Wednesday, 4 January 2023

Oliver Twist as a social satire

              Dickens primarily used his creative genius as a weapon to attack and express his fury on the corrupt social institutions. Oliver Twist is a satire on the inhumanity, cruelty and corruption pervading the workhouses. Through this novel, Dickens also scolded the system of law and other social institutions.

            The first eleven chapters of the novel 'Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834' is satirized by Dickens. The act was made to reform but the situation had become worsened. This act had, on the one hand, abolished the generous Speenhamland system whereby Labourer's wages were supplemented to the subsistence level driving them to pauperism and finally to the workhouse. On the other hand, it made the living conditions in the workhouse very hard because it kept away capable men from them. The hardship was affected by the meagre food given at the workhouses, the separation of families on entering it, the want of exercise and the disgusting nature of the work done in the workhouse. Dickens also attacked on the inadequate medical facilities and other common services offered at the workhouses.

            The most callous 'economy' measures of the new Act was the sparse diet provided to the inhabitants of any workhouse. Dickens says that for the board, the workhouses had become a regular place for public amusement, thus they set few things rightly. They contracted with the waterworks to lay on supply of water without any limit and with the corn factory to provide periodically small quantities of oatmeal and gave three meals of thin gruel a day with an onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays. In chapter two, when we go through the popular scene of Oliver's asking for more food, it is informed that the bowls in which food was served were never washed.

            In Baby farms, children were kept from the most delicate age to the age of fifteen but the arrangements to look after them were very poor and insufficient. In the baby farm whose in-charge was Mrs Mann and where Oliver had lived for nine years, she received seven pence half a penny per head and per week. Mrs Mami is remarked as a very great practical philosopher'. She is a lady of 'wisdom and experience'. The children suffer from starvation and 'she appropriated the great part of the weekly stipend to her own use'.

            Dickens has also satirized the want of healthy exercise in the open air for the farm boys and the inexperienced doctors. There were several works in those baby farms like stone-breaking, bone-crushing or oakum picking. Dickens says that parish doctors were usually inexperienced and low-rated. Such doctors had attended to Oliver's mother Agnes during her labour pain.

              Another social institution which is attacked by Dickens' satirical weapon is the court. Here satire is not pungent or sharp but blended in farce. In chapter 3 the magistrate was least concerned with the boy and was about to sign the indenture but fortunately, his eyes catch the glimpse of Oliver's pale and terrified face. But in later scenes, Mr Fang, the magistrate, serves the real purpose of Dickens. He was utterly heartless and cruel. Oliver got fainted in front of him but Mr Fang took it as his pretension. He says that the boy is too cunning and wants to make them fools. He is not of belief to treat any convict leniently. Besides, Mr Bumble is announcing 'the law is an ass-a idiot'.              

             In Oliver Twist, there is an indirect satire on the incompetence and inefficiency of policemen also because Fagin and Sikes like criminals are functioning easily under their eyes but they (police) fail to catch them (criminals).

            Dickens satire reveals how conscious he was of the happenings in his society. His novels created an atmosphere of public awareness. He made an appeal to the human heart and surely influenced the emotional attitudes of thousands of people towards the contemporary problems of society.



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