What was a Workhouse?

A workhouse was a place where poor people did very unpleasant jobs in return for food and shelter.    

 

What were Oliver's origin?

Oliver is a foundling. His parents are unknown 

 

Why has Mr. Bumble come to see him?

Oliver is now 9 years old and he is deemed too old to stay at the orphanage any longer. So, he is to be taken back to the workhouse where he was born and he will have to work for a living. 

 

Why doesn't the only question Oliver utters not reflect his feelings?

The question “Will she go with me?” would suggest that Oliver is sorry at leaving Mrs Mann. In fact, it is quite the opposite, since his only desire is to escape from Mrs Mann’s dreadful house. To the child, Mr Bumble represents the power of the institutions and he is awed by him; however, Oliver lies to him, after seeing Mrs Mann threatening him with her fist  in the background, as he fears her reaction.

 

Which  sentences point at Oliver’s sufferings? Quote from the text 

The phrases that make us guess Oliver’s sufferings in Mrs. Mann’s house are:

·      “the outer coat of dirt, which encrusted his face and hands” 

·      “Oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with great readiness” 

·      “He took the hint at once, for the fist had been too often impressed upon his body not to be deeply impressed upon his recollection” 

 

Which words and phrases point out Mrs. Mann's hypocrisy and shrewdness?

·      “inflaming her left eye with the corner of her apron” 

·      “You, Mr Bumble”

·      “Why, you’re quite a literary character, sir” 

·      “Mrs Mann, who had got behind the beadle’s chair, and was shaking her fist”

·      Mrs Mann … gave him a piece of bread and butter, lest he should seem too hungry when he got to the workhouse”

 

Which words and phrases point out Mr Bumbles presumptuousness?

 

·      “The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, ‘I invented it’…”

·      “…‘Well, well’, said the beadle, evidently gratified with the compliment. ‘perhaps I may be, - perhaps I may be, Mrs Mann”;

·      “…‘I have come out myself to take him there”.

 

This passage exemplifies Dickens's humour and sentimentality, two equally important features of his style. Which sentences express humour?

 

·      “his benevolent protectress”;

·      “Oliver made a bow, which was divided … cooked hat on the table”;

·      “It was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears into his eyes”;

·      “Mrs Mann gave him a thousand embraces and, what Oliver wanted a great deal more, a piece of bread and butter” 

 

Which sentences express sentimentality?

 

·      “Hunger and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you want to cry”;

·      “he burst into an agony of childish grief”;

·      “Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were the only friends he had ever known” 

Dickens clearly sympathizes with Oliver. What do you think was Dickens’ intention in writing this passage? 

By illustrating Oliver’s miserable conditions Dickens wants to describe the inhumane treatment orphans received in this type of institutions, here represented by such wicked and grotesque characters as Mrs Mann and Mr Bumble. He stresses the hypocrisy and false concern with the children of the institutions, which under formal respect of procedures hid the inner cruelty of those who should have taken care of them.

 

Do you think the structure and style are effective? Give reasons for your answers. 

 

The passage is highly effective: in fact we have a well balanced interaction/interplay between Dickens’ seriousness and the humorous treatment of the situation.

 

Summarize the passage. 

Nine-year old Oliver Twist is a frightened, weak and underfed child brought up in an orphanage under the leadership of Mrs Mann, who is cruel to the children she is supposed to look after. On Oliver’s birthday Mr Bumble, the parish officer, comes to the house where Oliver lives with other children.  Mr Bumble is described as a pompous man with an exaggerated sense of his own importance and of the mission which the workhouses authorities accomplish in providing for the orphans. The passage is rich in humour and gives a full portrait of Mrs Mann’s hypocrisy and of Mr Bumble’s presumptuousness. Poor Oliver appears only in the last part of the extract when he is called in to answer a few questions. He has already learnt what to say so as not to be punished later for telling the truth: he pretends to be sorry at leaving Mrs Mann but he is only sorry at leaving his little friends at the orphanage, though he shared only misery with them.  

 

Use the passage as a starting point to discuss the exploitation of the children, the condition of poor orphans and the working class in Victorian England.

Charles Dickens was interested in social questions and in his novels he depicted the bad conditions of life of the lower classes, the brutality of certain schools, the dirt and squalor of London slums and the exploitation of child labour in a country that was going through great change due to mechanization. We are in a time in which the rural areas of the south had lost their economic and political importance while the regions of the north (Midlands, Yorkshire) had developed dramatically thanks to their coal fields and factories. There was a massive need for labour in these areas and in the cities to supply goods on a large scale, but overcrowding and unsanitary, depressing living and working conditions awaited those who abandoned the country.

The workhouses which took the poor children who had nowhere to go, kept their young guests in condition near to starvation and the children were made to work long hours. Workhouses and parishes supplied children to factories where they were often treated harshly. Working at the machines was dangerous, and illness or even death as a consequence of hard work was not unusual