OLIVER TWIST DI DICKENS: RIASSUNTO E
COMMENTO
PLOT
The protagonist is Oliver, a foundling who lives a miserable life in a
workhouse.
He decides to run away and he meets a young thief on the road. He thinks he
has found a friend and follows him to London. There, he’s introduced to other
children who promise to grant him food and shelter. Oliver finds out they’re a
gang of thieves led by Fagin, an old Jew. Oliver is forced to join the gang. He’s
rescued by Mr. Brownlow, a nice gentleman, but some members of the gang
kidnap him. After many adventures, some of which involve a mysterious
character called Monks, the gang is arrested by the police. Oliver finds out
he’s a relative of Mr. Brownlow’s: he has finally found a family.
CHARLES DICKENS (1812 - 1870).
Dickens had an unappy childhood, in fact his father was prisoned for debt and
he had to work in a factory since the age of twelve. These days of sufferings
inspired much of the content of his novels. In fact when he realized that he
had talent for writing he became a newspaper report and he wrote his novels
in a monthly magazine in the form of instalments. His most important novels
are Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, published in 1838.
Dickens belongs to the 1° generation of victorian novelists, so he speaks about
his own time and about social changes. In particular he criticizes some
aspects of society (law-workhouses), but he respects the structure and the
political system in general, while the 2° generation novelists were consiouss of
hypocrisy of their own time and they criticize all the aspects of society.
OLIVER TWIST DICKENS RIASSUNTO
The fact of writing for a magazine made him to conform to the public taste in
using a melodramatic tone and in introducing an atmosphere of suspance at
the end of every instalment. In particular he attracts the lower-middle-classes
