Oliver Twist and the Police

1
Oliver Twist and the Police

• Steph Johnson
• Aaron McVay
• Marlana Portentoso

2
Contents

• The Police
• The Law
• Delinquency
• Bow Street runners

• Fagin and the Police
• Separation of Powers
• Bibliography

3
The Police

• The police are portrayed as being incompetent and
  often powerless.
• The police never completely emerge from the
  ghetto

4
The Police

• Investigation by detectives or police poses as
  intrusiveness on a society that was formerly
  defined as not needing the police.
• They are superseded by a higher level of
  organization and control.

5
The Law

• The reason the police are as uninvolved as they
  are is because when the law falls short, anarchy
  is not one of the results.
• The law does not tend to supervise everyday,
  middle class society.

6
The Law

• One effect that this pattern has is the
  production of delinquency.

7
Delinquency

• Def.- failure in or neglect of duty or
  obligation dereliction fault guilt
• Surfaces throughout the novel
• Confinement of the police illusively reinforces
  the ideology of delinquency.

8
Delinquency

• Olivers jobs at the workhouse, apprenticeship,
  and membership in Fagins gang are examples of
  corruption.
• Dickens makes it an enclosed world in which it
  is all but impossible to escape.

9
Delinquency

• Because of the negativity in the word, Dickens
  tends to extract the bad morals of society
  instead of the good.
• Does not simply involve the delinquents, but also
  the institutions and people who are trying to
  reform or prevent them.

10
Bow Street Runners

• Duff and Blathers
• -The policeman in the novel
• Middle class women are dependent on freedom from
  the police.

11
Bow Street Runners

• They want to know Olivers story, but Mr.
  Losborne does not let Rose and Mrs. Maylie
  cooperate with them.

12
Fagin and the Police

• Connection between the police magistrate, Mr.
  Fang, and Fagin.
• Fagin, the police, and the workhouse are directly
  linked together within a world of delinquency.

13
Separation of Powers

• 2 Systems of the Law
• -Legal Form
• -Police Apparatus (unwritten form)
• Systems are separate, but give assistance to each
  other.

14
Separation of Powers

• Legal System
• -Gets rid of Fagin (Hanging)
• Apparatus
• -Gets rid of Monks (Death)

15
Separation of Powers

• Ex. A man named Chickweed robbed himself
• - Illustrates the unity of the legal and
  apparatus forms.

16
Bibliography

• Oliver Twist and the Police, 1988. Oliver
  Twist by Charles, Dickens. Ed. David Miller. New
  York Norton 1993. 574-580.