We see Sikes’s anger with the monosyllabic words he uses and the way he ‘hastily’ rushed home when he heard the news about Nancy. We see that he is breathing heavily with the words ‘with dilated nostrils and heaving breast’. We can see that Sikes is furious when Nancy is said to have ‘peeched’ on them because Fagin tries to calm him down but this just builds up more rage. When Sikes is let go by Fagin he thinks about the killing of Nancy, he doesn’t just go and kill her he has planned it out but he is determined to kill her.
He gives her no chance of escape ‘ double locks the door and props a table against it’. This is not the first time we have seen Sikes violent, he was violent towards Oliver when he forced him to help with the robberies and the time when he is building up to the ‘peeching’ of Nancy he uses violent sentences like ‘I’ll grind their skull under the iron heel of my boot as many times as there are grains of hair upon their head’ and ‘I’d smash your head like a loaded wagon had gone over it’. This is another time and scene setting because he means a wagon that horses pulled in them days.
If I met some like Sikes I would not get involved with him or go anywhere near him because if you step out of line or betray someone like him, he will not hesitate to kill you just like he did with Nancy. Fagin and Sikes are both similar with the description of animal like features and that you wouldn’t trust them just like they wouldn’t trust you. When Fagin and Sikes are talking about betrayal, Sikes ‘pulls his pistol from one pocket to the other’ this makes Fagin aware of any false move and he’s had it.
When Sikes Murders Nancy he does it with a bit of brains but he doesn’t take ‘a pause or moments consideration’, Dickens describes the way Bill enters the room well by saying ‘he opened the door softly, strode lightly up the stairs, he double locked the door and propped a table against it giving no chance of entry or escape and he drew back the curtains. The curtains are another old fashion object to suggest the time that this was set. The person that Sikes murders is his girlfriend, Nancy.
She is an innocent person who just wants the best for people. She is Dickens calls her ‘the girl’ to give her the innocent characteristics and he describes her has ‘half dressed’ making her sound defenceless. When the ‘robber’ is about to beat her to her death she cries out some religious words like ‘heaven’, ‘god’s sake’, ‘guilty soul’ and ‘repent’. She is pleading for her life because she knows that Sikes is capable of killing her. It also say’s ‘she breathed one last prayer of mercy to her maker’ this shows us that Nancy is quite religious.
Sikes is given some more names by the end of the play like ‘housebreaker and when he kills Nancy its ‘murderer’ this make him sound more violent and malicious than just ‘Bill Sikes’. In my opinion I think Nancy did the right thing in telling Mr. Brownlow about Oliver if she knew the consequences, which she did, but she cared about Oliver’s future so much because that’s the kind of person she is, she thinks about others. In chapter 47, Fatal consequences, Dickens shows us that Fagin is related to a monster, Sikes is a sort of monster and a brute and Nancy is the innocent one who just wants the best for people.
Dickens also sets the time and culture well by showing all the changes from past and present by using some writing techniques like alliteration and personification, this creates and image of Fagin and Sikes as monster/ animal like creatures and the words used to describe Nancy makes her seem noble but week. 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.
