Oliver twist, a fairy tale in modern times

In many works of the celebrated authors in the nineteenth century Critical Realism seem to relive the image of Englishsociety at that time.. All these things are deeply expressed in ''Ol

Vinh university

foreign languages department

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graduation thesis

oliver twist, a fairy tale in modern times

Supervisor: Tran ngoc tuong (M.A)

Student: Le thu thao

Class: 41A 1

Course: 2000 - 2004

Vinh - 2004

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First of all ould like to express my deep thank the English teacher of the Foreign Languages Department I finish my graduation thesis with great help from them, especially my supervisor Tran Ngoc Tuong and my English teacher, Mr Chris Staples during my study.

Secondly, I actually thank my friends for their encouragement.

I received a lot of useful ideas as well as materials, which were used, in my thesis.

Finally, from the bottom of my heart I indeed thank my parents for their encouragement.

I am sure I could not finish my graduation thesis without the enthusiastic help from those people.

Vinh, May 200 4.

Table of contents Part I: introduction 4

I The rationale for choosing the thesis 4

II The aim of the thesis 4

III The objectives of the thesis 5

IV Scope and limitation 5

V The method of the thesis 5

Part II: CONTENT 6

Chapter I: Background 6

I The Industrial Revolution and Agricultural Revolution 6

II The Political Reform 7

III The campain for Free Trade 8

IV The Chartist movement 8

Chapter II: Critical Realism 10

I What is Critical Realism? 10

1 Critical Realism 10

2 English Critical Realism 10

II Charles Dickens 11

1 Life 13

2 Works 15

2.1 First period (1833- 1841) 16

2.2 Second period (1842-1848) 17

2.3 Third period (1850-1859) 18

2.4 Fourth period (1860-1865) 19

Chapter III: Oliver Twist, a fairy tale in modern times 20

I Overview on this novel 20

II Modern element 22

The reflect of story in the nineteenth century 22

III Fairy element 26

1 Overview on fairy tale 26

1.1 Oliver Twist, a pitiful orphan-the main character of many fairy tales .27

1.2 The embodiment of evil world and fairy man - woman in modern times 30

1.3 The uprising of pitiful Oliver Twist resists a evil world 34

1.4 Goodness triumphs over evil in the end, philosophy ‘’good finds goods’’ in fairy tales 35

2 Summary 38

Part III: Conclusion 39

References 40

Part I: Introduction

I The rationale of choosing the thesis

Literature has always been my enthusiasm even when I was a child.Being a student at university I have a chance to learn English literature so I canknow much about its culture and style In many works of the celebrated authors

in the nineteenth century Critical Realism seem to relive the image of Englishsociety at that time Every author has his own characteristics but I am deeplyimpressed with Charles Dickens's works We can say that he was the greatestand the most beloved author in the nineteenth century Critical Realism Hisworks can attract the reader of our times This attraction is different from manyauthors’ works We have a passion for new things in many other novels.Meanwhile Charles Dickens’s novel can be appreciated by both formal andmodern readers The new things are in event but the old ones are in relationship.There is something familiar in his works that makes us impressed, the strugglebetween kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice His realism seemed to be aharmonious combination between the real and unreal His positive characterswere sometimes too good to be found in real life They ever remained true to theprinciple of honor, dignity and faith If they were good they stood firm positivecharacters to the end but if they were bad they remained bad from beginning tothe end All these things are deeply expressed in ''Oliver Twist''- a fairy tale inmodern times

II The aim of the thesis

- To study the combination of modern element and fairy tale element in''Oliver Twist''

- To compare ''Oliver Twist'' with the other Charles Dickens's novels to setoff that fairy element as an element in his works

III The objectives of the thesis

- Analyze the novel ''Oliver Twist'' to come to conclusion that “OliverTwist”-a fairy tale in modern times”

- Modern elements in this novel

-“ Fairy tale” elements in this novel

IV Scope and limitation

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) is the greatest novelist of the nineteenthcentury English Critical Realism There are many interesting things whileanalyzing his novels, however because of limited time as well as limited ability,

I only study a very interesting problem in his famous novel ''Oliver Twist'' The combination between modern elements and “fairy tale” elements

-V The method of the thesis

In order to carry out this thesis, because of the characteristic of the thesis,

I have used the following methods

Collective method: Collecting material that concerning the thesis

Analytic method

General method

Contrastive analysis method: Compare ''Oliver Twist'' with the otherCharles Dickens's novels

Part II: Content

Chapter I: Background

I The Industrial Revolution and Agricultural Revolution

Great Britain was the place where the Industrial Revolution happened andthen spread out to the world The increasing necessary needs of people resulted

in this revolution Many modern machines were invented and brought toproduction.As a result; there had been a great number of products, produced.English industrial product began appearing widely in every corner of the world.The English economy developed rapidly and it changed the face of Englandabsolutely England became one of the most powerful nations in the world.There were more and more people coming to cities to work in many factories.For this reason, the urban population had risen sharply New manufacturingtowns and cities grew dramatically By 1850 millions of British people lived incrowded, grim industrial cities

However, in a long time the Industrial Revolution brought benefit to theupper class in society, but not tothe lower class Most of workers had to work infactories all day but they didn’t have insurance against laboring unsafe andreceive very low salaries Factory owner paid the minimum amount necessaryfor workers, often- recruiting women and children to tend machine because theycould be hired for very low wages

In society, there existed the differences between the rich and the poor.These differences and extreme the exploitation of the capitalist class resulted inthe workers movements at that time The competition for money had depravedmany good things such as honor, personality, love etc People tried to doeverything to get high benefit

The achievements of the Industrial Revolution also resulted in theAgricultural Revolution It means that there were big changes in this field withthe aim of giving benefit to all people, especially the farmer class Because ofusing machine, productivity of agriculture increased fast The amount ofproducts could meet the demands of all people and be exported to manycountries However the fact was that not all people could get benefit from this Inmany places, people especially the lower class in society still lived in hunger andpoverty The obvious reason for this problem was that traders did not want toreduce prices All these problems would be reflected in English Critical Realismfamous novels

II The Political Reform

Democratic reform was born from the time of American and FrenchRevolutions By the end of the 18th century the population in England was eightmillion while only 160 thousand had the vote Those 160 thousand were “thecream of society” that never soiled their hands with work Although theindustrial bourgeoisie were rich, they had no chance to interfere in the politicallife of the country such as law making and parliamentary debates So theindustrial bourgeoisie had pushed up activities demanding for voting reform.These activities were welcomed by a lot of workers because they themselves put

so much hope in voting reform in order to change their political position.Because of the outburst of these ones, finally the goverment had to pass theReform act in the middle of 1822 The first Reform act permitted industrialcentres to nominate representatives to Parliament The Reform act of 1832 alsoreduced the power of the upper class landowners by increacing parliamentaryrepresentation The first Reform Act happened peacefully, without violence Itmarked the emergence of the middle class as the dominant force in Englishpolitics

In 1876, along step in the direction of democracy was taken by puttingthrough the second Reform Act It meant that after the appearance of the secondReform Act, many adult males in the towns had a chance to vote BenjaminDisraeli was the father of this important bill However this activity didn’t stopfrom that time

In the period 1880 - 1885, the third Reform Bill was signed From thisthis, most males in urban and rural area could vote It was obvious proof ofdemocratic society in Great Britain Three parliamentary reforms gave votingprivileges to some of the middle class, then rural and urban voters in the country.From this moment, they could raise their voice to protect their privileges as well

as their position in society A new page of history was opened by these events inGreat Britain

III The Campaign for Free Trade

Many centuries ago, the goverment of Great Britain had passed laws,among these there was law on the trade of grain This law was called Corn Lawn.Great Britain's Corn Lawn didn't play an important role until the end ofeighteenth century In this period the prolonged conflict between Great Britainand France leaded to the decreased imports and rising prices Apart from that, a

series of bad harvest caused great famine for people in England.

In addition, a high tariff on grain kept out foreign wheat The tension rising day

by day pushed up a movement to repeal the Corn Laws, which developed in the1820s In 1846, the famous bill repealing the Corn Law was put through

The success of the Corn Lawn repeal encouraged the government to remove thetariff on other food and on the raw materials needed by manufactures With freetrade, Britain entered upon its period of greatest prosperity

IV The Chartist movement

Chartism was an event of colossal historical importance for the politicaldevelopment of England It was a severe lesson for the ruling classes that couldnever forget those years when the worker's mass movement threatened thefoundations of capitalism The Industrial Revolution brought many previleges toupper class but it also caused some new social problems for the lower class,especially worker class

In 1838, William Lovett, a leader of the movement in London wrote thePeople's Charter, and a bill for parliamentary reform from with the movementtook its name The bill demanded universal suffrage for British men, changes invoting arrangements

In 1839, Chartists drew up a petition of their demand and presented it toparliament, which immediately rejected it, causing the Chartist to organize anarmed up rising The Chartist leaders were arrested by government forces andwere either jailed or deported to Australia A second Chartist petition waspresented to Parliament 3 year’s later In 1848, a third and last Chartist petitionwent to parliament but it had the same result as its predecessors

Today, British progressives cherish the revolutionary and democratictradition of the past They study the experience of the Chartist movement andoften remind the English workers of the glorious revolutionary past

CHAPTER II: CRITICAL REALISM

I what is critical realism ?

Critical Realism is a large trend of literature in many countries in all overthe world It is always an important period in literary process of any country It isthe vital product of history; especially in the period of capitalism However itsappearance also meets the demands of society at that time

1 Critical Realism

The word ''Realism'' is a terminology that indicated a method in France

in the middle of the nineteenth century .All people in the trend of CriticalRealism use it to describe and expose society The problems they concern arenormal and daily things in life .By the way of describing events in societyhonestly, they expressed their voice, their wish to change some things One ofthe most important characteristics of this trend is describing honestly what theysee and what they hear Moreover, it’s appearance based on some historicalpremises

-The cognition of people about the world

-The development of society resulted in the conflict between classes

Marxism Gorky stated that ''Realism in the nineteenth century isCritical Realism It denounces social evils, describes ''life and up down'' of theindividual within traditional family rules, religious creed Critical Realismdoesn't show us the way to escape from prison” It means that all the things thatwriters of Critical Realism concern are all things in daily life, both good and badsides People’s tragedies happen when they find their life so cramped and theytry to find a warm nest in society but they can’t Through their description, thewriters don't show us the way to escape from that life as many writers had done

2 English critical realism

England is known as the cradle of Critical Realism In the secondhalf of the nineteenth century Realism was further developed by what Marxcalled “the present brilliant school of English novelist” At first realistic prosetook the shape of short essays, more objective, informative and descripive thanthe romantic essays had been and had that bearing some affinities with it

They denoted the social evil, the selfishness and materialism of theirdays through many literary works of social characteristics Kingsley wrotepassionate social tracts in a guise of story “Cheap bread” insprised the nurse ofEbenzer Elliot Dickens, with his social novel helped his generation to minortheir aspects of life with abuses of the society and unjust sufferings Because

their description of life was characterized mainly by Critism, writers belonging

to the “brilliant school of novelists” were called Critical Realist and their trebdwas labeled “Critical Realism”

The greatest contribution of English Critical Realism is in excellentworks, to respond warmly to the main problem which appeared as the result ofmajor conflict of that time-conflict between th bourgeois and the proletarian.However it did not propose any way to change the capitalist society as well asthe the force being able to change They could put a question, but they could notfind answer to it Limited by class idealogy, their solution- if they had, often fell

in to subjectivity, utopia or impasse In their description, these authors criticized,expopsed and attacked on social wrongs At the same time, they showed theirsympathy with common people by passionately protesting against unbearableliving condition in which the poor were groaning With all these novels, theauthors expressed their thought and their wish for better life inwhich there wasnot injustic and cruelty

All the above things are general features of Critical Realism in Englishliterature Critical Realism is always considered the most positive trend inliterary process because it protected and defended the privileges of people Inaddition, it made a great contribution in improving the development of society

II Charles Dickens

It is no exaggeration to say that in the constellation of the nineteenthcentury critical realists, Charles Dickens shines the brightest He has everremained one of the most beloved and the most read writer in English literature

as Louis Canadian in his book ''A history of English literature '' rightly put it.Among the English novelists, Dickens is neither the most consummate artist, northe finest psychologist, nor the most accomplished realist, nor the most seductive

of tale writers, but he is probably the most national, the most typical and thegreatest of the all

No novelist before Dickens had treated the lower middle classes insuch a board or in so frank a way He studied them not as a detached superiorkind of observer but as one of their own level for he had once suffered what theywere suffering, experience what they were experienced, seen what they wereseeing

The unforgettable experience and sufferings of his early youth becameone of the decisive elements in the formation of his personality and served asmaterial for many of his works Nearly all his novels are more or lessautobiographical We can see almost everywhere in his works the shadow of

Charles Dickens as either a child or an elderly man .In ''David Copperfield''through some details running contrary to the facts of his life can be discovered Child labor caused him much alarm In many of his works he revealed

it to his the readers and voiced a passionate protest against it He was revolted bythe system of broading school in England The teacher there knew nothing of theway to bring up and educate the children properly but they knew the way how tobeat them black and blue

Dickens was a great lover of children He appealed to the very ofhearts of the people to give an eye to the children to see that they had to sufferlife rather than to enjoy it Dickens criticized the greatest contrast between thehaves and the haves not and thought it abnormal in a civilized world butdifferent from the Romanticist Never did he call for a return to the past and itspatriarchal life

He laid all his hopes in the good qualities of human nature and held afirm ground that man was born good In his opinion, it was possible to make therich share wealth with the poor but it never occurred to Dickens that capitalismwas based on the law of competition At last, he arrived at the understandingthat capitalism was the cause of all poverty in the society and grew indignant atall the evils and vices caused by it but it never dawned upon him that classstruggle was necessary for social progress

1 Life

Charles Dickens was born on the seventh February 1812 at a house inPortsmouth Nowadays it is known as 387- Mile End Terrace Landport Hishouse is still kept carefully John Dickens, his father was a clerk in the Navyparty office with $ 200 per year Although, he was quite sociable and charming,

he was not very good at his work With little money every year, he broughtmisery to the whole family For this reason, Charles Dickens's childhood wasdarkened with the financial problems of his family He also realized his father’sincompetence and irresponsibility but he always looked up to him and loved himvery much His mother Elizabeth Dickens was a less attractive character Shedidn't do well his household management Apart from that, she seemed to beproud of her higher social origin and rather silly This brought the author somedisadvantages in his life All these things became better when John was given agood post in the Chatharm Dockyard, and the whole family was lived inimproved living condition The happiest 5 years at Chatharm went by includingwith many unforgettable memories It was an idyllic dream for him However

when he was at Chartham school, he didn't care much about formal education.Charles Dickens was very interested in a series of old fairy tales He usually hidhimself in a small attic and read them passionately.

I n the first period of time, there was an important event that has greatinfluence on his later works John's family had a servant called Mary Weller whooften told him many fairy tales every night before going to bed Therefore, thisperhaps helped to develop the fairy tale element in the background of Dickens'snovels Many years later he had to leave school and did at the pawnshop He had

to label pots of blacking In his mind he never forgot the smell of cement and thenoise there All these things haunted his mind and made edible impression inmany years later At that time he was too young too understand the socialwrongs Perhaps for this, throughout his books he told much about the horror ofchild exploitation, the fate of orphans and abandoned children He rarely spokedirectly about these things; in fact he tried to hide them from the world.Sometimes the author felt relieved by writing a fragment of autobiography such

as “David Copperfield” but he could not reveal him so far, ''I hate of beingutterly neglected and homeless of the shame, felt in my position, of the misery itwas to my young heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned andthought and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, waspassing away from me''

On the contrary, Charles Dickens's personal life had some trouble Hefell in love with a pretty girl Maria Breadnell However she betrayed him In theauthor's heart it was his first love

In the spring 1835, he got married Catherine Hogarth, daughter of aneditor Nevertheless, the marriage only gave him happiness for short time At histime nobody could compare with his capacity for laborious work He traveled tomany places from dusk to dawn to collect fresh material from the life of thecapital city to the countryside around In personal life, he enjoyed livingcomfortably, loved children in general and his own children in particular

In the early 1840s, Dickens went in search of change to the US Heexpected to find the land of free paradise on earth but the author was indeeddisappointed with it Although American audience welcomed his books from thestart, he didn't receive any money from publishers Thus, he came to Boston inJanuary to raise his voice for copyright law From this moment he became veryunpopular in the US When he returned home from this travel to America heattacked what he had seen in his writing

Gradually, his literary career brought him fame and a large mount ofmoney Being sad with his love affair in the 1860s, Dickens settled in somethinglike isolation and tried to break with the past This also provided him with themotivation for a series of dramatic readings from his own works, which hadactually began in 1858 and continued with ever increasing triumph until hisdeath These readings made his reputation achieve as the supreme literary genius

of the time Dickens got fabulous sums of money but his health became worse

On the eighth June 1870, he had a stroke and died quickly the next daywhen he was writing the last pages of the unfinished novel “Edwin Drood”.Those were all things of a very famous novelist who was successful in career butunhappy in his love affairs

2 Works

Charles Dickens was the greatest English novelist and is loved by mostreaders He is considered the father of the social realist novel Dickens's novelscontain a wide view of man All his works were in the depth of humanism.Dickens used his writing to attack oppression and injustice in society Throughhis novels, he expressed his boundless love for people suffering most, especiallychildren He appealed to all people to show concern about the world of innocentchildren In a chaotic society, white could be turned in to black, good in to bad,right in to wrong, his characters remained pure and unspoiled till the end (DavidCopperfield, Oliver Twist ) He always had eternal belief in good qualities ofhuman nature as the man was born good In the middle of nineteenth centurywhen the conflict of two main classes in society became more serious, CharlesDickens had to look at life through the eye of the common people and stoodbeside them in their struggle against the ruling class That was the reason whyKarl Marx said that ''the brilliant school of novelists had done more to showpolitical and social truth to the world than all politicians and publicists andmoralists added together''

Being different from the Romantics, Dickens never called for a return tothe past All the customs, habits and characters he described containingsomewhat of the archaic His novels are well known as a harmoniouscombination between the real and unreal The readers find in Dickens's novelspositive characters that are sometimes too good to exist in real life They are allsymbols of honor, dignity and faith in life Perhaps for this reason, some criticssaid that he idealized his characters However they are still static, lively and

varied If they were good, they stood firm as positive characters to the end but ifthey were bad, they remained bad from beginning to the end.

Many years went by but readers all over the world have found in hisworks some interesting problems of their age No one can resist the appeal ofDickens's pathos born of heart felt sympathy for all the wronged, all the victims

of life That is the permanent value of literature that his works had achieved.Furthermore, his novels also express the wonderful combination between humorand satire his age and some ''fairy tale'' elements

For easy analysis and criticism of Dickens's literary career, it'sadvisable to divide it into 4 periods

2.1 First period (1833-1841)

His first significant published work ''Sketches by Boz''(1836) wascollection of short essays describing contemporary London people and mannerswith its sharp eyes and direct style These sketches show Dickens graduatingfrom reporting to authorship through journalism

The next books,'' The Pickwick Papers'' was published every month fromApril 1836 to November 1837 The periodical method of publication had oncebeen popular because it could attract the audience's concern at that time Thiskind of publishing became his vehicle, enabling him to write and printcontinuously Nowadays there are some critics who deny that, “PickwickPapers” can not be considered a novel Actually, brilliant humor and warmhumanity give it shape and form

After “Pickwick Papers”, Oliver Twist appeared from February 1837 toMarch 1839 Through his novel, Dickens deliberately changed from the comedy

of “Pickwick” to purposeful, serious realistic description of social problems Thebook exposed clearly the appalling misery that can lurk under the surface of afree enterprise society Poor law workhouses, deserted children and criminal arethe subjects of “Oliver Twist”

This topic was continued in parts of '' Nicholas Nickleby” when Dickensexpressed the scandal of the private schools of Yorkshires which provided thedumping grounds and sometimes graves for unwanted children

His next novel ‘‘The Old Curiosity Shop'' was published in weekly instead

of monthly part from April 1840 to January 1841 This work was the accidentalresult of Dickens's commitment to magazine called Master Humphrey's Clock

''Barnaby Ridge'', also published weekly from February 1841 to November

1842, together with ‘‘A Tale of Two Cities'' were two historical novels In fact he

had little feeling for the realities of history and always unconsciously gravitates

in his description toward the period around 1820-1825, when he himself hadbeen first as happy then as unhappy as a child Writing under the shadow of SirWalter Scott, his historical works rarely achieved full power

In conclusion, we have just had a quick look at Dickens's career in the firstperiod with the main topic about the poor and homeless people

2.2 The second period (1842-1848)

After visiting the US for the second time, he was disappointed withthe lack of copyright law as well as the nature of democracy here The authorwas inspired from these facts to write ''Martin Chuzzlewit''(monthly), January

1843 to July 1844 According to critics, this novel was the last work of hisapprenticeship It has a poor start and a weak plot but in the supporting part thesatirized art has achieved some remarkable successes

The series of Christmas Books was started with a ''Christmas Carol''(1843) The main character of the novel was miserable, old man EbenezerScrooge Perhaps, it has been remembered for their mixture of sentiment and thesupernatural, their blend of melodrama and jollity In this book, his handwritingexpresses passionately his sense of social right and wrong

The first novel fully planned as a whole in advance of CharlesDickens was ''Dombey and Son''(monthly, October 1846 to April 1848) Hefirstly selected a theme and then built detail around them before setting down towrite Further more, Dickens was moving from sharp-eyed observation of life tothe conservation of life to the creation of a dramatic poetic work of art

In general, the works of this second period, Dickens began todescribe the crimes that arise from the bourgeois system itself He satirized theParliament and the Court but he didn't know how to change them The fact wasthat he never considered violence to be option

2.3 Third period (1850-1865)

''David Copperfield'' appeared from May 1849 to November 1850 andbecame the most popular of all his works and occupied a special position in thelist of his novels He used his own experience, his childhood unhappiness andmisery, his mistakes in love, and his father as an inspiration for Mr Micawber

“David Copperfield” was the peak in his literary career although much of hisbook was autobiographical, especially the description of how young DavidCopperfield work in a shoe blacking factory

''Bleak House'' from March 1852 to September 1853 was somethingquite different It exposed the great contemporary scandal of the court ofChancery Broadly it denounces the destruction of the innocent by theimpersonal working of an injust society.

''Hard Times'' (weekly April to August) concentrate to point out theconflict of two main classes in society, caused in by the Industrial revolution.The most emergent image in this was the Coal city, which appeared from thebeginning to the end of story Its theme is similar to the grim machinery of thenew Industrial society and its soul- destroying effect on masters and men alike Based on his experiences in his younger days, Charles Dickens wrote''Little Dorrit'' in December 1855 to June 1857 It focused especially on the law

of deft a problem that he knew deeply even when he was very young

In “ Great Expectations''(weekly December 1860 to August 1861) thepopular theme returns once again, illusion leading to tragedy but he widenedfurther Actually it was a wide- ranging tragic-comedy, full of irony

From 1864 to the end of his life in 1870 Charles Dickens sufferedfrom bad heath However he still wrote regularly and passionately ''Our MutualFriend'' (May 1864 to November 1865) was born in this period Like his firstprimary works it contained some good sketches

The novel written in the fifties were the height of Dickens's socialcriticism Dickens protested against his society by writing the most realisticnovels Reading his novel the reader can witness a vivid picture of the life ofEnglish people by the description in detail the social institutions He can becalled the Great Literary Commoner

2.4 The last period (1870)

The last of his works, ‘‘The mystery of Edwin Drood'' with wasunfinished when he died