Oliver has been taken into custody for a crime he did not commit. While he continually professed his innocence, no one believed him until the book stall owner spoke on his behalf. Dickens not only uses this event to further the plot of the novel, but also to show the reputability of the different classes. Oliver is a young, poor orphan who has no home. It is clear no one will believe him because society looks down on the poor. Begging is considered a crime that could send you to jail. Oliver is about to be sentenced to three months of hard labor he clearly cannot perform in his weakened state despite Brownlow claiming he does not want to press charges.<\/p>\n
The book stall owner recounts what actually happened and Oliver is set free. While the book stall owner is not wealthy, he is still in a class about Oliver. Even though it is old, he is dressed “well” in a suit. While skeptical at first, Fang believes him when the book stall owner mentions Brownlow was reading a book at the time of the robbery, the same one he has in his hand now. He had not payed for the book. Brownlow claims he “forgot all about it” but it was clear he had stolen the book.<\/p>\n
While Oliver was chased down and beaten for being suspected<\/em> of theft, Brownlow, who has just admitted<\/em> to not paying for the book, is let go with a warning. This once again shows the class disparity. No one bats an eye at Brownlow when he admits to having “forgotten” to pay for the book because he is wealthy. Fang tells him, “Let this be a lesson to you,” while Olivers “lesson” was a beating. This general mistrust and mistreatment of the poor is shown throughout Dickens’ novel. This particular scene showed how it affects the justice system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oliver has been taken into custody for a crime he did not commit. While he continually professed his innocence, no one believed him until the book stall owner spoke on his behalf. Dickens not only uses this event to further the plot of the novel, but also to show the reputability of the different classes. … Continue reading Olivers Trial<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138877],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}