{"id":21239,"date":"2013-09-13T13:53:58","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T18:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=21239"},"modified":"2013-09-11T21:54:33","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T02:54:33","slug":"the-criminology-of-oliver-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2013\/09\/the-criminology-of-oliver-twist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Criminology of \u201cOliver Twist\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"oliver\"<\/a>Let\u2019s face it.\u00a0 The protagonist of \u201cOliver Twist\u201d just isn\u2019t a very interesting character.\u00a0 Things start out promisingly enough with his\u00a0famous request, \u201cPlease, sir, I want some more.\u201d\u00a0 And who can resist applauding when he gives the boorish Noah Claypole a well-deserved thrashing?\u00a0 But we\u2019re then forced to endure nearly 400 pages of Oliver as an insufferable milquetoast, passively cast here and there to suit the needs of Dickens\u2019 laughably improbable plot, weeping copiously on cue to amplify the author\u2019s sentimental excesses.<\/p>\n

No, Oliver himself gives us no good reason to continue to read past page 50.\u00a0 It\u2019s the villains who really carry the show.\u00a0 Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, of course, supply some darkly memorable comic relief, and they are villains of a sort.\u00a0 Venal and hypocritical public servants, we might think of them as the forebears of some of today\u2019s white-collar criminals.\u00a0 (Mr. Bumble is also the source of a perennially favorite statement about the law; upon being informed that \u201cthe law supposes that your wife acts under your direction,\u201d Bumble sputters helplessly, \u201cIf the law supposes that, the law is a ass\u2013a idiot.\u201d (402))<\/p>\n

But the real scene-stealers are the criminals of a more conventional sort.\u00a0 Is there any doubt that Fagin is the most memorable and richly realized character in the book, with the murderous Bill Sikes not far behind? \u00a0<\/p>\n

These are the characters\u00a0who inspired Dickens\u2019 most gripping and psychologically penetrating\u00a0writing in the novel:\u00a0the short\u00a0sequence\u00a0of chapters centering on Sikes\u2019s surprisingly gory bludgeoning\u00a0of Nancy, his guilt-tortured flight from the scene of the crime and his eventual death, and Fagin\u2019s trial and execution.\u00a0These events, and not\u00a0the resolution of the mystery of Oliver\u2019s past or\u00a0the restoration of his\u00a0long-lost family relationships,\u00a0provide the novel\u2019s emotional high points. \u00a0Mercifully, Dickens drew his narrative to a close promptly after the death of Sikes and Fagin\u2013perhaps even he had grown weary of the remaining characters by that time.<\/p>\n

This summer, I reread \u201cOliver Twist\u201d for the first time in many years with my daughter. \u00a0I found myself particularly struck\u2013perhaps not surprisingly, given my current professional interests\u2013by the way that the vivid characterizations of Fagin and Sikes are connected to a broader sociological exploration of crime in a fast-industrializing society. \u00a0Dickens thus offers us an interesting window on popular criminology in the crucial early Victorian time period in which modern criminal-justice institutions like the prison and the police were still taking shape and struggling to gain acceptance. \u00a0(Indeed, Oliver has a brush with the famous Bow Street Runners, who are often characterized as the first professional police force in the Anglo-American world\u2013founded, coincidentally, by another great English novelist, Henry Fielding.) \u00a0Dickens also touches on a number of questions of enduring interest to policymakers, particularly relating to the treatment of juvenile crime. \u00a0In fact, just last week, lawmakers in Madison\u00a0introduced a proposal to take some seventeen-year olds out of the adult criminal-justice system<\/a>. \u00a0I don\u2019t know how Dickens would feel about that specific proposal\u2013he lived in an era before there was any such thing as a juvenile court system\u2013but he would certainly be sympathetic to the idea that child offenders can and should be rehabilitated and not simply discarded by society.<\/p>\n

The criminological themes appear early in \u201cOliver Twist.\u201d \u00a0Upon hearing of Oliver\u2019s bold request for more food, a member of the workhouse board solemnly predicts, \u201cThat boy will be hung. \u00a0I know that boy will be hung.\u201d \u00a0(16) \u00a0Dickens thus raises the question of whether there are \u201cborn criminals\u201d\u2013individuals with more or less innate tendencies to commit crime that can become evident even at a young age. \u00a0(The Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso was to develop an elaborate and highly influential theory along these lines later in the Victorian period. A more recent variant was the \u201csuperpredator\u201d theory of the 1990s that helped to convince legislators in many states to adopt new get-tough laws for juvenile offenders.)<\/p>\n

Of course, the grim prediction of the \u201cgentleman in the white waistcoat\u201d proves incorrect. \u00a0Indeed, we, the readers, know from the start that Oliver is really a good person, and he never seems especially close to becoming truly corrupted. \u00a0Yet, Oliver repeatedly faces charges of criminality, whether formally in a courtroom or informally in a drawing room. \u00a0The question of whether the other characters in the book will realize in time that Oliver is not really a criminal repeatedly provides the dramatic tension that carries the plot forward. \u00a0Dickens causes us to wonder, time and again, what makes some people become criminals and how do we recognize who the real criminals are amongst us?<\/p>\n

Certainly, social status is no proof of a good heart; see, e.g., Mr. Bumble. \u00a0Nor can we assume that judges or police officers have any particular ability to identify the criminal character. \u00a0Dickens\u2019 acerbic depiction of the police magistrate, the dyspeptic and aptly named Mr. Fang, drives the point home. \u00a0After Oliver is wrongly arrested for pocket-picking (see George Cruickshank’s illustration at the start of this post from the original publication<\/a>), Fang declares the boy a \u201chardened scoundrel\u201d before hearing anything from him and resolves to impose a sentence of three months of hard labor until a witness appears at the last possible moment to refute the charge. \u00a0(77-79)<\/p>\n

How do children become criminals? \u00a0The answer that Dickens highlights is that children go bad because they are led astray by adults, adults who exploit the desperation of children living in poverty for their own advantage. \u00a0This relationship of exploitation and corruption, of course, is the central premise of Fagin\u2019s gang of child thieves. \u00a0A lonely runaway to London, Oliver falls in with Fagin because he literally has no place else to go.<\/p>\n

Turning on his unctious charm, Fagin immediately begins preparing Oliver for a life of crime, making thievery appear nothing more than a delightful game. \u00a0He is already surrounded by a tight-knit cadre of proteges, and there is even a familial feeling within the gang that seems in some ways warmer than anything Oliver has yet experienced in his short life of wardship to the state. \u00a0(Dickens plainly wishes us to appreciate that there are disquieting similarities between the criminal exploitation and corruption perpetrated by Fagin and the routine, lawful functioning of the workhouse system, although, in the end, Fagin does seem more profoundly evil and dangerous than Bumble. \u00a0Both get their just deserts; Fagin is hung, but Bumble merely suffers the degradations of poverty and a bad marriage.)<\/p>\n

When it comes to the loyalty of his proteges, Fagin can rely on their emotional and material dependence on him. \u00a0As they age, they become habituated to crime and can hardly imagine any other way of life. \u00a0As Fagin says of Oliver, \u201cOnce let him feel that is one of us, once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief; and he\u2019s ours! \u00a0Ours for his life!\u201d \u00a0(147)<\/p>\n

Poor Nancy provides a tragic illustration. \u00a0Even when she is offered a safe escape to a new life\u2013even knowing that she is headed for a very bad end if she doesn\u2019t accept the offer\u2013she is incapable of leaving behind her old attachments.<\/p>\n

But Fagin does not rely solely on the family-like bonds that tie his gang together. \u00a0Once a new associate has committed a felony, Fagin has got something else on him: the child cannot go to the police without the fear that he himself will be sent to the gallows. \u00a0As Fagin says of Oliver, \u201c[H]e\u00a0must\u00a0<\/em>be in the same boat with us. \u00a0Never mind how he came there; it\u2019s quite enough for my power over him that he was in a robbery; that\u2019s all I want.\u201d \u00a0(147)<\/p>\n

Dickens thus suggests that an overly harsh criminal justice system may inadvertently reinforce, rather than counteract, the bad social influences on the young criminal, frightening him from seeking assistance from the authorities.<\/p>\n

In any event, even within Fagin\u2019s web, Dickens is clear that the young criminal may still retain some of his or her innate moral sensibilities. \u00a0Again, Nancy supplies an illustration, as she risks her own life to try to help Oliver. \u00a0Or consider Charley Bates, one of Fagin\u2019s pick-pockets, who reacts with revulsion to the news of Nancy\u2019s murder and helps to ensure that Sikes meets his grim, if well-deserved, fate. \u00a0In the end, Bates is (to use an anachronistic phrase) thoroughly rehabilitated:<\/p>\n

Master Charles Bates, appalled by Sikes\u2019s crime, fell into a train of reflection whether an honest life was not, after all, the best. \u00a0Arriving at the conclusion that it certainly was, he turned his back upon the scenes of the past, resolved to amend it in some new sphere of action. \u00a0He struggled hard, and suffered much, for some time, but having a contented disposition, and a good purpose, succeeded in the end; and, from being a farmer\u2019s drudge, and a carrier\u2019s lad, is now the merriest young grazier in all Northamptonshire. \u00a0(417)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is there some point beyond which a criminal really is irredeemable? \u00a0Are there some who, even early in their careers, lack the right sort of \u201cdisposition\u201d to follow the path blazed by Charley Bates?<\/p>\n

Dickens makes us feel a primal horror at Nancy\u2019s murder, and Sikes himself seems overwhelmed by the awfulness of his crime. \u00a0It is a guilt-induced vision of Nancy that causes him to fall to his death as he tries to make an escape from the pursuing mob. \u00a0This guilt suggests that even the hardened adult criminal Sikes has not entirely lost his moral sense, but Dickens does not otherwise seem to hold out much hope that Sikes could be rehabilitated.<\/p>\n

Fagin seems an utter monster. \u00a0Even his physical appearance comes across as twisted and appalling. \u00a0What originally made a criminal out of this man who led so many others astray? \u00a0The source of Fagin\u2019s corruption is not made clear, but, quite troublingly for modern readers, it is hard to avoid the sense that Dickens wishes to link Fagin\u2019s bad character to his Jewishness. \u00a0Indeed, Fagin is most often identified in \u201cOliver Twist,\u201d not by name, but simply as \u201cthe Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Fagin, it turns out, is not entirely without a conscience; we are told that he is tortured by it in the harrowing final days as he awaits hanging. \u00a0(411) \u00a0Yet, he does not seem to feel any deep remorse; his dominant emotions at the end are fear, anger, and self-pity.<\/p>\n

The mysterious and malevolent Monks offers a final type of the criminal. \u00a0As Oliver\u2019s long-lost half-brother, we ultimately learn more of his life story than we do of any of the other villains. \u00a0He does seem to have been a bad sort from the start, although, once again, we can readily see an adult cause for the corruption of the child. \u00a0With his parents trapped in a loveless marriage, the young Monks was used as a scourge by the spiteful mother against the somewhat more upstanding father. \u00a0When the parents separated, Monks joined the mother in her life of continental dissolution. \u00a0With this bad model, it does not seem surprising that Monks became a thief and a fraud in order to support his own wayward lifestyle. \u00a0Nor that he became consumed with a lifelong animosity toward his father first and then toward Oliver, the father\u2019s illegitimate child.<\/p>\n

But, whatever sympathy we might feel for the child Monks based on his dysfunctional family life, we are certainly meant to regard the adult Monks and his plotting against Oliver as evil through and through. \u00a0No rehabilitation is in the cards for him. \u00a0Although given an opportunity for a fresh start in America, Monks quickly squanders his funds and falls back into a life of crime, eventually dying in prison. \u00a0(416)<\/p>\n

The irony, from the standpoint of Victorian morality, is that the one brother tainted with illegitimacy and repeatedly expected to turn bad (Oliver) ends up happy and good, while the other brother, born within the approved bonds of marriage, turns out miserable and bad. \u00a0Such circumstances of birth do not seem to control one\u2019s criminological destiny.<\/p>\n

Dickens seems to have some faith in the innate goodness of children, a goodness that may flourish under the right sort of adult care and be suppressed under the wrong sort. \u00a0Once a child is set on the path of vice and crime, recovery is difficult, but empathy and conscience may remain and provide hope, at least to a point.<\/p>\n

Page references in this post are to the Modern Library Paperback Edition of \u201cOliver Twist\u201d (2001).<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s face it.\u00a0 The protagonist of \u201cOliver Twist\u201d just isn\u2019t a very interesting character.\u00a0 Things start out promisingly enough with his\u00a0famous request, \u201cPlease, sir, I want some more.\u201d\u00a0 And who can resist applauding when he gives the boorish Noah Claypole a well-deserved thrashing?\u00a0 But we\u2019re then forced to endure nearly 400 pages of Oliver as 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