simple novel at all. The long piece of fiction reveals deeply the

7、 English society in the 1830s. Reading the novel, we cannot only have an enjoyment of reading, but an enjoyment of the spirit. On the surface, the novel is not a very difficult one, but the great author has the ability to contribute a lot to its themes, making it more profound than just an interesti

8、ng story.1.1 Main content of the storyOliver Twist was born in the lying-in room of a parochial workhouse about 75miles north of London. His mothers name was unknown. She had been found unconscious on the roadside, exhausted by a long journey on foot, and she died leaving as the only token of her ch

9、ilds identity a locket and a ring. But the old woman, Sally, a pauper present at her death, stole these. Oliver spent his first nine years in a badly run home for young orphans and then is transferred to a workhouse for adults. Bumble, the parish beadle, gave the little boy a nameof Oliver“ Twist ”i

10、n the order ofan alphabetical system he had devised. In the workhouse, after the other boys bullied Oliver into asking for a second serving of porridge at the end of a meal, Mr. Bumble offered five pounds to anyone who could take the boy away from the Parish. Oliver narrowly escaped being apprentice

11、d to a brutish chimneysweeper and was eventual apprenticed to a local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. When the undertakers otherapprentice, Noah Claypole, made disparaging comments about Oliver s mother, Oliver attacked him and incurred the Sowerberrys wrath. At that night, Oliver bundled up his meagre

12、belongings and started out for London.In a London urban, Oliver, starved and exhausted, met Jack Dawkins, sharp-witted slum pickpocket, who was known as Artful Dodger, offered Oliverlodgings in the city, and Oliver soon found himself in the midst of a gang of thieves. The head of the gang was an old

13、 Jew, Fagin, and the other chief members were the burglar, Bill Sikes and his mistress Nancy, also the Artful Dodger. Then every effort was made to convert Oliver into a thief. On his first mission he was caught and taken to the police station. Here he was rescued by kindly Mr. Blownlow, the man who

14、se pocket Oliver was accused of having pocketed. He took the feverish Oliver to his home and nurses him back to health. Mr. Blownlow was stricken by Oliver s resemblance to a portrait of a young woman that hanging in his house. But one day, Oliver was kidnapped by Nancy and Sikes on the way when he

15、was given some money and books to take to a bookseller. Once more Oliver was in the hand of Fagin. During his absence the gang had been studying a house in Chertsey, west of London,and were preparing for breaking into it at night.Unfortunately, Oliver was chosen to participate. He and Bill Sikes, wi

16、th another housebreaker, went on the burgling expedition, in course of which he received gun-shot wound, and came into the hands of Mrs. Maylie and her protege Rose, by whom he was treated kindly. And Oliver spent an idyllic summer with them in the countryside. But Fagin and a mysterious man named M

17、onks who had somehow a special interest in keeping Oliver in the gang were set on recapturing Oliver. When the Maylies came to London, Nancy met secretly with Rose and told Rose everything she had heard concerning Oliver. But Fagin discovered Nancysaction and told it to Sikes, who, in a fit rage, mu

18、rdered her and fled London. Apprehended, Monks confessed to Mr. Brownlow the plot against Oliver. Oliver s father had married a woman older than him and after several years of unhappiness, the couple separated. Later he fell in love with Oliver smother, but before their marriage, he had to go to Rom

19、e because one of his old friends died. But he himself felt sick in Rome and died, his former wife seized his papers. Then Monks, who was Oliver s half-brother, tried his best to stop Oliver to share the family inheritance. Mr. Brownlow forced Monks to sign over Olivers share to Oliver. Moreover, it

20、was discovered that Rose was Olivers aunt, his mothers younger sister. After Fagin and the Artful Dodger had been seized, Bill Sikes hanged himself accidentally with the rope he was using as a means of escape. Fagin was hanged publicly, too.Rose, at last married Mrs. Maylie s son, Harry Maylie. Mr.

21、Brownlow adopted Oliver and lived with the Maylies in the countryside. Monks died in prison. Oliver s years of hardship and unhappiness were at an end.1.2 Charles Dickensthe author of Oliver TwistCharles Dickens, regarded as the most popular writer of his day, was the model writer of the Victorian t

22、ime, for his works combined realistic and social criticism with comedy and romantic sentiment. That is to say,“the greatest of all English novelists is Charles Dickens. His range of imagination, his characterization, his descriptive powers, his commentary on life and society, his humor and satire, a

23、nd his narrative skill, set him among the best story-sellers in the world. ”(Baverly Ann Chin ，Denny Woife 2000:804) The man, who was to become great portrayer of child life, had a sad, painful childhood. He was born in 1812 at Landport, a district of the city of Portsmouth, Hampshire, where his fat

24、her was a clerk in the Nary Pay Office. When he was about four years old, his family moved to Chatham, and the five yeas he spent there were the happiest of all his boyhood. In 1821 the Dickens family moved to a poor quarter in London. Mr. Dickens was heavily in debt and did not know which to turn f

25、or money. Finally Mr. Dickens was taken to the Marshalsea Prison, London, for debt. Then Dickens smother and his siblings eventually joined his father. Meanwhile,the 12-year-old Charles, because hisfamily sdire straits forced him to quit school and went to work in an underground cellar at a blacking

26、 factory in the morning and ended at eight at night. His job was pasting labels on bottles. This was the unhappiest time of all his life. He was lonely and hungry. He felt his early hope of growing up to be a learned and famous man crushed in his heart. After inheriting some money, Mr. Dickens got o

27、ut of prison and Charles returned to school. As a young adult, he worked as a law clerk and later as a journalist. His experience as a journalist kept him in close contact with the darker social conditions of the Industrial Revolution, and he grew disillusioned with the attempts of lawmakers to alle

28、viate those conditions.At this time Dickens wrote a number of little sketches of “cockney characters”. He signed them “Boz”, which was his nickname for his young brother. His first book, Sketches by Bozappeared in 1836, earned him recognition as a writer. His first long novel, Pickwick Papers, which

29、 was published in 1837, was a novel with the life of contemporary English society. Then came to theOliver Twist , which told the story of an orphan boy, and his adventures provided a description of the lower depths of London. Dickens was a fruitful author, and at least 20 works were created during h

30、is writing career.1.3 The social background of the 1830s in EnglandSince the Industrial Revolution in the second half of the 18 th century, the class structure in English society had undergone radical changes. The industrial capitalists began to play a more important role and vied for political powe

31、r with the old aristocracy. Due to the support of the people, this struggle for power ended in the victory of the bourgeoisie over the aristocracy. With the development of capitalism, there arose a powerful working class, though the conflict between labor and capital was for some time the background

32、 of the struggle between the feudal and the bourgeois class. But from the thirties of the 19th century, the struggle between the workers and capitalists became the fundamental contradiction in English social life. Now England became a typical capitalism country. Having consolidated its position at h

33、ome, the British bourgeoisie strengthened its policy of colonial expansion in all parts of the world, successively competing for markets with other powerful countries of the world. So England was experiencing the aggravation of the struggle between the workers and the capitalists both at home and ab

34、road. In spite of the parliamentary reform in 1832, the living conditions of the workers did not grow better but became steadily worse. In order to solve the problem of Pauperism, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 abolished out-doors relief and parochial responsibility which were often corrupt and

35、insufficient in administration. The system of workhouses that already obtained in London was applied to the whole country. In lieu of the compulsory, unpaid services of citizens in the different localities, full-time salaried civil servantswere employed in each workhouse. The ignorance, incapacity,

36、and heartlessnessof many of these employees moved Dickens and other writers to bitter satire; but the new policy was a change in the right direction. The new law, though an advance upon the old methods of dealing with pauperism, was enforced with a grim Benthamism rigidity and impersonality that cau

37、sed needled suffering and humiliation. The picture of Oliver Twist is of the typical workhouse in the years before experience and protests introduced ameliorating modifications in the constantly hanging over the head of the laboring man, was one cause of the social unrest of the time.During the year

38、s after 1832, the major contradiction in the political area became more definitely between labor and capitalist. The years between 1832and the early50ssaw an important series of events known as the Chartist Movement, which was as Lenin said, “the first broad, really mass, politically formed, proleta

39、rian revolutionary movement.”(Wu Weiren 1998:151) And it appeared first in London and then spread to the passage of the new Poor Law of 1834, the system of workhouses was applied to the whole country to make provisions for the poor. The corn Laws made bread too expensive for the poor, and then inten

40、sified exploitation of men, women and even children were reflected in the people s having to work long hours at low wages. All these led to the demand of the workers for social justice and a better life.In order to reflect the situation of that era, the critical realists described with much vividnes

41、s and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalism from a democratic viewpoint. The greatest English realist of the time was Charles Dickens. With striking force and truthfulness, he created pictures of bourgeois civilization, describing the misery and s

42、ufferings of the common people.2. Three reflections on Oliver Twist2.1 The ineffectiveness of charitable institutions and The Poor LawOliver Twist opens with a bitter invective directed at the 19th century English poor laws and it was a distorted manifestation of the Victorian middle classs emphasis

43、 on the virtues of hard work. As Guo Qunying says, “It is a powerful exposure of the bourgeois society and it shows the extreme brutality and corruption of the oppressors and their agents under the mask of philanthropy. (2001:193) England in the 1830s was rapidly undergoing a transformation from an

44、agricultural, rural economy to an urban, industrial nation. The growing middle class had achieved an economic influence equal to, if not greater than, that of the British aristocracy. In the 1830s, the middle class clamored for a share of political power with the landed gentry, bringing about a rest

45、ructuring of the voting system. Parliament passed the Reform Act, which granted the right to vote to previously disenfranchised middle-class citizens. The middle-class was eager to gain social legitimacy. This desire gave rise to theevangelical religious movement and inspired sweeping economic and p

46、olitical change. In the extremely stratified English class structure, the highest social class belonged to the “gentleman”, an aristocrat who did not have to work for his living. The middle class was stigmatized for having to work, and so, to alleviate the stigma attached to middle-class wealth, the

47、 middle-class promoted work as a moral virtue.But the resulting moral value attached to work, along with the middle classs insecurity about its own social legitimacy, led English society to subject the poor to hatred and cruelty. Many members of the middle class were anxious to be differentiated fro

48、m the lower classes, and one way to do so was to stigmatize the lower classes as lazy good-for-nothings. The middle classs value system transformed earned wealth into a sign of moral virtue. Victorian society interpreted economic success as a sign that God favored the honest, moral virtue of the suc

49、cessful individual s efforts, and, thus, interpreted the condition of poverty as a sign of the weakness of the poor individual. The sentiment behind the Poor Low of 1834 reflected these beliefs. The law allowed the poor to receive public assistance only if they lived and worked in established workho

50、use. Begging carried the punishment of imprisonment. Debtors were sent to prison, often with their entire families, which virtually ensured that they could not repay their debts. Workhouse was deliberately made to be as miserable in order to deter the poor from relying in public assistance.The philo

51、sophy was that the miserable conditions would prevent able-bodied paupers from being lazy and idle bums. In the eyes of middle-class English society, those who could not support themselves were considered immoral and evil. Therefore, such individuals should enjoy no comforts or luxuries in their rel

52、iance on public assistance.In order to create the misery needed to deter immoral idleness, families were split apart upon entering the workhouse. Husbands were permitted no contact with their wives, lest they should breed more paupers. Mothers were separated from children, lest they impart their imm

53、oral ways to their children. Brothers were separated from their sisters because the middle-class patrons of workhouse feared the lower classs“natural”inclination incest. (Philip W. Goetz 1985:603)In short, the State undertook to become the surrogate parents of workhouse children, whether or not they

54、 were orphans. Moreover, meals served to workhouse residents were deliberately inadequate, so as to encourage the residents to find work to support themselves. The workhouse was supposed to demonstrate the virtue of gainful employment to the poor. In order to reserve public assistance, they had to p

55、ay in suffering and misery. And Dickens meant to demonstrate this incongruity through the figure of Oliver Twist , an orphan born and raised in a workhouse for the first ten years of his life. His story demonstrated the hypocrisy of the petty middle-class bureaucrats, who treated the small children

56、cruelly while voicing their belief in theChristian virtue of giving charity to the less fortunate. (Wang Shimin1984: 228-233) Dickens was a lifelong champion of the poor. He himself suffered the harsh abuse visited upon the poor by the English legal system.In England in the 1830s, the poor truly had

57、 no voice, political or economic. In Oliver Twist, Dickens presents the everyday existence of the lowest menders of English society. He goes far belong the experience of the workhouse, extending his depiction of poverty to Londons squalid streets, dark alehouses, andthieves dens. He gives voice to t

58、hose who had no voice, establishing a link between politics and literature with his social commentary. So much of the first part of Oliver Twist challenges the organizations of charity run by the church and government in Dickenss time. The system Dickens describes was put into place by the Poor Law

59、of 1834, which stipulated that the poor could only receive government assistance if they moved into government workhouse. Furthermore, as Dickens describes with great sarcasm the greed, laziness, and arrogance of charitable workers like Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Corney. In general, charitable institutions

60、 only reproduced the awful conditions in which the poor would live anyway. As Dickens puts it, the poor choose between “being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick out of it. ”(Charles Dickens 1963:9)2.2 The incorruptibility of goodnessOn the surface, Dickens appears to be using O