The tone of the novel shifts halfway through, turning from gloomy to hopeful around the time Oliver goes to live with the Maylies. The gloomy tone of the first half is exemplified in the following passage from Chapter 8, which describes Oliver's near-fatal journey to London:
When the night came, he turned into a meadow, and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there till morning. He felt frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields, and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before.
The darkness, the moaning wind, the cold, Oliver's hunger, and his loneliness all paint a dismal picture. The environment is dangerous and seems to reflect Oliver's inner reality, which is bleak. He is struggling onward, but there is not much hope that his life is going to improve.
After Oliver is taken in by the Maylies, the tone is far more hopeful. In Chapter 32, Oliver faces the prospect of his first spring in the country:
After another fortnight, when the fine warm weather had fairly begun, and every tree and flower was putting forth its young leaves and rich blossoms, they made preparations for quitting the house at Chertsey for some months.
Lighter imagery describing blossoming life creates a promising tone that is hopeful for the first time in the novel. Whereas Oliver once slept on the side of the road, starving, lonely, and cold, he will now get to enjoy a relatively luxurious stint in the country surrounded by creature comforts and wealthy protectors. This hopeful tone largely prevails through the rest of the novel, although gloominess is not entirely abandoned. In Chapter 33, Oliver sees a funeral service taking place:
They stood, uncovered, by a grave; and there was a mother—a mother once—among the weeping train. But the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang on.
Oliver has a difficult time reconciling the shining sun with the grief he witnesses. This juxtaposition of gloominess and hopefulness creates the sense that both realities coexist—simply because Oliver seems to have been saved from poverty does not mean that there is no more suffering in the world.
The narrator often layers irony into the tone as well. Chapter 1 opens with verbal irony:
Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred.
Given what the reader will come to find out about workhouses (and what many Victorian readers already knew), it is a massive understatement to equivocate about whether being born into one is "the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being." Conditions are inhumane, and being born into a workhouse generally means a great deal of suffering. As in this instance, an ironic tone usually signals a critique of unjust people and institutions. It also provides comic relief from the relative seriousness of both the gloomy and hopeful passages.
The tone of the novel shifts halfway through, turning from gloomy to hopeful around the time Oliver goes to live with the Maylies. The gloomy tone of the first half is exemplified in the following passage from Chapter 8, which describes Oliver's near-fatal journey to London:
When the night came, he turned into a meadow, and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there till morning. He felt frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields, and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before.
The darkness, the moaning wind, the cold, Oliver's hunger, and his loneliness all paint a dismal picture. The environment is dangerous and seems to reflect Oliver's inner reality, which is bleak. He is struggling onward, but there is not much hope that his life is going to improve.
After Oliver is taken in by the Maylies, the tone is far more hopeful. In Chapter 32, Oliver faces the prospect of his first spring in the country:
After another fortnight, when the fine warm weather had fairly begun, and every tree and flower was putting forth its young leaves and rich blossoms, they made preparations for quitting the house at Chertsey for some months.
Lighter imagery describing blossoming life creates a promising tone that is hopeful for the first time in the novel. Whereas Oliver once slept on the side of the road, starving, lonely, and cold, he will now get to enjoy a relatively luxurious stint in the country surrounded by creature comforts and wealthy protectors. This hopeful tone largely prevails through the rest of the novel, although gloominess is not entirely abandoned. In Chapter 33, Oliver sees a funeral service taking place:
They stood, uncovered, by a grave; and there was a mother—a mother once—among the weeping train. But the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang on.
Oliver has a difficult time reconciling the shining sun with the grief he witnesses. This juxtaposition of gloominess and hopefulness creates the sense that both realities coexist—simply because Oliver seems to have been saved from poverty does not mean that there is no more suffering in the world.
The narrator often layers irony into the tone as well. Chapter 1 opens with verbal irony:
Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred.
Given what the reader will come to find out about workhouses (and what many Victorian readers already knew), it is a massive understatement to equivocate about whether being born into one is "the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being." Conditions are inhumane, and being born into a workhouse generally means a great deal of suffering. As in this instance, an ironic tone usually signals a critique of unjust people and institutions. It also provides comic relief from the relative seriousness of both the gloomy and hopeful passages.
The tone of the novel shifts halfway through, turning from gloomy to hopeful around the time Oliver goes to live with the Maylies. The gloomy tone of the first half is exemplified in the following passage from Chapter 8, which describes Oliver's near-fatal journey to London:
When the night came, he turned into a meadow, and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there till morning. He felt frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields, and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before.
The darkness, the moaning wind, the cold, Oliver's hunger, and his loneliness all paint a dismal picture. The environment is dangerous and seems to reflect Oliver's inner reality, which is bleak. He is struggling onward, but there is not much hope that his life is going to improve.
After Oliver is taken in by the Maylies, the tone is far more hopeful. In Chapter 32, Oliver faces the prospect of his first spring in the country:
After another fortnight, when the fine warm weather had fairly begun, and every tree and flower was putting forth its young leaves and rich blossoms, they made preparations for quitting the house at Chertsey for some months.
Lighter imagery describing blossoming life creates a promising tone that is hopeful for the first time in the novel. Whereas Oliver once slept on the side of the road, starving, lonely, and cold, he will now get to enjoy a relatively luxurious stint in the country surrounded by creature comforts and wealthy protectors. This hopeful tone largely prevails through the rest of the novel, although gloominess is not entirely abandoned. In Chapter 33, Oliver sees a funeral service taking place:
They stood, uncovered, by a grave; and there was a mother—a mother once—among the weeping train. But the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang on.
Oliver has a difficult time reconciling the shining sun with the grief he witnesses. This juxtaposition of gloominess and hopefulness creates the sense that both realities coexist—simply because Oliver seems to have been saved from poverty does not mean that there is no more suffering in the world.
The narrator often layers irony into the tone as well. Chapter 1 opens with verbal irony:
Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred.
Given what the reader will come to find out about workhouses (and what many Victorian readers already knew), it is a massive understatement to equivocate about whether being born into one is "the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being." Conditions are inhumane, and being born into a workhouse generally means a great deal of suffering. As in this instance, an ironic tone usually signals a critique of unjust people and institutions. It also provides comic relief from the relative seriousness of both the gloomy and hopeful passages.
