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  • Essay / The Ambivalent Nature of Identity in Oliver Twist

    Oliver Twist is a novel that eludes easy categorization; what begins as a political satire of the Poor Law of 1834 turns into a detective novel which in turn becomes a melodramatic thriller with a surprisingly neat ending. While Dickens juggles contrasting tones in many of his novels, like one of his earlier works, Oliver Twist is particularly known for being made up of a “patchwork of genres” (Wood, 2014). It is therefore not surprising that for a novel that itself undergoes a series of identity crises, questions related to identity become a recurring theme of the narrative. Indeed, our understanding of the novel's social message rests on how Dickens defines identity. Strangely, for a novel that seems concerned with promoting the social message that the poor are not inherently morally inferior, Dickens presents an ambivalent picture of the nature of identity. This essay will explain how Dickens presents elements of socially constructed and crowd identity while reconciling this with ideas of innate goodness and morality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Perhaps the best-known cultural element of Oliver Twist is the eponymous hero, who has become almost synonymous with our idea of ​​the orphan. Yet, ironically, it is this projection of an "orphan" identity that Dickens critiques in the novel, as the characters constantly project their prejudices onto Oliver due to his low socioeconomic status and no parents. Only in the first chapter, in which Oliver has not yet been dressed, does he free himself from the constraints of societal identity, as Dickens says "he might have been a nobleman's child or of a beggar.” This suggests that Dickens views class identity as something fluid and socially acquired rather than inherent. The abuse that Oliver faces in the workshop and later on the streets of London is symptomatic of an unfair societal stigma faced by those on the lower rungs of Victorian society, and ultimately, this stigma revolves around a false conception that poverty is linked to inherent immorality. This was particularly relevant following the Poor Law of 1834, which sought to reduce the cost of caring for the ever-increasing number of poor people by establishing workhouses (May 1987). They also wielded enormous power over individuals like Mr. Bumble's. Indeed, even Oliver's name is chosen by Mr. Bumble: his nominal identity is given to him by the system that abuses him. Additionally, the superficiality of social identity is illustrated by the ease with which a character can adopt another identity simply by changing clothes. For example, Nancy's adoption of middle-class dress completely alters the way society perceives her, granting her the privilege of respect and trust among strangers who would otherwise have demonized her because of her identity of a prostitute. Of all the characters in the novel, Nancy is perhaps the most complex, because she is – at least by Victorian standards – an immoral woman, but she is also deeply sympathetic. While most of the characters in the novel fall into a label of good, evil, or comic, Nancy defies these labels. The reader sympathizes with his predicament, in which his toxic upbringing has altered his identity to the point of no return. Contemporary reactions to Dickens's inclusion of a "fallen woman" confirm rampant prejudicesin Victorian society in the 1840s, when even his friend John Forster tried to discourage him from publishing because of its taboo nature (Bowen). By providing a sympathetic platform for the identities of marginalized characters and emphasizing how these identities are, at least to some extent, socially constructed, Dickens opens a dialogue about how the poor and vulnerable should be treated. Although Dickens may take elements of class identity for granted, he suggests that the environment can alter identity to the extent that it is irreversible or, as Nancy claims: "I am chained to my old life." Dickens uses this as an obvious foil for Rose, but if her socioeconomic circumstances had been different, it is possible that Nancy's personal identity and ultimate fate would have been different as well. Not only does Dickens describe how identity is restricted within a classist society, but he also illustrates how individual identity can be lost to the crowd. A single accusation of theft results in Oliver being pursued by an angry mob, whose actions are described in an almost rhythmic lexicon: “pell-mell, pell-mell, stampede.” The crowd is depersonalized by reducing the different facets of society into a single antagonistic mass. The crowd's visceral reaction against Oliver highlights how illicit or transgressive identities threaten those who have conformed to their societal roles. Additionally, in exploring the mob mentality of Oliver Twist, the city of London cannot be ignored. The urban landscape plays a major role in the collective identity of Dickens's characters. Oliver refers to the rancid urban setting of the slums he visits with Mr. Sowerberry as having reduced its inhabitants to animal qualities; they are part of the decaying landscape, even suggesting that they "looked so much like the rats he had seen outside." During the 19th century, rapid industrialization had pushed many rural migrants into the cities, creating cramped and squalid living conditions, as historian Terry Trainor points out: in 1840s London, "living in a single room was the norm for working-class families'. (Trainor, 2011) Despite this harsh reality, the idea of ​​domestic happiness and the importance of the home was becoming increasingly popular during the 1840s, and family life therefore became an intrinsic part of Victorian identity from the beginning. Dickens contrasts the decadence of urban life and "the men who lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and who never wished for change", with the idealized pastoral setting where Oliver finally joins a stable family unit. . It therefore becomes clear that Dickens views identity and environment as closely related entities, with Dickens making an implicit connection between urban sprawl and rising crime and immorality. Although it would appear at first glance that Dickens is opposed to the idea that people are inherently predisposed to crime and that a mixture of prejudices and socio-economic positions lead them to crime, this message is undermined by the Oliver's seemingly inherent identity and the resolution of the novel. Although he grew up in a workshop, Oliver's lexicon is visibly middle-class. Indeed, the famous phrase "please, sir, I want more," while an act of radical defiance, is almost painfully polite, especially when compared to the colloquialisms of the Artful Dodgers. Even if it did not appear that Oliver was related to the Maylies, the dissonance between his social environment and his manners would be reason enough to accuse Dickens ofcondescension towards the working class. Indeed, much like contemporary thinkers such as Carlyle who referred to the working class as “wild and inarticulate souls,” Dickens wrote with an ironic bias given his reputation as a defender of the working class (Carlyle, 1839). Above all, the fact that Oliver turns out to come from a bourgeois background only confirms that the novel is, at least to some extent, what critic John Carey calls "a hymn to the purity of the soul of the middle class.” Oliver's identity remains middle class and static, with Dickens contradicting his previous suggestions that social identity was purely superficial. It could also be argued that Dickens is guilty of the unfair social labeling he attempts to criticize. The very names of his fictional characters are infamous for their "character-revealing" nature (Paroissien, 2000, p80), for example the name Mr Bumble derives from the word arrogant, reflecting his arrogant personality (ibid). Therefore, while in the diegesis of Oliver Twist the reader may be invited to look beyond the social confines of a name or label, Dickens himself thrives on this caricature aesthetic. This is particularly evident in his depiction of Fagin as the embodiment of anti-Semitic stereotypes; indeed, he is mainly referred to in the novel as “the Jew”. While Dickens himself stated: “I have no feeling towards the Jewish people but a friendly feeling” (Hartley, 2012). Fagin's entire personality is defined by his cultural identity and his seemingly unchanging physiognomy. Indeed, Dickens was a contemporary of Johann Kaspar Lavater who argued that physical traits were intrinsically linked to character traits. This not only contradicts the idea that identity is a social construct, but it also calls into question whether a character such as Fagin can even be held morally responsible if he is inherently immoral. To complicate matters further, Oliver's angelic beauty is noticed by middle-class characters, such as Rose and Mr. Brownlowe in the novel, who, with little inspection, are able to determine the true nature of Oliver. Oliver only observing his face. For an author so concerned with using art as a vehicle for social change, his prejudiced presentations of identity have the potential, through his own artistic philosophy, to be socially damaging. As a contemporary review of the time enthusiastically put it, "Mr. Dickens's characters, as everyone knows, transmit their names into our language and become types" (Anon. 1971). It is important to note that Dickens's portrayal of identity in Oliver Twist is not always socially progressive; indeed, characters such as Fagin are both regressive and damaging. Ultimately, even if one accepts that Dickens's conception of inherited identity does not lessen the social message of the novel, the problem of Oliver's actual characterization remains. Ironically, for a character who has become so iconic in popular culture – making the novel the most screen-adapted Dickens novel of all time (John, 2010) – Oliver lacks personal growth or a distinct identity separable from one's own moral goodness. Critic J Mullan claims that "the orphan is above all a displaced character, forced to establish himself in the world", but Oliver does not meet even this basic criterion. He remains a protagonist who both lacks agency in the major machinations of the plot and also lacks a distinct voice. His eventual comfortable position with the Maylies is due to the work of other characters, such as Mr. Brownlowe. Except.