Fagin and the Path to Peridition Hunter Juarez College

The criminal underworld was an elaborate network in Old London introducing new crime stories and entertainment such as Newgate Calendars. The Calendars were nonfiction crime reports from the 18th century that always ended in a lesson for the reader, something along the lines of ‘respect your elders’ or ‘don’t trust everybody you meet’. They were entertaining articles to read, as they related to the common public in everyday scenarios. These texts played a large role in the structure of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. In particular, this style is portrayed through the crime ridden character Fagin, and is seen through the perspective of an innocent young boy named Oliver Twist. By using the Calendars as a blueprint for his novel, Dickens shows Fagin as a manipulator, attempting to lead Oliver down the path to perdition.

Oliver Twist can be seen as a Newgate Calendar that has been expanded and disorganized. Although a ‘Newgate Calendar’ is a fairly broad term, by using them as an outline, Dickens could distort and change the outcome of his novel in whatever way he pleased. In most, if not all Calendars, the diction and plot of the stories are straightforward, easy to follow, and are always solved by the community. Dickens opposes...