Oliver twist, a fairy tale in modern times

Page 1 Vinh university foreign languages department ===  === g r a d u a t i o n t h e s i s oliver twist, a fairy tale in modern times Supervisor: Tran ngoc tuong (M.A) Student: Le thu thao Class: 41A 1 Course: 2000 - 2004 Vinh - 2004 =  = Acknowledgements First of all ould like to express my deep thank the English teacher of the Foreign Languages Department. I finish my graduation thesis with great help from them, especially my supervisor Tran Ngoc Tuong and my English teacher, Mr Chris Staples during my study. Secondly, I actually thank my friends for their encouragement. I received a lot of useful ideas as well as materials, which were used, in my thesis. Finally, from the bottom of my heart I indeed thank my parents for their encouragement. I am sure I could not finish my graduation thesis without the enthusiastic help from those people. Vinh, May 2004. Table of contents Page 2 Part I: introduction . 4 I . The rationale for choosing the thesis . 4 II. The aim of the thesis. . 4 III. The objectives of the thesis . 5 IV. Scope and limitation . 5 V. The method of the thesis . 5 Part II: CONTENT . 6 Chapter I: Background . 6 I. The Industrial Revolution and Agricultural Revolution . 6 II. The Political Reform . 7 Page 3 III. The campain for Free Trade . 8 IV. The Chartist movement . 8 Chapter II: Critical Realism . 10 I. What is Critical Realism? . 10 1. Critical Realism . 10 2. English Critical Realism . 10 II. Charles Dickens . 11 1. Life . 13 2. Works . 15 2.1. First period (1833- 1841) . 16 Page 4 2.2. Second period (1842-1848) . 17 2.3. Third period (1850-1859) . 18 2.4. Fourth period (1860-1865) . 19 Chapter III: Oliver Twist, a fairy tale in modern times . 20 I. Overview on this novel . 20 II. Modern element . 22 The reflect of story in the nineteenth century . 22 III. Fairy element . 26 1. Overview on fairy tale . 26 1.1. Oliver Twist, a pitiful orphan-the main character of many fairy tales 27 Page 5 1.2. The embodiment of evil world and fairy man - woman in modern times 30 1.3. The uprising of pitiful Oliver Twist resists a evil world 34 1.4. Goodness triumphs over evil in the end, philosophy ‘’good finds goods’’ in fairy tales. . 35 2. Summary . 38 Part III: Conclusion . 39 References . 40 Page 6 Part I: Introduction I. The rationale of choosing the thesis Literature has always been my enthusiasm even when I was a child. Being a student at university I have a chance to learn English literature so I can know much about its culture and style. In many works of the celebrated authors in the nineteenth century Critical Realism seem to relive the image of English society at that time. Every author has his own characteristics but I am deeply impressed with Charles Dickens's works. We can say that he was the greatest and the most beloved author in the nineteenth century Critical Realism. His works can attract the reader of our times. This attraction is different from many authors’ works. We have a passion for new things in many other novels. Meanwhile Charles Dickens’s novel can be appreciated by both formal and modern readers. The new things are in event but the old ones are in relationship. There is something familiar in his works that makes us impressed, the struggle between kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice. His realism seemed to be a harmonious combination between the real and unreal. His positive characters were sometimes too good to be found in real life. They ever remained true to the principle of honor, dignity and faith. If they were good they stood firm positive characters to the end but if they were bad they remained bad from beginning to the end. All these things are deeply expressed in ''Oliver Twist''- a fairy tale in modern times. II. The aim of the thesis - To study the combination of modern element and fairy tale element in ''Oliver Twist''. - To compare ''Oliver Twist'' with the other Charles Dickens's novels to set off that fairy element as an element in his works. III. The objectives of the thesis Page 7 - Analyze the novel ''Oliver Twist'' to come to conclusion that “Oliver Twist”-a fairy tale in modern times” - Modern elements in this novel -“ Fairy tale” elements in this novel IV. Scope and limitation Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) is the greatest novelist of the nineteenth century English Critical Realism. There are many interesting things while analyzing his novels, however because of limited time as well as limited ability, I only study a very interesting problem in his famous novel - ''Oliver Twist'' - The combination between modern elements and “fairy tale” elements. V. The method of the thesis In order to carry out this thesis, because of the characteristic of the thesis, I have used the following methods. Collective method: Collecting material that concerning the thesis. Analytic method General method Contrastive analysis method: Compare ''Oliver Twist'' with the other Charles Dickens's novels. Page 8 Part II: Content Chapter I: Background I. The Industrial Revolution and Agricultural Revolution Great Britain was the place where the Industrial Revolution happened and then spread out to the world. The increasing necessary needs of people resulted in this revolution. Many modern machines were invented and brought to production.As a result; there had been a great number of products, produced. English industrial product began appearing widely in every corner of the world. The English economy developed rapidly and it changed the face of England absolutely. England became one of the most powerful nations in the world. There were more and more people coming to cities to work in many factories. For this reason, the urban population had risen sharply. New manufacturing towns and cities grew dramatically. By 1850 millions of British people lived in crowded, grim industrial cities. However, in a long time the Industrial Revolution brought benefit to the upper class in society, but not tothe lower class. Most of workers had to work in factories all day but they didn’t have insurance against laboring unsafe and receive very low salaries. Factory owner paid the minimum amount necessary for workers, often- recruiting women and children to tend machine because they could be hired for very low wages. In society, there existed the differences between the rich and the poor. These differences and extreme the exploitation of the capitalist class resulted in the workers movements at that time. The competition for money had depraved many good things such as honor, personality, love etc . People tried to do everything to get high benefit. The achievements of the Industrial Revolution also resulted in the Agricultural Revolution. It means that there were big changes in this field with the aim of giving benefit to all people, especially the farmer class. Because of using Page 9 machine, productivity of agriculture increased fast. The amount of products could meet the demands of all people and be exported to many countries. However the fact was that not all people could get benefit from this. In many places, people especially the lower class in society still lived in hunger and poverty. The obvious reason for this problem was that traders did not want to reduce prices. All these problems would be reflected in English Critical Realism famous novels. II. The Political Reform Democratic reform was born from the time of American and French Revolutions. By the end of the 18 th century the population in England was eight million while only 160 thousand had the vote. Those 160 thousand were “the cream of society” that never soiled their hands with work. Although the industrial bourgeoisie were rich, they had no chance to interfere in the political life of the country such as law making and parliamentary debates. So the industrial bourgeoisie had pushed up activities demanding for voting reform. These activities were welcomed by a lot of workers because they themselves put so much hope in voting reform in order to change their political position. Because of the outburst of these ones, finally the goverment had to pass the Reform act in the middle of 1822. The first Reform act permitted industrial centres to nominate representatives to Parliament. The Reform act of 1832 also reduced the power of the upper class landowners by increacing parliamentary representation. The first Reform Act happened peacefully, without violence. It marked the emergence of the middle class as the dominant force in English politics. In 1876, along step in the direction of democracy was taken by putting through the second Reform Act. It meant that after the appearance of the second Reform Act, many adult males in the towns had a chance to vote. Benjamin Disraeli was the father of this important bill. However this activity didn’t stop from that time. In the period 1880 - 1885, the third Reform Bill was signed. From this this, most males in urban and rural area could vote. It was obvious proof of democratic Page 10