O

O is for ‘Oliver’.

I read Oliver Twist a long time ago, when I was a child myself. I was horror-struck by the little orphan’s life in a massive city like London. He endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and is then placed with an undertaker. He also meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their unlawful activities.

Apparently, in the Dickens era, there were a large number of orphan kids found around London, something that led to The Waif Crisis. Eventually, of course, all is well. The criminals are behind bars and the awful people are reduced to the same sordid conditions that they had subjected little kids to. Dickens is dark, but not the kind of dark that only adults can deal with. Characters like Oliver, David Copperfield, Pip are ones that children should be exposed to. It is a good way to acquaint them to the real world, which has people like Estella, Fagin, and Pegotty.

Oliver in the cruel warehouse

So far: Atticus, Beth, Cassius, Dumbledore, Estella, Francesca, Gandalf, Humbert, Ishmael, Jean-Baptiste, Kali, Long John Silver & Lisbeth, Miu, Nancy

I'm writing every day of April for the A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge 2012. I'm writing of characters of fiction that are immortal and touch hundreds of lives everyday...