Conversely the poor children were so close to death because of the small amounts of food they took in. But this represents how much of a hypocrite the beadle is, as he himself makes the poor class miserable and weak. Therefore I firmly believe the members of the board symbolise the devil, allowing blameless children to be persecuted by non stop labour and slow starvation. This social Injustice continues throughout the novel, as this was the grounds of Dickens’s writing.
Further more we see this carry through into chapter 11. Oliver remains to be stereo typed during the court room. He his held prisoner over night for being accused of pick pocketing, in a dark dingy cell, that lingered dreadful smells and horrific sightings such as rats and urine covering the ground. The less unfortunate were dumped “in dungeons, compared with which, those in Newgate, occupied by the most atrocious felons, tried , found guilty and under sentence of death are palaces.
” This demonstrates that the two classes were unequal, the poor who committed petty crimes, where held in revolting cramped cells where as the 1st and 2nd class who committed serious offences such as murder, were held in prisons that were hygienic and pleasant environments to be in, the law protected the wealthy. This evidence points out that what class you were held under depends on how they treated you, they labelled you and it was impossible to be counted as an individual.
In this chapter Oliver is trialled by the magistrate, Mr Fang. The significance of his name makes his personality sound immoral, like he is a sharp person. He is seen as the devil, having fang teeth, trying to get his teeth into anybody and drag them down. This links to how the Beadle acts towards the children. This resulted in Oliver; he didn’t have a voice, while stood nervously in front of the magistrate. He was unable to speak for himself at this point, like he didn’t have the right.
People believed the poor shouldn’t have a say because they will always be guilty. They judged those unfortunate and made them appear troublesome. Dickens betrays the magistrate he creates him as being a drunken man and all over the place. He is also comical, the magistrate tries to pin the blame on anybody, and he even accuses Mr Brownlow of stealing the book asking, “Is it paid for? ” It demonstrates how Mr Fang just wanted to find someone guilty so he could depart from the office.
To sum up I believe Dickens defends the lower class and shows in detail how the poor were treated. Also how unequal the two class divisions were. I believe he wrote this novel to get people to understand how life was, and how different it was, showing people today the good changes that have happened. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Oliver Twist section.
