Oliver Twist

Any kind of cruelty to children touched Dickens very deeply and in Oliver Twist the author challenges the system which gave rise to the Poor Law and all its attendant miseries. Through his characters, Dickens scathingly exposes the brutality of magistrates, the incompetence of the Bow Street Runners, the spread of corruption and the inhumanity and hypocrisy practised under the guise of respectability.
Though Oliver Twist stands at the centre of the novel, the true characters must be the villains of the piece - Fagin, Sikes, Dodger et al. In Sikes and Fagin we see Dickens's remarkable ability to give his characters the actuality of physical presence which adds that particular flavour of nightmare to the criminal underworld of Oliver Twist.

Literatura Estrangeira / Romance