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ANALYSIS OF THE REFLECTION ON THE DEFECTS OF THE SOCIETY
IN’’OLIVER TWIST’’ BY CHARLES DICKENS
Khayrullayeva Nodira
PhD. English Linguistics Department
Uzoqova Saodat
3rd year student. Bukhara State University
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14185981
Abstract:
This article is devoted to the reflection of social problems of that time in the
work of “Oliver Twist «by Charles Dicken. In “Oliver Twist “children are presented as powerless.
There is nothing they can do in society so they have no chance but to steal. Whilst at the same
time the rich people can do whatever they want and live well.
Key words:
Orphan, homeless, rich, steal, poor, lonely, criminal, violence, thieves, corrupt
I. Introduction
One of the main themes of all Charles Dickens’ novels was how the poorest people in
society were treated the worst. This is one of the key themes in Oliver Twist, where we can see
the failure of the workhouse system that was unable to look after the poor and lonely orphans
that were in their care.
“Oliver Twist” is a novel, it is realistic fiction at the time it was published. ‘Oliver Twist’
was Dicken’s second novel, it was published in 1837-8 and was important of childhood
deprivation during the Victorian era. Dickens was one of the first ‘celebrities' to become very
famous for his writing.
In the story Oliver's mother Agnes has died in the workhouscelebrities's birthwith
revealing who his father was. Oliver is brought up as an orphan and moved at the age of 9 to
the workhouse. When it comes to say about the characters, some critics observed that Oliver
Twist is merely a passive pawn in the deadly match between good and evil. It is further
stipulated that the “good” characters, such as Mr. Brownlow and the Maylies, pale in
comparison to the villains Fagan and Bill Sikes.
In this research, I would like to analyze the education values that can be found in the
Charles Dickens ‘novel entitled “Oliver Twist”. To give evidence of this study, the writer
presents studies that have been conducted in the different study.
Ariyanti investigated An Analysis of Education values of the novel “Bumi Manusia". The
method that is used in this study is descriptive qualitative method, which focused on textual
data analysis.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer on his novel talks about three main characters: Minke, Annelies
and Nyai Onto Soroh. He tells about motivation to get better education that have to get out from
Javanese culture, family life and struggle of love. The result is many educational values can be
learned by reader.
Moreover, many educational values can be implicated in Indonesian education. The novel
gives information, motivation to the reader.
Muntamah with her study entitled An Analysis of moral Values As Seen on Charles
Dickeres Novel Oliver Twist: In this research, Muntamah used Descriptive Qualitative Research.
She utilized the documentation method in collecting the data while in data analysis. She used
observation and taking notes technique and also looked for other information which related to
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the research problems. The results of this research shows that there are some moral values that
can be found in “ Oliver Twist “ those are braver, humbleness, honesty , steadfastness,
sympathetic to others, cooperativeness, tthankfulness, kind-hearted, trustworthiness,
sincerity, love and affection.
Nasrudinillah stated in his paper entitled The Analysis Of Educational Values on “ Front
Of The Class" Movie. In his paper he used qualitative study; he took the primary data from
audiovisual and scrip froMo"Front of the Class" movie.
The secondary data is taken from many literary books and some relevant materials to
support and complete the primary data sources. The result of this study is that are some
educational values in the “Front of the Class" movie like: never give up, self-confidence, friendly
and be polite, love, forgiveness, optimism, help each other and responsible as human society.
Saputra (2012) also conducted a library research entitled An Analysis of Educational
Values in “ Ranah 3 Warna" Novel. The result of this research he found some educational values
such as life is a struggle, education is human right, never give up, be patient but not passive, the
power of dream, respect to parent, respect to teacher, be optimistic in life, be confident.
Kustantiningrum (2012) in her thesis entitled An Analysis of Educational Values in
Andrea Hirata's Novel “The Rainbow Troops" stated that she found some educational values, it
can be mentioned as follow: Struggle, skill-discover, responsible, hard work and life attitude,
discipline, religious, independent, social concern, communicative, and honest. The educational
values were shown by the six main characters, they are: 1) Lintang, 2) Mahar, 3) Ikal, 4) Bu Mus,
5) Pak Harfan, 6) Lintang's father.
Hasanah in her thesis entitled An Analysis of MaterialiLintanthe Reflection ofReflectioIn
1837 in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. The result finds that Oliver Twist
Is the reflection of Industrial Revolution. Its society deals with the poverty and affects the
people to be a materialist. People will do anything to recover from their economic condition.
They try to get the money as much as they can. Dickens as the author wants to criticize about
the condition of England related to the children labor and poverty.
Estiyana in her publication article entitled Child Exploitation Reflected in Charles Dickens’
Oliver Twist Novel: A Sociological Approach. She stated that based on sociological analysis, the
writer is find five aspects such as social aspect, economic aspect, cultural aspect, religious
aspect, and science and technology aspect based on Oliver Twist novel by Charles Dickens. The
cause and affects of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens”.
Based on the previous studies elaborated above, my thesis proposal focuses on An
Analysis of Moral Education to Charles Dickens “Oliver Twist “. The uniquenessbof this proposal
is that the researchers analyzed the education from the perspective of moral based on the Oliver
Twist.
Dickens lived a tragic life in his lifetime, which caused him has a strong sense of kindness
to the poor at the bottom of the society. Oliver in the novel as a representative of the poor and
the social lower class, also lived a miserable life . On the basis of the three subsystems in attitude
system, the paper mainly analyzes the discourse that relates to Oliver at the lexical level.
The rise and fall in society through the corrupting power of money is also an important
theme of the novel. The novel which is of a simple structure, deals with the development of the
protagonist Oliver. Dickens describes the phases of Oliver's progress in terms of a child's
instinctive and therefore virtuous response to his natural surrounding and in terms of negation
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of childhood simplicity. Oliver is o member of that vast and cruel machine of the Victorian
society with its obsession with money and class distinction. Oliver is presented as a Dickensian
orphan who is harshly treated and brought up by hand.
Oliver's inability to speak at his trial due to exhaustion and illness serves as a metaphor
for the lower class's lack of political power and ability to address it’s own issues in public. The
ability to vote in 1830s England was based on money, so the poor had no say in legislation.
Furthermore, the upper classes project their own ideas about the poor into them, to the point
where impoverished people's identities are casually rewritten with little regard for reality.
Oliver is unable to speak his own name due to exhaustion and anxiety, so a court official assigns
him the fictitious idendity “Tom White”. Throughout the hearing, Oliver is incorrectly referred
to as a “young vagrant” and a “ hardened scoundrel “ before being declared “ guilty. Mr.Bumble
creates the name Oliver Twist” after Oliver is born, making it no longer legal.As these example
demonstrate Oliver’s identity has been shaped throughout his life by more powerful
individuals.
For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble by the parish
surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear
any name at all in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would
never have appeared; or, If they had that being comprised within a couple 9f pages, they would
have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of
biography, extant in the literature of any age or country.
IV.Discussion
Example- 1
For the next eight or ten months , Oliver was the Victim of a systematic course of treachery
and deception.
In this example chosen from chapter 2, out of the same feeling or emotion, the author also
used the negative words “ courseof treachery and deception” to describe the world and society
Oliver will come down to. Oliver has been a victim of the social system and environment since
he was born. The expressions accord with the weak group were always bullied and decepted.
At the same time, the deteriorating social phenomena was criticized.
Example-2
‘Oliver ... a new burden having been imposed upon the parish...’; ‘...a parish child
－
the
orphan of a workhouse
－
the humble half-starved drudge – to be cuffed and buffeted through
the world, - despised by all, and pitied by none.
In this example, the author told us Oliver was born and survived. And subsequently he
became a new burden of the parish. The negative expressions ‘new burden', ‘ orphan of a
workhouse ‘, ‘humble half-starved drudge’ and
‘
cuffed and buffet' etc all reflect the little boy
Oliver’s plight. It seems that the guilty was should be imposing to Oliver although he did
nothing.
Which implies the unfair treatment Oliver suffered.[2]
Example-3
You have raised an artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am, unbecoming a person of his
condition…,” “No!” replied Oliver, boldly".
In this case, the expression ‘an artificial soul and spirit reflects the author's high praise for
Oliver.In the face of result, the rebellious spirit was awakened in the child's heart, he is not weak
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anymore. In the same way, the bold response ‘no’ presented a brave image to us. The author
expressed his positive feelings to Oliver, who is becoming stronger after experiencing such
tribulation.
Example-4
‘Oh! God forgive this wretched man!’ cried the boy with a burst of tears.
In this case, when Oliver went to visit the prisoner old Jwent he cried with a burst of tears,
the two words ‘wretched ‘, and ‘ forgive ‘ in the sentence ‘ God forgive this wretched man’
present a kind image to us. Although experienced a very tragic life and was cheated by the old
Jew, Oliver didn't lose his nature and still keep his kindness to the old man and the world.
Therefore, in this part, the author expressed his positive feelings explicitly or implicitly to
Oliver by using these attitudinal words.
Example-5
That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good people, I can
not, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm with any degree of confidence; but I can
most distinctly say, that for many months he continued meekly to submit to the domination and
ill-treatment of Noah Claypole…’ [3]
The meaning of the sentence is that although Oliver has been dominated and treated
unfairly for several months, the author is not sure whether he will struggle against violent
repression of those ‘good’ people or not. The implied meaning is that as a member of the
Vulnerable groups in the society with such background, maybe he dared not voice his
dissatisfaction or didn't have the strength to resist.
Here the word ‘good’ is used ironically to express the cruelty and atrocity. Actually, the
author showed a kind of sympathetic feeling to the poor boy as well as the criticism to the dark
society.
The research materials in this part are mainly chosen from chapters 6 and 7 ( the author
described the process Oliver was irritated and resulted by Noah as well as his rebellion to unfair
treatment).
Actually as the weakest group and most difficult group in the society, Oliver has been
bearing the injustice from the beginning, he just couldn't tolerate people insulting his mother,
so his rebellious spirit comes from his nature, just as the author described ‘his spirit was roused
at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire’. Therefore, in this part, the
author chose many negative words to describe Noah with the purpose of implying Oliver's
tenacity or refractory as well as his support and sympathy to the little boy.
In a nutshell, we can say that
the latest thought of the novel is Dickens’ humanity spirit to
the poor and his critique spirit to the society was revealed under the analysis of the appraise
system. According to this study, the author interacts with the readers indirectl, which realizes
the new development of the discourse comprehension in terms of interpersonal meaning.
References:
1.
Charles Dickens. (2000). Oliver Twist. Harbin: Harbin Press.
2.
Gee. J. (2011). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. London:
Routludge.
3.
Harris, Z. (1952). Discourse Analysis. Language, (28): 1-30.
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4.
Hu Zhuanglin. (2009). Study on the Evaluation of Discourse. Foreign Language Teaching,
(1): 1-6.
5.
J. R. Martin & Rose, David. (2003). Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause.
London: Continuum.
6.
J. R. Martin & P. R. R. White. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English.
England: Palgrave Macmillan.
7.
Lian Min. (2017). Discourse Analysis of Oliver Twist from the Perspective of Pragmatics.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, (7): 626-632.
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Liu Jinsheng, liu Lihua. (2012). Research on Discourse Analysis from the Perspective of
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