The Cast Wall
Here is the question I used to sort them. In Oliver Twist, who is using Oliver, and who is looking after him? Nearly everyone is one or the other. This page is light on spoilers. I will not give away any deaths, and I will not explain the big secret, which the book itself holds back until late.
I read the Project Gutenberg text, ebook number seven hundred and thirty. The counts I give are my own, from that text, and they include possessives.
Oliver
Oliver is the boy in the middle. He is born in a workhouse, to a mother nobody knew, and the beadle gives him his name. He is frightened, polite and stubborn.
His big acts of defiance are small. He is starving, so he asks for more. And when another boy insults his dead mother, he finally attacks him. Fagin works on him slowly, and the narrator says the aim is to put poison into his soul that will blacken it. The book makes sure we see that Oliver is being worked on.
My honest read, and this is a draft opinion, is that Oliver is less a person than a lantern. Everyone else is lit up by how they treat him. His name appears about eight hundred and twenty-seven times, more than any other.
Fagin
Fagin is the old man at the center of the thieves’ den. When we first see him he has matted red hair, a greasy flannel gown, and a toasting fork in his hand. He is friendly, even funny, and the book is clear that the friendliness is a tool.
His method is a game. He teaches boys to pick pockets by letting them think it is play. When they come home empty handed, he sends them to bed with no supper. When Oliver tries to leave, Fagin lectures him on ingratitude, and tells him a story about a boy who was hanged.
I counted his name three hundred and three times. The narrator also calls him the Jew about two hundred and seventy times. That repeated label is hard to ignore, so I am telling you now that it is there, and I will use his name.
Bill Sikes
Sikes is the burglar, and he is the most physically frightening person in the book. We meet him in a pub, in a velveteen coat and half boots, kicking his own dog. The dog is called Bull’s-eye.
Sikes does not use charm, or games, or stories. He uses a pistol, and a hand at a child’s throat. He treats Oliver as a tool, a very small one that can go through a window. His name appears three hundred and fifty-one times, more than Fagin’s.
Nancy
Nancy is a young woman who lives among thieves, and in my reading she is the most interesting person in the book. When we first meet her, she works for Fagin and Sikes. She is the one who claims Oliver in the street and takes him back.
But she is not simple. The book says her life has been squandered in the streets. She tells a lady later that she has been among liars since she was a little child. It also says something of the woman’s original nature is left in her, and that she thinks it a weakness.
I will not say what she does, because it is the heart of the story. Her name appears only one hundred and twelve times, fewer than any other main name I counted. In my reading, she matters far more than the count suggests.
The Dodger and Charley
Jack Dawkins is called the Artful Dodger, and he is the first friendly face Oliver meets on the way to London. He is a boy in a man’s big coat, who keeps his hat on indoors. He is cool, quick and cheeky. He is also the one who walks Oliver straight to Fagin.
Charley Bates is his partner. Where the Dodger is smooth, Charley is loud. He laughs a lot, and when something goes wrong, he calls it fun.
Mr. Bumble and the Workhouse
Mr. Bumble is the beadle, a parish official in a cocked hat and a gold-laced coat. He is pompous, and the book enjoys him enormously. It is Mr. Bumble who names Oliver, using his own alphabet system, and he is proud of it.
His count is high, three hundred and ninety-three, because his name covers Mrs. Bumble too. Mrs. Corney is the workhouse matron, and she and Mr. Bumble have a very Dickensian courtship over tea. These chapters are comedy, but they are also where an old woman’s secret first appears.
Noah Claypole
Noah is a charity boy at the undertaker’s. He calls Oliver Work’us, and he is a bully who knows exactly which insult will hurt. Later, in London, Noah turns up again, and Fagin finds him useful. Watch the way Noah behaves when he thinks nobody powerful is watching.
Mr. Brownlow and His Friends
Mr. Brownlow is the old gentleman whose handkerchief is stolen. He is the first person to treat Oliver as a person, and he does it before he knows anything about him. He takes him home, has him nursed through a fever, and trusts him with an errand.
Mrs. Bedwin is his housekeeper, and she is the warmest person in his house. Mr. Grimwig is his friend, a gruff man who keeps promising to eat his own head. He is so keen to be proved right about Oliver that he hopes the boy will not come back. The book says he is not a bad-hearted man, and it stays fond of him to the last page.
The Maylies
Mrs. Maylie is an upright old lady in a high-backed chair. Her young niece Rose is the second person who is purely kind to Oliver. Rose is gentle, and she has a reason for holding herself back that the book explains later.
Harry Maylie is Mrs. Maylie’s son. Mr. Losberne is the doctor, impetuous and kind. Mr. Giles is a servant with a very agreeable sense of his own importance. Brittles is the young servant, who is naturally modest. They give the country chapters their comedy.
Monks
Monks is the one person who seems to want Oliver gone for personal reasons. He is a mysterious man who starts at every shadow, and he meets Fagin, and the Bumbles, in the dark. The book holds back why he hates the boy, and I will too.
Small Roles
A few smaller people are worth remembering. Dick is a little boy at the workhouse, and his goodbye blessing is the first Oliver ever hears. Mr. Fang is the police magistrate, and the book has fun with his way of handing out justice. Mr. Gamfield is the chimney sweep who nearly takes Oliver for five pounds. And Toby Crackit is the burglar with long legs, who runs very fast when it matters.
My Reading
Here is my reading, and it is a draft for you to check. Dickens gives his villains the most energy, and his good people the most speeches. The thieves are alive on every page, and the good people mostly stand around being kind. Nancy sits between the two groups, which is why I think she is the best drawn person in the book.
If this helped, subscribe, and tell me in the comments who you would trust with Oliver.
