Although his readers didn't know this, poverty had personally scarred
Dickens. His family had been quite comfortable when he was born in
Portsmouth in 1812, but his parents weren't very skilled at managing
money. When he was about 12 years old, his family was confined to
debtors' prison, in London, an experience he later wrote about in
Little Dorrit. Only the money left by his grandmother when she died
bailed them out. His knowledge of prison gave Dickens a lifelong
obsession with prisoners and inhumane institutions. The hunger and
loneliness that tortures Oliver Twist while he is a ward of the
parish were very real to Dickens during his own family crisis.
For young Dickens, the lowest point of his life occurred while his
family was in prison. For six dreadful months, he was forced to work
as an apprentice in a bootblacking factory, pasting labels on bottles
of shoe polish. Not only was the work exhausting, the experience was
humiliating. In Oliver Twist he included a brief episode condemning
the apprenticeship system, but it was not until later, in David
Copperfield, that he could face writing about the factory in detail.
While Oliver Twist is not as autobiographical as David Copperfield,
many other incidents in the novel reflect Dickens' experiences. He
deeply regretted not having had more schooling and suggests that in
Oliver's eagerness to learn.
In May 1837, his beloved 17-year-old sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth,
died, and many readers of Oliver Twist think he based the characters
of Rose and Nancy on Mary, as a way of working out his intense grief.
While Rose survives a dangerous illness, Nancy dies a brutal death.
Dickens himself felt Mary had deserted him; similarly, Oliver is
terrified that Rose will die and leave him. Dickens was haunted by
dreams about Mary, just as Sikes is haunted by a vision of Nancy's
eyes after he has killed her.
The criminal underworld of Fagin, Nancy, and Sikes in Oliver Twist
was as well-known to Dickens as the workhouses and debtors' prisons.
As a court reporter and journalist, he had seen the seamy side of
urban life. He had met hardened criminals like Sikes and women like
Nancy. He had little sympathy for criminals like Fagin, who abuse
and corrupt others, yet he knew that there were others--like Nancy
and Charley Bates--who were criminals only because of their
environment, and who might still be reformed. Later he became
actively involved with Urania Cottage, a refuge for homeless women,
including prostitutes. Knowing they had led rough lives, Urania
Cottage was set up as an environment where they could feel at home
and prepare themselves for a better life. Dickens' sympathy for
Nancy is clear in Oliver Twist. Typically, he was motivated to get
involved, to try to change conditions for girls like her before it
was too late. The 1830s were a time of growing concern about social
issues and energetic reform. As a popular writer and public
personality, Dickens had a power to do good. He could reach a vast
