Oliver Twist door Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist was born in a workhouse. There was nobody to assist his mother except for a drunken old woman. His mother died in childbirth and it remained in doubt if he he would survive.

At the age of 10 months he was transferred to a farm where Mrs. Mann was in charge. She received money from the parish authorities for every child she kept. Of course she held the benefits for herself. Unfortunately this meant that the children received almost nothing to eat. When Oliver became 9 years old he was obviously underfed. That was when a beadle from the workhouse came to bring an allowance for Mrs. Mann. This man, called Mr. Bumble, told the lady that he had chosen Oliver’s name because the father had never been known. Mr. Bumble decides to take Oliver back to the workhouse, a house for paupers and orphans, where the children are starved . This means that many of the children die, the result is enormously benefits the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry.

Years go by until Oliver gets the courage to ask a little bit more to eat. The little boy is found ungrateful. He is punished and afterwards he is sold to Mr. Gansfield, a chimney sweeper. But Oliver is lucky because a magistrate decides that he will be educated by Mr. Sowerberry (the undertaker). Of course Oliver has to prove his abilities and succeeds. Things go well until a few days later a fight originates between Noah Claypole (another employee) and Oliver because the young man insults the mother of the loveless child. After the incident he is locked up in a cave but he is very slender and he escapes to London through the window. Mr. Bumble is called to take the boy back to the workhouse.


On his way to London he says goodbye to his only friend, Dick. This boy promises that he will always think of Oliver. Afterwards the hungry boy meets Dodger, who introduces him to the Jew Fagin, a man who takes care of orphans in exchange for stolen goods. That same evening Fagin goes to Bill Sikes. This man is a master of his trade: i.e. stealing. He had gone out to steal and Fagin came to collect the goods. Back at the factory the man counts his benefits. At that moment Oliver awakes and now knows where to find the jewelry and other valuable objects. This fact enrages Fagin but after Oliver pretends that he has not seen anything. Everything calms down.

The morning after the dispute Nancy (who is Sikes’ girlfriend) arrives at the factory because she has to collect the money for the goods that were stolen the other night. Oliver’s task is to remove embroidered initials on handkerchiefs with a needle. Next the ignorant boy is taught to filch those handkerchiefs from Fagin’ s pockets. That is how is prepared to become a real thief. Anyway his first job goes immediately wrong: at a bookshop Dodger tries to steal a handkerchief from a wealthy man. Unfortunately Oliver is blamed and brought to prison. The man who was almost robbed, Mr. Brownlow, doubts if it was really Oliver who intended to steal from him. The innocent boy is still accused but luckily he is saved by the owner of the bookshop. The man declares that it was not Oliver that had stolen from the rich man. This last one takes Oliver to his house. The boy is fascinated by a painting of a young woman.

Meanwhile Sikes and Fagin got frightened because they fear that Oliver will betray them. At Brownlow’ s enormous house a friend named Mr. Grimwig is invited. This man doubts about Oliver’s genuine good heart: he thinks Oliver still belongs to the street. Mr. Brownlow decides to prove his friend that the boy is honest so he sends Oliver to the bookstore with money and very expensive books. On his way the boy meets Nancy. This is not a coincidence because the child was followed in order to bring him back to the factory. Nancy pretends that Oliver is her little brother who ran off. This is how she manages to take the boy “home”.

At the same time Mr. Bumble has another visit to the farm where he meets Oliver’ s best friend Dick. The boy is dying and he tells Mr. Bumble how much he cares about Oliver and that he has thought of him lots of times. These words are enough to make Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Mann think that Oliver has set Dick up. A few days later Mr. Bumble discovers an advertisement placed by Mr. Brownlow in the newspaper who promises a reward for everybody who can give any information concerning Oliver’ s disappearance. This causes the beadle to go to the wealthy man where he proclaims that the young Twist is ungrateful, evil and unreliable. This fact makes Mr. Grimwig happy, Mr. Brownlow now thinks that he made a mistake by trusting Oliver.

Now Oliver gets morel training as a thief. He has to do a burglary with Sikes and Toby Chrackit in the house of an old lady. The boy has to creep through the window and afterwards he has to open the door to the criminals. Oliver wants to alert the inhabitants when suddenly the dogs start barking. They run off, followed by two employees. A bullter hit Oliver and he fell into a ditch where Sikes and Chrackit left him. When Oliver is conscious he goes back to the house they had tried to burgle. The residents (Mrs. Maylie and Rose) take care of the feverish boy. The employees called the police because they believed Oliver was the thief but Mrs. Maylie decides to forget about the case and she manages to send the policemen home.

Oliver has a wonderful time until Rose gets very sick, which makes him sad and afraid. When one day Oliver has to bring a letter addressed to Dr. Losburne he meets a man who recognizes him because of the resemblance with his father. Meanwhile Mrs. Maylie’ s son, Harry, had arrived because Rose got sicker and sicker. After he came Rose got better day by day and at last she was cured. This makes Harry very glad because he did not lose the one he loved. Unfortunately Mrs. Maylie does not want her son to have a relationship with Rose because she has a stain on her. Now that Rose is totally established Harry announces his feelings for her but she renounces because of her stain what would cause problems for his carrier. Harry leaves.

Meanwhile the beadle, Mr. Bumble, would like to marry the director of the workhouse, Mrs. Corna,y to improve his career, of what he is extremely proud.
One day a pauper comes to find Mrs. Cornay because the drunken old lady who assisted Oliver’ s mother during her delivery was dying. The woman wants to confess that she stole the young woman’ s possessions. The director goes to see the old woman and steals the locket and the wedding-ring from her. When she returns she refuses to tell anything to Mr. Bumble until they get married.

Back in the abandoned house there is a knock at the door: it is Chrackit (Toby) who had come to announce that the burglary had failed. Fagin knew it already because he had read it in the newspaper. Fagin is furious because Oliver was left in the ditch, and at the same time they are also worried about Sikes who has not come home yet. Fagin starts a search operation after Sikes who sheltered at Nancy’ s place although Fagin did not know where he was. A few days later he is cured and starts to hit Nancy, who finds him ungrateful. Finally Fagin finds the crook and a quarrel begins because the Jew had left Sikes there for days.

They eat together and make plans to recapture Oliver. Nancy wants them to let the little boy be because she does not want him to lead their terrible life.

Fagin goes home, not knowing that he is followed by Nancy, and there he meets a dark creature. They start a discussion concerning Oliver but the dark man gets suspicious when he sees a shadow passing the hall. Anyway an agreement is made because Fagin reassures him.

In the meantime Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Cornay got married and now the man hopes to have a promotion. Unfortunately that is not what happens because he is made lower rank and he has to give up all the things which made him so proud. Even his marriage is not successful, one day the couple starts a fight and he leaves to have a walk, that is when he sees a dark creature in a bar which is called Monks. This man wants to have some information concerning a birth in the workhouse and the old woman who assisted, because he thinks that the beadle knows more about Oliver. Mr. Bumble promises to bring the man in contact with his wife because she is the director of the workhouse. The next day they meet in a ruinous mill where the story about Oliver’ s birth is told as well as the fact that the old woman had stolen jewelry from her. Mrs. Cornay hands over a locket, a ring and a note which the dying woman had held in her hand. Monks throws everything into a river through a trap-door and now it is obvious that he wants to destroy all evidences that prove that Oliver was born.

Mrs. Maylie, Rose and Oliver are on a holiday when Nancy comes to tell Rose about Fagin’ s and Monks’ intentions: first appears that Monks knows Rose although she has never heard of him, secondly it is also known that Fagin will be paid if he finds Oliver (even if Monks is mad at Fagin because the Jew was trying to make a pick pocket out of the little boy although the man knew that Oliver was far more important for his case).

The relation between Oliver and Monks gets clearer when it is known that when Monks saw the boy for the first time at the bookshop he recognized him immediately, this was the boy he had been looking after to get him out of the way because Oliver is his brother and if the existence of Oliver is known their heritage will have to be shared.

Now that Nancy had given all this information they decide to meet each other every 2 weeks. (The first time Nancy is locked up by Sikes because he got suspicious, 2 weeks after that she sneaks out but is followed by Noah who hears the whole conversation.)
Rose finds all these secrets hard to bear on her own and she would like to ask some advice to Harry who is in love with her, that is when Oliver enters excited because he has seen Mr. Brownlow. They decide to visit the kind man. He is told the complete story.

One day Fagin meets Noah Claypole (the undertaker’ s servant) who is an enemy of Oliver. The Jew wants to train Noah to become a thief; his first task is to follow Nancy on her way to Rose to who she will give information concerning Monks. The meeting came and Nancy made Sikes drunk so that he would not notice that she had gone. Once arrived at the bridge she meets Rose and Mr. Brownlow. Now the rich man is persuaded that what is told is nothing but the truth, from then on everything will be done to fetch Monks. For one moment Mr. Brownlow thought to know Monks, thanks to the description that Nancy gave.

When the conversation had ended, Noah goes to Fagin to report what was said. Unfortunately Sikes was told about it too and when this man heard what Nancy had done he became enraged: he killed her.

A few days later Mr. Brownlow catches Monks who is forced to tell everything he knows because otherwise the police would be called. First Monks denies that he has a brother. But Mr. Brownlow tells him that his father, Mr. Leeford, was a very good friend of his, moreover the wealthy man was going to marry the man’ s sister but she died on their wedding-day. Monks father was forced the marriage for social and economic reasons at a very young age. They separated and the woman left with her son Monks to France. Mr. Leeford was left behind embittered until he met the family Fleming, there were 2 daughters Agnes and Rose. He fell in move with the eldest and the girl got pregnant. Unfortunately Monks father had to leave the country. Before his departure he gave a portrait to Mr. Brownlow which represented Agnes, he also said he would make a will which gives an annual allowance to the woman he left and their son. The man left for Italy where he got very sick. He died there in the presence of his wife and son who found a package which contained a letter from Mr. Brownlow, one for Agnes in which the locket, the wedding-ring and their child were mentioned; this letter was kept by the mother, finally they burned his last will. Monks recognized Oliver because of the resemblance with their father, from then on he wanted to destroy everything that proved Oliver lived because the half-brother did not want to share his part with Oliver.

Agnes’ s and Rose’ s father moved to Wales where he changes his name because he could not stand the stain on his name. He died in solitariness. Also Monks’ mother died, she told Monks on her death-bed that she did not believed that Agnes had committed suicide and that her baby was still alive. From then on Monks swore that he would find his brother driven by hate. After Rose’ s parents died she was adopted by a simple couple who did not know who she was, not even her name was known. Monks’ mother came in contact with them and she gave them money but she told them also about her sister’ s misstep. This meant that Rose had a bad origin, from than on the couple gave her a miserable life which was ended by Mrs. Maylie who took care of Rose.


Monks, who is called Edward Leeford now, admits the real story and he signs his confession which will be repeated in the presence of all the witnesses ( Mrs. Maylie, Rose, Harry, Mr. Grimwig, Mr. & Mrs. Bumble and the doctor). The story is overdone thanks to Mr. Brownlow and at last the heritage is shared between the 2 brothers.

Meanwhile Sikes runs away with his dog chased by Nancy’ s dilated eyes. He fears his dog will betray him and tries to kill Bullseye which does not succeed. Sikes as well as Bullseye arrive at the abandoned house where Sikes is blamed by Toby Chrackit because he killed Nancy. They start a fight but the police arrives and Sikes tries to escape through the roof by tying a rope at the chimney but he slips and hangs himself. Also the dog is killed because he falls from the roof and landed in a ditch. Fagin and the gang are arrested although the Jew is hanged. Noah Claypole is released because he did not approve Fagin’ s acts.

Mr. Bumble and his wife end their days as paupers in the workhouse they once ruled. Now Rose is extremely happy because she finally married Harry Maylie. Mrs. Maylie goes to live with the young couple and Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver. They move next to the Maylies and they form a little society with great happiness.
Unfortunately Oliver’ s happiness is disturbed by the fact that his best friend Dick died.