Oliver Twist: Charles Dickens

I had forgotten how much I enjoy Dickens, the sarcasm in this book made it very humorous. Dickens’ exposes the state of the poor in English society by following the life of an orphaned boy, Oliver Twist. The poor child can't seem to catch a break and when he does it is short lived enough to seem cruel. He gets glimpses of love and then they are taken away. There is a bit of stereotyping and racism against the "Jew" who keeps kidnapping Oliver. There aren't really evil villains in this story, everyone is pretty much characterized as human, some are just hardened and immoral based on what life has thrown at them at least that is what we are meant to believe. I especially liked the character of the kid selling soap/stain remover when he meets with Sikes. That section hit me as particularly clever. Sikes had blood on his hat from murdering Nancy and the seller alludes that his product could take it out and lists what the stain could be in a poetic chant. The book was extremely sad, but did have an uplifting ending where everyone seemed to be intertwined and many ended up being related. Oliver went from being an abused orphan to inheriting his father's fortune. The story of Oliver's birth would still have been scandalous at the time, but the narrator states several times that the boy shouldn't be blamed for it- and all ends well. I can't imagine being the reader when this story was first published in the paper. They had to wait a month for each chapter. Talk about suspense, I don't think today's crowd would have the patience.