Charles dickens was born on the 7th February 1812, in Portsmouth. Charles was the second of 8 children and he lived a poor upbringing and he and his family struggled for money too keep them alive. Dickens was not rich enough too go to school as a youngster and taught himself everything he needed to succeed in life. At the age of 12 Dickens started his job in a factory pasting labels on the jars of thick polish, this was enough too pay for his family’s rent, He then moved on to be a law clerk.
Dickens never forgot his hard childhood and always involved this in his novels, he always wanted to get the point across about the poverty and danger in England at this time. However in 1932 Dickens luck was about to change he started to write stories and draw sketches about London life an they were a great success , he was asked to write some more due to great demand. Then in 1838 Dickens published what was going to be one of if not his finest stories Olivier Twist which was extremely popular not just in England but in America as the Americans demanded the different chapters off the story. The story Olivier Twist was directed at the poor lifestyle of the lower class people at the time, Dickens tried hard to get this across to the people reading his book. Dickens wanted to shock the readers and show what criminals were really like and to reveal the horrors and violence in the London slums
In the 1800’s there was a big difference between the upper and lower class people, the lower class people had such a hard life an the life expectance was very low. Olivier lived the same life as a lot of kids at that time, not knowing there mothers or father led to a life on the street or pick pocketing as Olivier is led to do form a young age. There was a huge difference between certain people at this time e.g. men and woman.
Woman at this time were the property of men, women rarely made money as this was down to the men to provide for the family. When Olivier’s mum was having Olivier as a baby she was on the street, as she had no husband and this led to a bad childbirth an also sadly led to her death, this was because at this time there was no healthcare and also it was very rare for the lower class people to be able to be seen by a doctor. Dickens tries his hardest to try and get across the point about the bad life Olivier was living and also other people at this time, as dickens lived a bad childhood he tried so hard to involve the suffering in Olivier’s life to try and get this into the minds of the higher class people so that the future could be better for people of this day.
Olivier has a sad birth, as he is brought up into this world with no mother or father, and his birth is not a very pleasant one as the doctor does not care about the child being born but the money he will receive and also the nurse at the time was drunken. Dickens creates sympathy for Olivier and his mother at the start of chapter one by the setting of his birth, as his mother was found in a gutter in the street, and was then taken into a workhouse were his mother was seen too by a parish surgeon and also a local nurse who was drunken at the time, the setting however being better than most birth places at this time creates sympathy as it was not a pleasant way to be brought into the world .
Although It did not look like Olivier was going to live at first after having a bad childbirth but he was born into as quoted by dickens ‘This world of sorrow and trouble’, Dickens also quotes that Olivier was born ‘On a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader’ he says this because he thinks that it does not matter because the birth of Olivier was something that would much rather be forgotten.
Later on in Olivier’s Birth in chapter one whilst Olivier is being born there is dialog between the nurse, the surgeon and Olivier’s mother in this conversation Olivier struggling to survive as he struggles to breath and cry’s out loud, his mother goes on to say ‘Let me see the child and die’ this creates a lot of sympathy because although Olivier has only just been born already he will not be able to see his mother because she is on the verge of dying.
After Olivier’s mother being with the new-born child she passes away, and also the doctor leaves the room to go away to dinner as if nothing had ever happened, the nurse if left to dress Olivier up in robes. Dickens then try’s to create a feeling of depression by using sad descriptive writing. And he leaves the last sentence saying ‘If he (Olivier) could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of churchwardens and oversees, perhaps he would have cried the louder’.
In the chapter of Nancy’s death Dickens creates tension and a sense of horror he does this by using descriptive and active language which involves the reader in the storyline. In this chapter Bill Sikes is planning to kill Nancy after Nancy betrays Bill so in total anger He kills her and then flees the country. In this scene it includes Bill Sikes, Fagin and Nancy, Fagin does not know at the start that Sikes intends to kill Nancy and throughout the scene Fagin tries to restrain Sikes but does not succeed. Dickens at the start of the chapter Fagin says to Bill ‘You won’t be-too-Violent Bill? This shows tension between bill and Fagin and as there is no reply this shows that Bill really wanted to kill Nancy.
As Bill enters Nancy’s room there is very descriptive writing such as ‘Without one pause, or moment’s consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left’ this creates tension and excites the reader as to what happens. As the chapter moves on Bill and Fagin Enter to room in which Nancy is in and although she thinks that it’s a nice surprise to see him Bill now makes the act of killing her, Dickens still use’s effective language and punctuation in example ‘I-I won’t scream or cry-not once – hear me-speak to me-tell me what I have done’ Dickens includes the dashes to include more suspense and tension in the chapter. Then Bill Sikes kills Nancy with two blows to the head from a pistol which leaves a dent in Nancy’s head. Bill Sikes
Is clearly shocked by what he has just done so Dickens explains this fully by saying ‘Such preparations completed, he moved, backwards towards the door,’ Dickens Language and structure makes this chapter more effective. In Conclusion I fink that Dickens writing in Olivier twist is very effective because Dickens writing enables the reader to get into the story an feel the feelings that Olivier is feeling in the play. Dickens defiantly gets his point across about the people of lower class suffering and people know realise that you should help less fortunate. I enjoyed the story because I liked Olivier’s determination to live a better life and in the end he succeeds.
