【導(dǎo)讀】九世紀最杰出的批判現(xiàn)實主義作家。狄更斯從民主資本主義和人道主義的立場。出發(fā)，揭露英國社會丑惡和不公，批判資本主義制度。他的作品主要以寫實筆。法揭露上層社會和資產(chǎn)階級的虛偽、貪婪和兇殘，并對貧苦人民的不幸，特別是婦女、兒童和老人的悲慘處境，表示了極大的同情。《霧都孤兒》是狄更斯第一部結(jié)構(gòu)嚴謹，情節(jié)連貫的批判現(xiàn)實主義小說,它以資本主義社會為背景，描寫了英國倫敦貧苦兒童的悲慘生活。對西方文學(xué)的影響及貢獻。

　　

【正文】 ment, the law, the church, the education and penal systems． With their injustice and corruption and the wretchedness inflicted by themand the society itself with its corrupted, vain and evil members were mercilessly exposed and criticized by them． In this way, the novel became the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought at that time． Charles Dickens was a lifelong champion of the poor. In England in the 1830s, the poor truly hand no voice, political or economic. Oliver Twist exposes its readers to a word of crime and meanness, the dogeatdog world. According to Doris Alexander, “Dickens knew that early circumstances shape character and that character, in turn, shapes reactions to later circumstances”（ Doris Alexander ,1992） .One may say that his childhood suffering dominates his whole view to his society later. Dickens also created these characters to testify to the mistreatment of children in Victorian society. Due to his success as an author, Dickens in many ways successfully took up the plight of children by creating characters that drew attention and sympathy from his readers. In his works he gave children a voice that they desperately needed, yet never had before. In the 1ittle world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and 本科畢業(yè)論文 12 so finely felt, as injustice. In Oliver Twist, this dark and sordid world is presented by Dickens from the perspective of an orphan, a lost child whose sense of bewilderment and fright reminds one of how the twelveyearold Dickens had himself responded to the soulcrushing experience of the blacking workhouse. of the New Poor Law Dickens in the first eleven chapters of Oliver Twist provide a most bitter and thoroughgoing exposure of the terrible condition in the England workhouse of the time and the cruel treatment of a poor orphan by all sorts of philanthropists. Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse and brought up under cruel conditions. Because of hungry, Oliver asked one day for a second serving of porridge. The scandalized authorities put him in solitary confinement and posted a bill offering five pounds to any master who would take him off the parish. Those details are only to attack the nieenth century English Poor Laws. In order to solve the problem of pauperism, the PoorLaw Amendment Act of 1834 abolished outdoor relief and parochial responsibility which were often corrupt and insufficient in administration. These laws were a distorted manifestation of the Victorian middle class?s emphasis on the virtues of hard work. In the eyes of middleclass English society, those who could not support themselves were considered immoral and evil. Thus, the law allowed the poor to receive public assistance only if they lived and worked in established workhouses. Begging carried the punishment of imprisonment. Workhouses were deliberately made to be as miserable as possible in order to prevent the poor from relying on public assistance. In general, charitable institutions only reproduced the awful conditions in which the poor would live anyway. As Dickens puts it, the poor choose between “being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it” (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist). The novel has always been and will ever be remembered as a most powerful invective against the Poor Law and the workhouse system. 本科畢業(yè)論文 13 Critical View of the Capitalistic System In Oliver Twist, Dickens created a lively picture of low life under the capitalistic system, setting against the seamy underside of the London criminal word. The poor and the crime are main theme in Oliver Twist. With the development of the plot, after serving an unhappy apprenticeship to an undertaker, Oliver runs away to London, where he falls into the hands of a gang of thieves. And the thieves make every effort to force Oliver into being a thief. The story demonstrates the hypocrisy of the petty middleclass bureaucrats, who treat a small child cruelly under the mask of the Christian virtuegiving charity to the less fortunate. The novel exposes its readers to a word of crime and meanness, a dogeatdog world. By presenting the everyday existence of the lowest members of English society, Dickens gives voice to those who had no voice, establishing a link between politics and literature with his social mentary. In the novel, Dickens also criticized that the judicial system is absurd. The judge who is inpetent and cruel, he followed his inclination for conviction and denied Oliver?s right to defense because of his poverty. Poverty also makes many people suffer the injustice impoverished. Critical View of the Morality of Money Worship The popular Victorian ideal holds that paupers and criminals are already evil at birth, arguing instead that a corrupt environment is the source of vice. Dickens believed that money had bee the measure of all personal relations and the goal of all ambition. Throughout the novel, Dickens uses Oliver?s character to challenge it. He confronts the question of whether the terrible environments he depicts have the power to blacken the soul and change its hue forever. By examining the fates of most of the characters, we can assume that the answer is that they do not. Certainly, characters like Sikes and Fagin seem to have sustained permanent damage to their moral sensibilities. Yet even Sikes has a conscience, which manifests itself in the apparition of Nancy?s eyes that haunts him after he murders her. Most telling of all is 本科畢業(yè)論文 14 Nancy, who, though she considers herself “l(fā)ost almost beyond redemption”, ends up marking the ultimate sacrifice for a child she hardly knows. In contrast, Monks, perhaps the novel?s most inhuman villain, was brought up amid wealth and fort. In the later portion