Oliver Twist

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

“The Chimney Sweeper”

• a Romantic era poem by William Blake
• connects to themes of goodness and institutional corruption, particularly as the two intersect (what is the significance of the children’s “goodness” given the society in which they live? Are the final lines of the poem ironic?)

Othello’s murder of Desdemona

• from William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello
• compare and contrast with Sikes’s murder of Nancy, which contains several allusions to Othello (consider especially Dickens’s use of light and the handkerchief)
• connects to themes of goodness (Othello generally strikes readers as sympathetic despite his actions, whereas Sikes is far less likeable) and possibly identity (how does race—specifically, Othello’s insecurity regarding his race—influence his actions? How does Nancy’s lower-class status inform the scene?)

Interview with Alex Kotlowitz

• available in both transcript and audio form
• discusses Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, a 1991 work of nonfiction that tells the story of brothers Pharoah and Lafayette, who grow up in Chicago public housing experiencing crime, domestic violence, and substance abuse
• connects to themes of institutional corruption, goodness, and identity

Riah’s speech from Our Mutual Friend

• from Dickens’s 1865 novel (begin at “It looked so bad, Jenny” and end at “the obligation was upon me to leave his service”)
• compare and contrast to Dickens’s depiction of Fagin (critics often read Riah—a Jewish character coerced by his employer into conforming to the antisemitic figure of the Jewish moneylender—as an apology for Fagin)
• connects to the themes of goodness and identity

Girl Rising

• 2013 documentary directed by Richard E. Robbins
• provides a portrait of child poverty in several contemporary societies and examines the way economic status intersects with gender

Other Student Resources

“‘Twist’ unearths tenderness”

• review of Jacob Tierney’s 2004 film Twist—one of several contemporary transplantations of Dickens’s novel
• Twist updates the setting to 21st-century Toronto, where Oliver falls in with a group of prostitutes. It connects to the source material’s themes of goodness, identity, and institutional corruption and provides an opportunity to discuss what critiques Dickens might level at contemporary society.

Oliver! Trailer

• official trailer for the 1968 film musical with clips from most of the production’s songs
• allows students to hear and perhaps recognize clips of the original scores from the 1960 British stage musical, which started its U.S. run on Broadway in 1963.

Oliver Twist’s First Introduction to Fagin

• 1868 oil painting by Henry Benjamin Roberts
• compare and contrast with the novel’s own sketches, particularly as they depict characters’ morality

Teacher Resources

“Dickens on screen: the highs and lows”

• Guardian article by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst discussing the challenges of adapting Dickens, the approaches different directors have taken, and how Dickens’s style might have influenced cinematography
• references several adaptations of Oliver Twist and notes the tendency to bowdlerize the work (e.g. The Death of Nancy Sykes)

"Crimes in the 19th Century London in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist"

• This scholarly article by Fransiska Ririn Hastuti discusses the world of Victorian crime and its influence on Oliver Twist, connecting to themes of goodness and institutional corruption.