Against the Return of Fagin: Dickens and the Persistence of the Principle of Goodness
Author(s)
Date Issued
2020
Type
article
Volume
54
Issue
Serie Occidentale
Start Page
239
End Page
254
Journal or Series
Abstract
Bob Fagin was a boy who helped twelve-year-old Dickens during his traumatic
experience at Warren’s Blacking Factory. Taking the cue from the discrepancy
between the real Fagin and devilish Fagin in Oliver Twist, I will consider the reasons underlying
Dickens’s choice of this particular name for such a villain. At the same time, in
light of the scarcely plausible contrast between Oliver’s innocence and the urban decay
surrounding him, I will argue that the novel should be interpreted as a social metaphor
whose ethical model is The Pilgrim’s Progress. Indeed, as suggested by the novel’s complete
title – The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress – the eponymous
hero’s experience can be regarded as a transition from the City of Destruction to the
Celestial City where the “principle of good” is ultimately brought into action. However,
unlike Bunyan’s motivated and energetic hero, Oliver is a character whose main traits are
passivity, innocence, and silence. Although melodramatic and awash with sentimentality,
Victorian middle-class readers readily subscribed to the novel’s message based on
the final triumph of goodness.