Oliver Twist, 8T2

What do you know about the Victorian society? What do you know about the injustices during this period? Who was Charles Dickens?
We are going to find out the answers to the questions above by reading the book Oliver Twist written by Charles Dickens and we will also read two essays.

Syfte

Undervisningen i ämnet engelska ska syfta till att eleverna utvecklar kunskaper i engelska språket och kunskaper om områden och sammanhang där engelska används samt tilltro till sin förmåga att använda språket i olika situationer och för skilda syften.

Genom undervisningen ska eleverna ges möjlighet att utveckla en allsidig kommunikativ förmåga. Denna förmåga innebär att förstå talad och skriven engelska, att kunna formulera sig och samspela med andra i tal och skrift och att kunna anpassa sitt språk till olika situationer, syften och mottagare.

I den kommunikativa förmågan ingår även språklig säkerhet och att kunna använda olika strategier för att stödja kommunikationen och lösa problem när språkkunskaperna inte räcker till.

I mötet med talat språk och texter ska eleverna ges möjlighet att utveckla förmågan att sätta innehållet i relation till egna erfarenheter, livsvillkor och intressen.

Undervisningen ska även ge eleverna möjligheter att utveckla kunskaper om och förståelse för olika livsvillkor samt sociala och kulturella företeelser i områden och i sammanhang där engelska används.

De ska också ges förutsättningar att kunna använda olika hjälpmedel för skapande och kommunikation.

Undervisningen ska stimulera elevernas intresse för språk och kulturer.

 

What are we suppose to do during this period?

What are we going to read? 

• The book Oliver Twist
• Facts about Charles Dickens
• Texts about the workhouse

What are we going to write? 

• I will give you some questions which you will answer by writting the answers in word
• Do a test

Are we going to learn some new words?

• Yes, you will have 20 words to every 

Are we going to talk?

• Yes, you will discuss your answers with your neighbour and me
• Debate

Schedule

Week 34-35

Wednesday- Start reading Oliver Twist

Week 35-36

• Read the book Oliver Twist
• Some will start answering the questions
• Check your words

Week 

• Continue reading
• Answer questions
• Discuss your answers
• Check your words

Week 

• Continue answering the questions
• Check your words

Week 

• Read an essay
• Answer questions

Week 

• Debate

Questions

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens                                               

 Questions about the author

1. What do you know about Charles Dickens?

Questions about the book Oliver Twist

1.  What is the book Oliver Twist about?
2.  What do you know about the characters in the book?

Oliver Twist                        Rose Maylie                        Mr Brownlow                    

Charley Bates                  Jack Dawkins                    Bill Sikes                           

Nancy                                 Fagin                                Edward Leeford Monks   

Old Sally                             Mr Bumble                         Mr Sowerberry

3. Describe how Oliver is different in character from the other boys who steal for Fagin?

 4. Who are the true villains in the story? To what extent do they get what they deserve?’

 5. Which are the most interesting characters to read about and why?

 6. What does Dickens teach his readers about conditions in the workhouse and life in London at this time?

 7. How are class differences showed?

 8. Which part of the book did you think was the best? Why?

Wordlist

Cannot believe one's ears = Kan inte tro mina öron

Cradle = Vagga, ursprung

Have a bad temper = Ha ett hett temperament

Keep something safe = Hålla något säker/skyddat

Workhouse = "Fattighus"

 Cottage = Stuga

Inn = Värdshus

Pale = Blek

Trembling = Darrning, vibration

Gloomy = Ledsen, grå, dunkel

 Seized = Beslagtagit, fångat

Pinch = nypa

Shutters = fönsterlucka

Supper = kvällsmat, supé

Artful = listig, underfundig

Quick as a flash = Snabb som blixten

Victorian Morals...

Victorian Morals and the Poor

• The Industrial Age and the financial opportunities surrounding it led to a rapidly growing middle class in early19th-century Britain.

•  Previously, the aristocratic upper class -- one that scorned working for a living -- dictated economic and social influence. Now the bourgeoisie, including factory owners, managers and purveyors of new services, wanted its place in society and needed to legitimize labor. They put forth a new ideal of work as moral virtue: God loved those who helped themselves, while "burdens on the public" were sinful and weak. This attitude validated the middle class by giving it someone to look down upon.

• Subsequently, welfare in Dickens's time was based on deterrence rather than support.

• Parish workhouses, the last resort for the homeless poor, were made as miserable as possible to discourage reliance on public

• Upon entering, inmates were stripped, searched, washed, given shapeless striped clothing to wear and shorn of hair -- in short, they were treated like criminals.

• Husbands and wives were separated into men's and women's quarters to "avert breeding." Mothers were taken away from children to end "negative influences" on the Brothers and sisters were kept apart to avoid the "natural" inclination of the poor toward incest. After inmates were split up by age and sex.

• No health-related separation took place: the ill, insane and able-bodied all lived together.

• Meals were purposely inadequate, consisting mainly of single pints of gruel, a few ounces of bread and water.

• Rooms measuring 20 feet long accommodated upwards of 30 people. Most inmates shared a bed. Heating was overlooked; often a block of rooms shared but one fireplace.

• Work involved back-breaking labor such as stone-splitting, mill-driving (on treadmills), bone-crushing (for fertilizer) and heavy housework. The least able- bodied -- the old, the sick and the very young -- suffered most of all.

• The workhouse was administered by unpaid bureaucrats, headed by the Beadle, an elected official. These civilservants treated workhouse residents with scorn and cruelty, reminding them with Biblical passages how lucky they were ("Blessed are the poor...").

• The workhouse staff received a somewhat better class of lodging and food for their efforts.

• The Poor Laws Parishes were first instituted with the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601, which organized tax-collected assistance.

• The poor were divided up into two groups: the "impotent" (the sick and elderly, those classed "would work butcouldn't") and the "able-bodied" (thought of as "could work but wouldn't"). The impotent were given outdoor, or out-of-almshouse, relief, while the able-bodied were brutally beaten to "right" their paths.

• Not all parishes were the same: some didn't have almshouses, while others were known for kinder treatment.

• To prevent droves of pausers from inundating the parishes with better arrangements, the 1662 Settlement Act stated that people had to prove"settlement" before receiving relief from a parish.

• Proof consisted of birth in the parish, marriage (for women) orworking in the parish for a year and a day.

• Labor contracts were often made for 364 days to prevent settlement

• Disastrous harvests and growing population stirred fears among the ruling class that the peasants might revolt as they had in France;

   

• Britain at this time was divided into 15,000 parishes,

• Commissioners were also influenced by the economist Thomas Robert Malthus,

quite popular at this time, who had stated in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) that population would increase faster than food supplies. War and disease were necessary to kill off the extra population, unless people limited their offspring.

  

Child Labor Laws

• In less rural environs, industrialization led to a need for cheap labor. Lenient labor laws made children a prime source of workers.

• The desperately impoverished often sent their children off to factories, mines and workshops.

• Parish officials, too, sent their young charges off, viewing such situations as divine opportunity.

• Children worked long hours at the lowest rates. Ruling classes saw this as a positive circumstance, as such children didn't depend on parish relief.

  

• Child labor was so common in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that in 1802 Parliament passed the British Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, the first law regulating child labor. It stated that pauper children (those receiving charity) under the age of nine could not work in cotton mills, and those under 14 could not work at night.The workday was 12 hours long.

• In 1819, the law was extended to include all children. These laws weren't paid much heed until 1833, when the Factory Act provided for inspections.

• Some children helped their parents pay off debts, as did the youthful Dickens. Debt was a crime in Victorian England, and debtors were sent to prison until they could pay off their creditors. Such prisons were filthy, rat-infested places where inmates usually lived with their entire families during the period of incarceration. Familymembers were free to come and go as they pleased.

• The 12-year-old Dickens ate with his family at Marshalsea Debtor's Prison, and slept in a squalid rooming house near his job at the Warren Blacking Polish factory.

Questions to Victorian Morals and the Poor

 1. What was the philosophy behind workhouse relief for the poor?

2. Why were families separated within the workhouse?

3. Why were they fed meager rations?

4. What was the attitude of most middle-class Victorians toward people in their society who lived in poverty?

5. Then, consider current attitudes about poverty. Do we view the poor in our country in the same way we view the poor in less develop countries? Why or why not?