[Music] in the introduction of Oliver Twist a baby boy is born in a workhouse in a town some 70 miles outside London in the 1820s the boy's mother dies leaving her son to be raised by the parish named Oliver Twist by the parish beetle a minor official who helps oversee the orphanage the boy grows up ragged and undernourished in a baby farm a place where a fee is paid for the ongoing care of babies and children at age nine he lives in the workhouse labouring intensely every day in the rising action one day Oliver dares to ask for more gruel and the flabbergasted infuriated workhouse board decides to find him an apprenticeship Oliver is apprentice to the local Undertaker who trains him to be a professional mourner at children's funerals and even lets him eat meat instead of gruel and scraps of bread Wow bullied and fed up Oliver decides to run away to London when Oliver reaches London he meets Jack Dawkins who introduces Oliver to Fagin an anti-semitic caricature of an evil Jewish old man who provides room and board to boys in return for their work which is pickpocketing and stealing Oliver takes the blame when a pickpocketing goes wrong and he's arrested during the trial Oliver passes out from Beaver the pickpocketing victim mr. Brownlow takes all of her home with him Oliver is happy and grateful to mr. Brownlow and his housekeeper mrs. Bedwin Oliver recovers only to be recaptured and returned to Fagin at the insistence of a mysterious associate named monks criminal Bill Sikes takes Oliver to help with a burglary but Oliver is shot when it goes awry Oliver amazingly recovers enough to make it to the house where he was shot there mrs. maylie the owner of the house and her niece Rose nurse him back to health with the help of a local diner mr. losberne Oliver's friends get him back on his feet and try to discover his true identity Rose mrs. Maylie Oliver and mr. losberne are in London when Nancy another of Fagin's criminals and Bill Sikes his girlfriend comes to roses hotel room and tells her that she overheard Fagin talking monks and that monks called Oliver his brother rose and mr. Brownlow later meet Nancy near London Bridge where they asked her to turn in Fagin's gang she refuses in the climax of Oliver Twist Fagin tells Bill Sikes that Nancy has ratted out the gang and Bill goes into a fury and murders her he then goes on the run and in trying to escape from his pursuers falls from a roof with a noose around his neck and hangs himself soon after in the falling action Fagin is arrested tried as an accomplice to murder and sentenced to hang Oliver and Rose learn their true identities it turns out that Oliver's mother was the great love of monks his father who was mr. Brownlow's close friend monks his father had hoped to marry Oliver's mother but he took ill and died before he could do so he had written a will leaving most of his money to Oliver but monks his mother made sure it was never found in the resolution Oliver finally receives his inheritance mr. Brownlow adopts him and Oliver and his friends all end up living happily in a country village several central characters inhabit the virtuous but violent world of Oliver Twist the titular protagonist Oliver Twist is orphaned at birth and brought up by the parish in terribly abusive circumstances despite his Oh treatments Oliver is a kind honest boy whose quick to forgive he's motivated by the desire to help those in need and by gratitude to those who help him no matter how much abuse and manipulation he experiences he remains true to his nature Fagin is an old man with an ugly face and matted red hair he's the sort of criminal mastermind at the center of all the conflicts in the book he's also an ugly anti-semitic caricature that paints a deeply problematic picture of Jews he looks and lives like a popper but he has plenty of money readers meet Fagin in his public persona of a jolly old fellow taking care of his young charges but the boys with him are really apprentice thieves Fagin is a Corrupter of the young and Dickens often refers to him as the devil he's as evil as they come the antithesis of Oliver Twist like Oliver Rose Maylie was orphaned as a child she was then raised by abusive foster parents when mrs. maylie found rose she was a ragged child underfed and unloved mrs. maylie took her in and raised her has her niece Rose is young but very caring and maternal she puts the needs of others before her own when Harry Maylie proposes for instance she turns him down because she fears her origins would ruin his reputation and thus his career like the ideal mother Rose nourishes Oliver with food knowledge and love mr. Brownlow is a gentleman through and through when Jack steals his handkerchief and Oliver is accused of it mr. Brownlow doesn't assume Oliver's guilt and in fact he feels more concern about Oliver's well-being than about his own loss he takes Oliver into his home and nurses him Nancy came to Fagin when she was just a few years old and he trained her well although never stated in the novel Dickon says in his preface to the third edition that Nancy practices prostitution to make a living she also deeply loves the burglar Bill Sikes despite her upbringing Nancy shows as much compassion and love as Rose Maylie she takes to Oliver from the start and wants to save him from a life on the streets Bill Sikes an experienced house breaker a burglar takes his loot to fake it into fence or sell Fagin values Sikes his skills as a meticulous planner and a reliable partner in crime Sikes lives with Nancy and his dog bullseye bill Sikes shows little Humanity in his words but some of his actions might indicate that his habitual surliness is in part a defensive posture after killing Nancy when his temper gets the best of him he is almost completely incapacitated by guilt as parish beetle mr. bumble acts as a liaison between the church the workhouse the baby farm and other organizations for looking after the poor of the parish ultimately he gets his comeuppance in his marriage and fall for power mr. bumble illustrates the inadequacy of poor laws and the hypocrisy of those who care for the poor [Music] darkness the countryside obesity and dirt and dilapidation these seemingly common symbols are the most significant and profound occurrences in Oliver Twist darkness is associated with crime and evil doing all throughout the novel criminals work is best on at night their crimes are planned in smoky rooms with boarded up windows and they scurry through the city along narrow fog filled passages the darkness of the setting reflects the darkness of their thoughts and deeds as well as the shadowy grimy City which serves as a hotbed for wrongdoing around every dark corner an alleyway countryside in contrast to the dark streets of the poor quarters of London is bright with sun-drenched open spaces and colorful flowers in Oliver Twist it is a place of health happiness and security while the city is a place of disease desperation and danger obesity is a powerful symbol that stands in stark opposition to the hunger and leanness of the poor in Oliver Twist the comfortably offer portly fat or by no means slim in many cases as with mr. bumble and the members of the workhouse board obese people are also greedy and pompous but readers should recognize that mr. losberne Giles and Brittles are overweight too Dickens even points out that Oliver becomes healthy and gains weight once he's moved in with the Malee's obesity ultimately is a symbol of membership in the prosperous middle class indicating a condition in which people have more than enough as with the poor the middle class encompasses both the virtuous and the evil dirt and dilapidation represent poverty something Oliver Twist understands all too well but as with obesity dirt and dilapidation linked to a darker theme as well criminality the baby farm children are seldom washed which stems from mrs. man's neglect the thieves were dirty clothes and live in dilapidated surroundings it is true that this stems from poverty but other characters and Oliver Twist are both poor and clean thus a character's level of cleanliness can be seen as a measure of that person's virtue and strength of spirits [Music] virtue versus evil poverty criminality child abuse and nature versus nurture heavy concepts that form the central themes that run the course of the novel Oliver Twist Dickens portrays true virtue as invincible even in the face of desperation and compelling evil Oliver Twist is innately virtuous he remains selfless honest compassionate all throughout the trials and temptations set in his path the selfish devious and ruthless Fagin is his evil nemesis a Corrupter of children and adults alike who hides behind a mask of charm Oliver meets and overcomes a series of temptations in the form of a life of crime but Oliver sees through Fagin and Jack's rosy portrayal of this life refusing to succumb [Music] deeply affected by his own poverty as a child dickens addresses this theme in Oliver Twist by closely observing its effects on Oliver and those around him effects that include malnourished mint and death he comments bluntly on the treatment of poppers and work houses and on the hypocrisy that often characterizes the organization's and their representatives who are tasked with their care Dickens describes in detail the atrocious and sometimes deadly conditions in which the poor must live the theme of criminality is tied to the ideas of virtue evil poverty and even hypocrisy when all else fails the poor may be driven to crime especially petty theft but this is far from the only type of crime Dickens explores in Oliver Twist he shows how greed leads to petty thefts to picking pockets to fencing as with Fagin and to housebreaking and even murder and while Fagin's role in taking boys and training them in criminality may not be strictly illegal it certainly corrupts these young characters and leads them to lives of crime child abuse in Oliver Twist is individual and institutional children are regularly beaten as punishment Oliver is beaten constantly throughout the novel in Victorian England a common punishment for child criminals was a public whipping Dickens seems to find the practice abhorrent the good people in the novel never punished Oliver at all it must be noted however that he never does anything deserving of punishment other abuses of children also take place in the novel they're locked in dark places publicly shamed and starved for poor little dick this institutionalized abuse proves fatal [Music] finally much of Oliver Twist considers the struggle between nature versus nurture Fagin constantly attempts to corrupt Oliver and turn him into a criminal against his true nature which is to be kind and good Dickens also examines how nurture can triumph over nature in characters such as mr. Sowerberry and Nancy both of whom have basic decency at their cores but who give in to temptation and outside influences