Oliver Twist is born in a
workhouse in 1830s England. His mother, whose name no one knows, is found on
the street and dies just after Oliver’s birth. Oliver spends the first nine
years of his life in a badly run home for young orphans and then is transferred
to a workhouse for adults. After the other boys bully Oliver into asking for
more gruel at the end of a meal, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, offers five
pounds to anyone who will take the boy away from the workhouse. Oliver narrowly
escapes being apprenticed to a brutish chimney sweep and is eventually
apprenticed to a local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. When the undertaker’s other
apprentice, Noah Claypole, makes disparaging comments about Oliver’s mother,
Oliver attacks him and incurs the Sowerberrys’ wrath. Desperate, Oliver runs
away at dawn and travels toward London.
Outside London, Oliver, starved
and exhausted, meets Jack Dawkins, a boy his own age. Jack offers him shelter
in the London house of his benefactor, Fagin. It turns out that Fagin is a
career criminal who trains orphan boys to pick pockets for him. After a few
days of training, Oliver is sent on a pickpocketing mission with two other
boys. When he sees them swipe a handkerchief from an elderly gentleman, Oliver
is horrified and runs off. He is caught but narrowly escapes being convicted of
the theft. Mr. Brownlow, the man whose handkerchief was stolen, takes the
feverish Oliver to his home and nurses him back to health. Mr. Brownlow is
struck by Oliver’s resemblance to a portrait of a young woman that hangs in his
house. Oliver thrives in Mr. Brownlow’s home, but two young adults in Fagin’s
gang, Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy, capture Oliver and return him to Fagin.
Fagin sends Oliver to assist
Sikes in a burglary. Oliver is shot by a servant of the house and, after Sikes
escapes, is taken in by the women who live there, Mrs. Maylie and her beautiful
adopted niece Rose. They grow fond of Oliver, and he spends an idyllic summer
with them in the countryside. But Fagin and a mysterious man named Monks are
set on recapturing Oliver. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Oliver’s mother left
behind a gold locket when she died. Monks obtains and destroys that locket.
When the Maylies come to London, Nancy meets secretly with Rose and informs her
of Fagin’s designs, but a member of Fagin’s gang overhears the conversation.
When word of Nancy’s disclosure reaches Sikes, he brutally murders Nancy and
flees London. Pursued by his guilty conscience and an angry mob, he
inadvertently hangs himself while trying to escape.
Mr. Brownlow, with whom the
Maylies have reunited Oliver, confronts Monks and wrings the truth about
Oliver’s parentage from him. It is revealed that Monks is Oliver’s half
brother. Their father, Mr. Leeford, was unhappily married to a wealthy woman
and had an affair with Oliver’s mother, Agnes Fleming. Monks has been pursuing
Oliver all along in the hopes of ensuring that his half-brother is deprived of
his share of the family inheritance. Mr. Brownlow forces Monks to sign over
Oliver’s share to Oliver. Moreover, it is discovered that Rose is Agnes’s
younger sister, hence Oliver’s aunt. Fagin is hung for his crimes. Finally, Mr.
Brownlow adopts Oliver, and they and the Maylies retire to a blissful existence
in the countryside.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Source : https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oliver/summary/
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