Oliver Twist (The Illustrated and Annotated, Classic Edition) Full version (Oliver Twist Series)
Book Detail
Author : Charles Dickens
Print Length : 219, 208, 198 pages
Publisher : Play & Learn Publishing
ASIN : B00QZ6UHZ6
Type : Kindle Book
Book Description
In his preface to Oliver Twist, Dickens emphatically expressed resentment at the practice in popular literature of depicting rogues, like Macheath in The Beggar's Opera, as dashing figures, leading lively and colorful lives. He considers such misrepresentations as a potentially harmful influence on impressionable minds. Dickens firmly maintains that the nature and behavior of his seemingly extreme characters reflect truth without distortion, however implausible they may seem.
Dickens is frequently charged with offering a view of the world that exaggerates reality. A novelist, however, communicates his interpretation of life through the medium of fiction. His accomplishment grows out of a blend of experience and imagination. In judging the writer's success, we have to grant his purposes and goal. Dickens was fascinated by extreme behavior and attitudes. He had a peculiar talent for exaggeration. For him, real life was the springboard for fancy. Thus the world of story he created is a mirror in which the truths of the real world are reflected.
Oliver Twist is a good illustration of Dickens's belief that the novel should do more than merely entertain. It should, he believed, be directed toward social reform. This does not mean Dickens was a propagandist who held forth idealistic goals as cures for the ills of the world. Although he bitterly attacks the defects of existing institutions — government, the law, education, penal systems — and mercilessly exposes the injustice and wretchedness inflicted by them, he does not suggest the overthrow of the established order. Nor will you find any easy answers or pat solutions.
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| Oliver Twist Vol.1 |
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| Oliver Twist Vol.2 |
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| Oliver Twist Vol.3 |
