An Analysis Of The Carnivalization In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist is one of the masterpieces with universal acclaim by the English critical realist Charles Dickens,presenting the miserable life with countless narrow escapes of an orphan with the titular name in the Victorian society.He was born in the workhouse,starving and suffering;and then was sold and kidnapped by the thief gang.His life was full of ups and down,which will always bring tears to the readers’ eyes.The world literature is not lack of such stories as an orphan struggling for life in adversities;however,this novel would always bring freshness to the readers after each reading,which probably results from Charles Dickens’ unique carnival way of presenting the story.Charles Dickens and the Russian scholar Bakhtin lived in different places and times,their shared concern with the nature of human life brought them together in terms of thought and wisdom.Both of them revealed the true nature of society by means of different artistic forms.The core concepts in Bakhtian carnival theory are presented faithfully in this novel: the carnival square,carnival collectives,carnival language,decrowning and crowning phenomena in the carnival rituals,and carnival spirit are running through the whole novel.In the mid of the seemingly light humor,joke and satire,Dickens exposed to us the hypocrisy,corruptness and downfall occurring on all layers of the Victorian society,plucking the conscience string of the kind readers,and provoking their deep thinking.Besides Introduction and Conclusion,the body of the thesis is composed of four chapters.The part of Introduction is a brief introduction to Charles Dickens,his novel Oliver Twist,and the literature review on it at home and abroad.Chapter One focuses on the carnival square and carnival collectives.The workhouse,markets and the den are all places like a carnival square,where the cheaters,thieves,fools and other clown-like characters form the carnival collectives.Chapter Two mainly analyzes the carnival language of the novel from two aspects,Dickens’ language to tell the story,and the carnival speech of the characters,the major feature of which is parody and abusive.Chapter Three interprets the decrowning and crowning phenomena in the carnival rituals.The privileged and the rich are mercilessly “decrowned”,losing their vanity and authority;the obscure from the bottom of the society are molded by Dickens as sublime and great ones,being “crowned”.Chapter Four targets the analysis at the ultimate end of the carnival theory: the utopian carnival spirit.Dickens,by means of several paired images and ambivalence,points out the intrinsic relationship between death and rebirth or renewal: death always means rebirth or renewal.With the help of the reversed life in the carnival,Dickens made an indirect exposure of the corruptness,downfall,human life degradation in the Victorian society,whereby cherishing a utopian society void of oppression and exploitation where everyone is equal.The part of Conclusion summarizes the whole thesis,pointing out the significant role of Dickens’ carnival way of story-telling in highlighting the theme of the novel and the important contribution to its universal popularity among the readers.