Oliver Twist (Summarized Edition)

Oliver Twist maps the passage of an orphan from parish workhouse to London's criminal underworld, exposing the hypocrisies of the New Poor Law and the commodification of childhood. In a blend of picaresque movement, melodramatic suspense, and Gothic chiaroscuro, Dickens employs an omniscient, satiric narrator whose indignation is leavened by irony and pathos. Vivid set pieces-workhouse cruelty, Fagin's den, Sikes's brutality, Nancy's moral courage-construct a topography of urban vice and reluct ...