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Oliver twist author5/8/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Brownlow was not one of these I shall not enter into any such digression in this place: and, if this be not a sufficient reason for this determination, I have a better, and indeed, a wholly unanswerable on, already stated which is, that it forms no part of my original intention to do so. Take, for instance, the famous passage from the beginning of Book 1, Chapter Fifteen: If it did not come strictly within the scope and bearing of my long-considered intentions and plans regarding this prose epic to leave the two old gentlemen sitting with the watch between them long after it grew too dark to see it I might take occasion to entertain the reader with many wise reflections on the obvious impolicy of ever attempting to do good to our fellow-creatures where there is no hope of earthly reward. But every now and then, the narrator launches into a lengthy discussion of how the plot is working, or what he’s planning on doing in this particular chapter. The effect is that these scenes seem almost journalistic-it’s like we’re reading a newspaper exposé on criminals in London, instead of a novel. ![]() Particularly with the members of Fagin’s gang and the descriptions of London, Dickens backs off and is more objective. In general, we only get to see what’s going on in the heads of a very few characters (including Oliver, obviously). ![]() The narrator of Oliver Twist tends to be pretty hands-off. ![]()
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