Oliver Twist and Christian Scripture by Janet Larson Presented to you by Jody Balcom Enid Tidyman Jeremy Shunk Darren Workman

The Good Samaritan Oliver does not have to fight the “Good Fight” of faith. Even though Oliver is not a Christian, he has the incorruptible goodness that many Christians seek. Dickens uses this parable to help illustrate the forces of good and evil at war for the hero’s soul.

Taking Credit Where Credit Isn’t Due In every respect the good Samaritans counter the bad ones, and unlike the parish authorities, they teach Oliver to pray so that now, with his child’s eloquence, he can offer up praise of his benefactors echoing their own. The priests of the Parish wanted the glory and credit for teaching Oliver to pray, where God should have been the one receiving all the praise.

Bunyan and Dickens In Bunyan’s story, the hero is an embattled Christian who struggles in ways that Oliver’s predetermined goodness never allows him to.

More Bunyan and Dickens Bunyan defends his use of the parable to “Convey Spiritual Truth”, Dickens used parables to alternate between sad and comedic scenes. In the Bunyan parable, Nancy would have been the “Soul of Goodness in Things Evil” but Dickens uses her as an equivocal Samaritan.

In Their Own Defense Bunyan defends his use of the parable to “Convey Spiritual Truth” Dickens used parables to alternate between the forces of good and evil. Oliver is a mere pawn in the Bunyan spiritual melodrama.

The Devil Himself Fagin turns out to be the bad Samaritan everyone feared. Fagin sometimes poses as the Good Samaritan, such as when Sikes was ill and Fagin pretended to show concern and pity.

Childs Play Oliver Twist was a purer version of Dickens as a child. Dickens also wanted to prove that there was a God who took care of his own in a disappointing world. By doing this, he rejects the predestined damnation of the gentlemen in the white waistcoat and Mr. Grimwig.

A Savoir Among a World of Evil With the triumph of charity in the first Brownlow rescue, the Samaritan narrative tries to banish Oliver’s past wretchedness and his voice of temptation as a “Long and Troublesome Dream” The narrator seems to promise parabolic clarity by taking his reader in hand to penetrate through a maze of what may or may not happen to Oliver.

A Means to The End Dickens uses the apparent uncertainty of not knowing about the soul’s destination until the very end to create suspense about which way Oliver will go. Move towards the “Tragic Hell of Urban Crime and Poverty” or “The Divinely Comic Heaven” which he often dreams about and miraculously discovers on earth in the society of Mr. Brownlow and the Maylies. It can be argued that Oliver twist is really two novels: The first being a religious tale with two differing parables. The second being a detailed story of poverty and crime.

Bibliography Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. New York: –A Norton Critical Edition Larson, Janet. Oliver Twist and Christian Scripture. Georgia