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Allusions
Key Examples in Oliver Twist
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Class Speech:
The novel uses dialect in somewhat complex ways to signal characters' social class. For example, in Chapter 18, the Artful Dodger has to translate his own speech for Oliver:
"If you don’t take pocket-hankechers and watches," said the Dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver’s capacity, "some other cove will; so that the coves that lose ’em will be all the worse, and you’ll be all the worse too, and nobody half a ha’p’orth the better, except the chaps wot gets them—and you’ve just as good a right to them as they have."
Related Themes:
