I n t e r p r e t a t i o n1 6 5go into the making of these fictions mean that Dickens’s moral
values are inseparable from the act of writing itself.
Great Expectations is in no doubt about which of its fictional
worlds – Joe’s or Miss Havisham’s – is most real. Oliver Twist, by
contrast, is in two minds about whether the criminal sub- culture of
Fagin and his pack of thieving urchins is more substantial than the
middle- class milieu into which Oliver is finally rescued. Is Fagin’s
underworld simply a nightmarish interlude, one from which you
thankfully awaken in the arms of your well- heeled relatives? Or is
his filthy den more solid than Brownlow’s drawing room? There is
something anarchically enjoyable about Fagin’s way of life, which
can hardly be said of the urbane lifestyle of Mr Brownlow. Fagin
may be another false patriarch, but he cooks a mean sausage, which
in Dickens’s eyes counts heavily in his favour. He and his light-
fingered apprentices may be embroiled in robbery and violence,
along, no doubt, with a few less mentionable vices; but they also
represent a perverse parody of a family (the only female members
of it are prostitutes), and a more roisterous, fun- loving family than
the Gargery set- up.
In fact, the novel’s official disapproval of this pack of rascals does
not quite fit with what it shows of them. Fagin may be a rogue, but
like Dickens himself he is also an entertainer with an appreciative
audience. When the Artful Dodger, hauled before a court, scoffs
‘This ain’t the shop for justice’, there seems little doubt that the
novel endorses his judgement. Come what may, the Dodger is
going to be sent down. All the same, Brownlow and his household
are genuinely caring and compassionate, as Fagin and Bill Sykes
most certainly are not. Oliver has a future with them, as he does
not in a thieves’ kitchen. Middle- class society is not just to be
dismissed as skin- deep. Its members are not all paper- thin. Civilised