What Do You Consider to Be Dickens'intention in the First 4 Chapters of ‘oliver Twist'?

In this essay I will try to convey my thoughts on what Dickens’ intentions were throughout the first four chapters of “Oliver Twist”.

Dickens’ intentions are made clear by using chapter headings. These were the episodic titles when he released the story to the public every month. The headings convey what happens in that chapter in a few short words.

"Treats of the place where Oliver Twist was born, and of the circumstances attending to his birth".

The story begins with Oliver being born and after he gave

"This first proof of the free and proper action of his lungs,"

his mother died, and he was left alone in the world to become a child of the workhouse…

Dickens’ intention here is to use dramatic irony and the reader knows more than the character. The audience are meant to identify strongly with Oliver.

As Dickens’ develops the story, he adds his own opinions and comments, about the state of society in the Victorian times, and his disgust at the political side of life, which allows for the building of the workhouse, but not the need of constant updates of the characters inside the workhouse.

In chapter one, Dickens begins to lead us forward into Oliver’s life. Firstly, the death of Oliver’s mother is briefly acknowledged, but in great detail. The surgeon and the nurse treat it as no big thing, and the surgeon goes off to have dinner. The nurse,

"…having once more applied herself to the green bottle, sat down before the fire and proceeded to dress the infant."

In chapter two, Oliver is sent to Mrs. Mann’s ‘Baby Farm’ where she

"…received the culprits at and for the consideration of seven-pence half-penny per small head per week."

At the same time, an experimental philosopher was trying to get his own horse to live on nothing, and got him down to eating one straw a day,

"…and would have unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air.”

When Mr. Bumble visits Mrs. Mann, she hastily invites him in and offers him something of the alcoholic kind, being Gin. But Mr. Bumble refuses it,

"…not a drop, not a drop."

The relationship between Mr.