Social Issues In Oliver Twist

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Oliver Twist’s Social Issues In Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, multiple social issues are presented to the reader, such as the poverty of society, felonies committed against the wealthy that were committed by children, and peer manipulation and pressure. In the 1800's, society contained a majority of impecunious people. The people of common civilization lacked the money they needed due to the government collecting wealth for the government’s security rather than the personal needs of the people. Many lives were wasted and thought of as ‘not worth the money’. This lead to excessive death in England. Oliver Twist states, “...Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception,” and it continues to say, “The hungry and destitute “… and in that one moment they took from him, with most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief, even the spectacle-case. If the old gentleman felt a hand in any one of his pockets, he cried out where it was; and then the games begin all over again” (91; ch 9). As presented, Dickens used this sentence to represent how Charley Bates, Dodger, and Fagin influenced Oliver’s perspective on pick-pocketing by making it seem fun and game-like rather than a detrimental, inimical act. They lead him to believe that they were good people. Then, Fagin prompted Oliver to unmark the handkerchiefs that they stole. When Oliver finally came with them to a mission, he found himself shocked to find that the objects they brought home were actually stolen from rich people. “What was Oliver’s horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the Dodger plunge his hands into the old gentleman’s pocket and draw from thence a handkerchief! To see him hand the same to Charley Bates, and finally to behold them, both, running away around the corner at full speed!” (95; ch 10).Oliver was undoubtedly easily manipulated by his peers when they pressured him into committing crimes because his innocence made him oblivious to the negative actions of his meretricious

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