Study Questions &
Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. Victorian stereotypes
about the poor asserted that poverty and vice were fundamentally
connected and that, moreover, both were hereditary traits: the poor were
supposedly bad from birth. How does Dickens approach such stereotypes?
2. Consider the
female characters of Nancy, Rose Maylie, and Agnes Fleming. How
are the three women different? How are they similar? What do their differences
and similarities suggest about Dickens’s ideas about women?
3. Discuss the
portrait of the criminal justice system presented in Oliver Twist.
Suggested Essay Topics
1. In Chapters 48 and 52,
Dickens explores the consequences of Sikes’s and Fagin’s crimes.
Is the narrative technique in these chapters different from that
in the rest of the novel? If so, how? How does the reader’s perspective
on Sikes and Fagin change in these chapters? How do these chapters
address the issues of guilt and punishment?
2. Discuss the character of Fagin.
To what extent does anti-Semitism influence Dickens’s portrait of
him? Should Fagin be taken to represent all Jews? May he be taken
to represent anything else?
3. Oliver Twist is
full of thievery. Some of it is committed by criminals like Sikes
against respectable people like the Maylies, while some of it is
committed by “respectable” people like Mrs. Mann and Mr. Bumble
against the poor. How are these two types of thievery different?
What do they have in common? Also, consider the various ways in
which other people “rob” Oliver of his identity. What does the prevalence of
thievery in the novel say about the world that it portrays?
4. What role does clothing play
in the various characters’ identities? Consider Nancy’s disguise,
the new suit that Brownlow purchases for Oliver, and Mr. Bumble’s
regret at giving up the office of parish beadle.
5. How does Dickens represent
marriage in Oliver Twist? Compare and contrast
the marriages of Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Corney, of Rose and Harry,
and of Mr. Leeford and Monks’s mother. Consider also the prevalence
of “families” that do not center around a marriage: for example,
Oliver, Brownlow, Grimwig, and Mrs. Bedwin; or Mrs. Maylie, Rose,
and Mr. Losberne.
