Style includes the words, phrasing, and literary devices an author uses. It is what gives a writer a distinctive voice, and it sets the tone or mood of a piece of writing.
The opening paragraph of the novel typifies Dickens' ornate style of writing, with a long, paragraph length sentence of many clauses, punctuated by semi-colons. This establishes Dickens as a Victorian writer and is a style that might be considered archaic today:
Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.
The narrative voice in the passage above is also characteristic of Dickens' style in this novel: it is wry and darkly or grimly humorous. The speaker alludes to the common perception in Victorian England that a poor child cannot matter when he says it "can be of no possible consequence to the reader" when Oliver was born. It also is circumlocutious or roundabout in getting to the point, mimicking—and mocking—the evasive and euphemistic way middle-class people talk about the poor.
This narrative voice creates a tone that is ironic and filled with veiled anger at the plight of the poor in England.
It is worth noting too that Dickens' style in this novel is to begin as he does in this opening chapter with a paragraph or two that sets the scene, usually from afar, and then zooms into particulars, as if a camera is first providing an overview and then settling on a particular place within the setting. This allows Dickens to frame his scenes with a narrative voice that sets the tone—usually a condemnatory one.
Dickens' written style in Oliver Twist, as elsewhere in his work, is highly elaborate. He frequently resorts to what's called periphrasis, which is a nice way of saying that he beats about the bush quite a lot. This is not intended as a criticism, in any way; Dickens is such an expert writer that he knows exactly what he's doing here. In using periphrasis, he's deliberately refusing to come right out and say what he means—the better to stimulate the reader's imagination. He'd much rather hint and suggest by the language that he uses and leave the reader to draw their own conclusions.
A good example of periphrasis occurs when The Artful Dodger and Charley steal Mr. Brownlow's wallet. Dickens describes their theft as "an illegal conveyance of Mr. Brownlow's personal property". This is exactly the kind of language that Fagin would use to describe the act of pickpocketing. As he's always worried about getting caught, Fagin often resorts to euphemisms and long-winded expressions in discussing his gang's various criminal activities. So Dickens' use of periphrasis in this case is entirely appropriate to how Fagin cloaks criminal acts in respectable-sounding language.
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is a bildungsroman, also known as a coming of age novel. Dickens uses a variety of styles in this book in order to stimulate a variety of emotions and reactions from the reader.
One of the techniques he uses is irony, which he uses most strongly in the first eight chapters before Oliver arrives in London. Dickens writes in a sarcastic tone as he mocks the institutions which oppress the vulnerable in Victorian society and benefit those in power. For example, in chapter two, the men who run the workhouse are described as being wise, philosophical men who thought it was improper for people to be content to live in a workhouse where they were properly fed and cared for. Instead, they settle on this solution:
So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they,) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it.
Essentially, Dickens demonstrates that the board of the workhouse decided to starve the poor in their best interests. This sarcasm reveals the hypocrisy of the board.
Another technique Dickens uses to mock these public institutions is melodrama. This can be seen in the famous scene where Oliver asks for more:
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds; and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
It is ridiculous that Oliver asking for more gruel would prompt such a reaction. By exaggerating the gravity of Oliver's offense, Dickens draws attention to the injustice that the boys in the workhouse face.
Because the chapters were originally published individually as a series in a magazine, the book has an episodic structure rather than a definitive plot. Dickens often talks around the point in long, rambling sentences rather than simply saying what he means.
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