How does Dickens Present the Criminals in Oliver Twist Essay -- GCSE En

â€Å"Oliver Twist† was written in 1838 by Charles Dickens and was originally published as a monthly magazine before being published as a novel that was subsequently read by many Victorians. It was written not only to entertain, but to raise awareness for the many issues in the society of the day related mainly to criminal activity. One of the main problems was based around the differentiation in the class of people in the Victorian era. People from the middle classes were widely known think very little of the lower classes and often considered them the evil of society. He also uses the novel to raise the issues related to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the way that it involved sending poor or orphaned people like Oliver to ghastly overpopulated workhouses where they were poorly looked after. Dickens also fights against the negative stereotypes of criminals and prostitutes such as Nancy who eventually shows the good in herself to protect Oliver from the hands of the d eadly wrath of Bill Sikes. Although most would say Dickens is presenting the criminals as purely evil throughout the novel, characters such as Fagin and Sikes who are presented as dark creates of the criminal underworld, they do however on the very odd occasion redeem themselves with an act of good will, usually towards the boys. Fagin and Sikes, but more so Sikes are very dangerous and violent men, however Fagin is shown, along with Nancy, to have a good side within him and are given good images at parts of the novel, however Nancy’s good will proves to be her last move as her good will causes her to be brutally murdered by Sikes. This novel was written in the Victorian Era, a time when society faces many social difficulties such as industrialization, prostitu... ...edibly realistic and are well shown by the criminal’s actions and personalities in this novel. It makes me feel sympathetic for Nancy and feel strong hatred towards people like Bill and Fagin. Nancy gave up her life to protect and save the life of another human being. I find just doing that for somebody is a fantastic gesture and also takes a lot of courage. It definitely shows that individualism is bad for Britain, if Nancy followed individualism then it may have been the completely innocent Oliver that was killed or abused. He also shows that the people of Britain who are born into lower class families are not pure evil and that they definitely have much good within them. BIBLIOGRAPHY (1) http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/050929-NL-twist.html Accessed 24/2/09 (2) https://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=37427 Accessed 5/3/09