kens provides an ideal example in Mr. Brownlow as an educator. “Dickens created his characters to get you to ask ‘who are the real criminals...Fagin and Bill Sikes or Oliver’s workhouse persecutors, Beadle Bumble and Mrs. Mann?” (Wills 60). That is the real question Dickens wants the reader to figure out. Does being thieves outweigh the egregious error being made by the philosophers of Great Britain? The characters in Dickens book are forced into being thieves. “The characters of Oliver Twist find themselves in a world in which they are from the first moment and every moment in extreme danger. Not how to ‘succeed,’ how to ‘rise in the world,’ but how to live in this world at all, is their problem.” (Miller 37) Dickens tried to portray through his characters his belief that the new poor laws victimized the poor and forced them to become criminals.Dickens created scenes in Oliver Twist to show the ill effects of the new poor laws and to reemphasize his political beliefs. Dickens used scenes in his book to show the effects of the poor laws. The poor laws made huge workhouses. The men and women were split and families were broken apart. Food was rationed to the bare bones for everyone (Murray 79). Dickens felt this system took advantage of the poor. Dickens disliked the harsh treatment of a class he felt was helpless (Gissing 421). Dickens showed these effects in his work, Oliver Twist. Dickens used the death of Oliver’s mother in the workhouse to symbolize the fact that he thought women with illegitimate children would die working (Dunn 11). Dickens knew that mothers needed a way to support their children. The new poor laws would throw them in the workhouses to die, or to live life away from their child. Another scene he includes is that of Oliver being sold. A major problem with the new poor laws was that paupers were being sold into apprenticing jobs, much ...
