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Dramatic Irony
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Oliver and Dick:
Dick is a relatively minor character, but he is well-remembered by readers because he is an important foil for Oliver. In Chapter 7, when Oliver is on his way to London, Dick tells him that the doctor has predicted Dick's death but that he hopes they will meet again in heaven:
"I know the doctor must be right, Oliver; because I dream so much of heaven, and angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. Kiss me," said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms round Oliver’s neck. "Good-b’ye, dear! God bless you!"
Related Themes:
Chapter 29
Explanation and Analysis—Nancy and Rose:
Nancy and Rose function as foils for one another, emphasizing the drastic difference that a person's surrounding circumstances can make in who they turn out to be. In Chapter 29, the narrator introduces 17-year-old Rose as the picture of perfect femininity:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould, so mild and gentle, so pure and beautiful, that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions.
Related Themes:
Chapter 40
Explanation and Analysis—Nancy and Rose:
Nancy and Rose function as foils for one another, emphasizing the drastic difference that a person's surrounding circumstances can make in who they turn out to be. In Chapter 29, the narrator introduces 17-year-old Rose as the picture of perfect femininity:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould, so mild and gentle, so pure and beautiful, that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions.
Related Themes:
Chapter 42
Explanation and Analysis—Oliver and Fagin's Boys:
Virtually all of the other boys who work for Fagin—the Artful Dodger, Charley Bates, and even Noah Claypole—serve as foils to Oliver by falling into the life of crime he manages to resist. In Chapter 42, Noah's admission that he would like to earn money through crime allows Fagin to blackmail Noah into working for him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately, (and more unlikely things had come to pass,) he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him.
Related Themes:
Chapter 43
Explanation and Analysis—Oliver and Fagin's Boys:
Virtually all of the other boys who work for Fagin—the Artful Dodger, Charley Bates, and even Noah Claypole—serve as foils to Oliver by falling into the life of crime he manages to resist. In Chapter 42, Noah's admission that he would like to earn money through crime allows Fagin to blackmail Noah into working for him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately, (and more unlikely things had come to pass,) he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him.
Related Themes:
Chapter 52
Explanation and Analysis—Fagin and Sikes:
Fagin and Sikes, two of the novel's villains, are foils for one another. It becomes clearest that they represent two sides of the same coin (criminality) in chapter 52, when Mr. Brownlow justifies taking young Oliver to see Fagin in prison:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[M]y business with this man is intimately connected with him, and as this child has seen him in the full career of his success and villany, I think it better—even at the cost of some pain and fear—that he should see him now.
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