英语本科-The Social Significance of Oliver Twist 毕业论文.docVIP

The Social Significance of Oliver Twist I. Introduction Charles Dickens is considered as one of the most famous novelists in 19th century, and the greatest English critical realists during the Victorian age. Dickens also achieved a very high prestige in his works. Oliver Twist is Charles Dickens’s second novel, and it is one of Charles Dickens’ masterpieces, reflecting the terrible lives of the people who were in the bottom of the world in London. This novel takes London as the background, narrating an orphans pitiful life experience and the bitter experience encountered. The main character Oliver Twist grew up in the orphanage, experiencing the career of apprentice, fleeing from calamity difficulty, entering the nest of thieves by mistake, experiencing numerous hardships. Finally, with the help of good people, he found out his own background and gained happiness. At that time, the British society was reforming. And the economy required high-speed development. The upper class was collecting the wealth, while the lower class’s lives were becoming more and more difficult. Besides, the social contradiction aggravated, the society threw all the un-adaptable people to the gloomy corner. The author protested against the unfairness of the society, and aroused the public opinion, implemented economical and political reforming, by describing all sorts of darkness at that time, and the hard lives of the lower class, and by uncovering the oppressive essence of the Capitalism. The author hoped the poor people who were in the bottom of the society to be rescued. This paper will dig out the significance of the society reflected by the books, by analyzing the main characters’ characteristics. II. Charles Dickens and the Background of Oliver Twist 2.1 A Brief Introduction of Charles Dickens Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is considered as a representative of the greatest English novelists of the Victorian period. He was born on 7th February, 1812, at 13 miles End Terrace, Land port,