One aspect of the novel, Oliver Twist, is the fact that he is faced with constant injustices from the moment he is born. At first the fact that Oliver is met with injustice after injustice can seem frustrating as a reader who is waiting for a good outcome to happen to the main character at some point, but further evaluation of Dickens’ motives help lead to the realization that this could have been Dickens’ point that people who begin their lives with wealth, which had passed Oliver by at the fault of the doctor and nurse who aided in his birth, are living at the complete opposite side of the spectrum as compared to those who are born poor orphans, as the doctor and nurse determined Oliver would be. Many of Oliver’s injustices come from social institutions of the time period including the Church and the workhouse welfare system that existed in England in the nineteenth century. The injustice I found to stand out the most was the fact that Oliver would have had a family if his mother was able to identify herself. His family was in fact quite wealthy and could have helped Oliver avoid most all of the tragedy that he experiences during his upbringing. This injustice technically could be blamed on Sally, the nurse who helped deliver Oliver, since she stole the locket from Agnes which was her only chance of being identified. I believe that the actual blame is to be placed on the circumstances that existed in Victorian culture which led Agnes to make the choices that she did, that being choosing to give birth in a workhouse instead of facing the social consequences that came with having a child out of wedlock and the shame that would bring upon her family.
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