Creating Tension and Fear in Chapter 47 and 50 of Oliver Twist

Throughout Charles Dickens childhood his family was constantly struggling financially. Dickens, at the age of 12, was sent to work in a shabby factory, a nightmare he would never forget, “no words can express the secret agony of my soul”. As the family fell more and more into debt, it hit dickens particularly hard. His family difficulty drew him into writing books related to poverty, in a way that he could express his experiences as a child. “The visitors had to penetrate through a maze of close, narrow, and muddy streets”, this shows poverty in an area in his novel of Oliver Twist. He raised awareness of how badly poor people were treated and tried to show that this treatment was unacceptable through his novels. The opening of chapter 50 of Oliver Twist, shows many examples of poverty, such as “windows guarded by rusty iron cars that time and dirt have almost eaten it away, every imaginable signs of desolation and neglect”. This is a powerful quotation as it almost leaves the reader feeling guilty and appreciative of everything they have. It shows that everything is falling apart in the unemployed part of area. Dickens has a clear understanding and wisdom of poverty and can relate to Oliver Twist very well as both of them lived through it. This creates a realistic and believable effect on the reader. During the time of Dickens, many poor people were forced into workhouse while others were drawn into crime in order to survive. Those who suffered most from poverty were the innocent children who were close to starvation. Children who were born to unmarried women were not valued by society; unmarried women were not given much help and were called “fallen mothers”, very much like the situation we see of Oliver Twist.

Oliver Twist is...

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...ite moving and tragic, “striking his head against a stone, dashed out his brains”, this was unexpected to the reader and must have surprised the reader as the dog itself did not harm anyone and is guiltless. Here the effect on the reader must have left them surprised as they were not in for another shock.

Dickens did a successful job of creating tension and fear in Chapter 47 and 50 of Oliver Twist, as he used effective language to make his characters interesting for the reader. He had used his own experience and wisdom about poverty and based the characters around people he had known himself to make the novel realistic and believable for the reader. He had used effective language to describe the unemployed and neglected area based on, in Chapter 50; this helped to create an image of a poor area in our heads, as if we could see it right in front of our own eyes.