Analisi del testo: Oliver wants some more

Analisi del testo: Oliver wants some more

This is a pass taken from the II chapter of the novel Oliver Twist written by Charles Dickens. The text can be divided into three parts: the introduction (vv. 1-22), the fact (vv. 23-39) and the reaction (vv. 40-67).

The introduction describes the condition of Oliver and his friends, obliged to suffer a slow starvation for three months. But one boy, tall for his age, threatened some night to eat the boy who slept next him! A council was held, and someone had to ask to the master for more food: it fell to Oliver Twist.

The second part, the fact, is described in a very precise way: Dickens describes the moment of the dinner, each character and his role, and then describes the Oliver's felling. "Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery".

Then there is the last part, the reaction. This request has shocked the master, paralysed the assistants with wonder and the boys with fear. To judge this great form of "rebellion" was organised a board in solemn conclave and everyone believed that he would be hang or something like that. At the end the director of the workhouse, Mr. Limbkins, decided to offer a reward of five pounds to "anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of parish."

The story developed into three parts: narration, description and dialogue.

The description can be divided into two more parts. The former is the description of the room where the boys staid, "a large stone hall, with a copper at one end", so a very poor and cold room. The latter is about boys and their condition: Dickens makes a very detailed description of the hunger children, obliged to a "slow starvation for three months", or the voracity of a boy that threatened "to eat the first boy who slept next him"! With this description he wants to show to the reader the terrible condition of life in the workhouses, and he wants to arouse pity in the reader.

Dickens uses the external and omniscient narrator, in accord to the role of commenting the story events. The novelist had to be external to the story to have the possibility to judge each happening and decide if it is "wrong" or "good". So the narrator, in his description is pity for the children, and he stresses and mocks the adults' reaction: for a simple request of a hungry child, it had been assembled a "solemn conclave" and Oliver had been offered to anybody who wants to take him.