Identity Quotes - Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist - Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

"How comes he to have any name at all, then?"

The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, "I inwented it."

"You, Mr. Bumble!"

"I, Mrs. Mann. We name our foundlin’s in alphabetical order. The last was a S,-- Swubble: I named him. This was a T,-- Twist: I named him." (2.27-30)

This has got to be an important moment, because it has to do with where Oliver’s name came from. Since Oliver’s the main character, and his name is part of the title of the whole book, we figure it’s got to be pretty important, and Dickens didn’t name him at random, although he tries to make it seem as though Bumble did.

But how randomly did Bumble choose his name? Let’s look at it: is the alphabet random? The obvious answer is "no," because the alphabet provides order that everyone recognizes. But it’s an arbitrary order. What reason is there that "T" follows "S"? So it’s an arbitrary name that yet somehow isn’t arbitrary. And yet kind of is. Yes, it’s confusing.

Bumble named him "Twist," and then everyone who meets him assumes that he’s going to die by hanging. And, as we all know (now would be a good time to check out the "Character Analysis" section for Oliver…), "Twist" was slang for "hang." So Bumble really does set this kid up for a life of crime – the ambiguous part is whether he did it consciously or not.

"[…] wouldn’t they, Tom White, -- eh?"

"My name is Oliver, sir," replied the little invalid with a look of great astonishment.

"Oliver!" said Mr. Brownlow; "Oliver what? Oliver White,-- eh?"

"No, sir, Twist,-- Oliver Twist."

"Queer name," said the old gentleman. (12.53-56)

This is the exchange between Oliver and Mr. Brownlow when Brownlow learns Oliver’s real name. It’s a turning point in their relationship, because it’s the first time that Oliver is able to tell Mr. Brownlow a portion of his own story (what his name is) instead of having someone else tell it for him (all the crowd calling him a thief; the police officer calling him "young gallows" and "fogle-hunter," the man in the striped waistcoat making up a name because Oliver’s incapable of talking for himself, etc).

And here’s the amazing part: Mr. Brownlow believes him, even though it "sounded so like a falsehood" (12.58). Oliver just has something in his face that seems truthful.

Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts exercises even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature and their fellow men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the somber colours are reflections from their own jaundiced vision. (34.60)

This is an interesting statement – we’re able to control the external world based on what’s going on in our minds? Basically it’s just another way of saying that your attitude colors your perception of everything around you, but this way of putting it breaks down boundaries of inside and outside, and suggests that your interior life has a direct impact on the external world around you.

There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble as it pleases. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion can be called sleep, this is it; and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us. (34.65)

This is a moment of total passivity – Oliver is completely without agency when Fagin and Monks appear at his window. Unlike at other moments, when his interior life impacts the world around him, here sleep (or half sleep) causes a breakdown between the inside and the outside. His unconsciousness and immobility allow outsiders to approach (and possibly to enter) the supposedly inviolate space of the house, and to invade Oliver’s mind to corrupt him.

The court was paved from floor to roof with human faces. (52.1)

The beginning of Fagin’s trial scene shows how the crowd is so completely de-individuated that even their faces (which are usually the most unique markers of individual identity) are just a big mass, like stones that "paved" the courtroom.

[…] he seemed to stand surrounded by a firmament all bright with beaming eyes. (52.1)

Fagin is at the center of the gaze of the huge mass of people at the trial, and their piercing gaze seems to empty him of any sense of self. The crowd overwhelms him with their "eyes" (with a possible pun on "eye/I" – there are too many "I’s," or too many unique individuals, all focusing on Fagin, so that his own sense of self, or his own "I" is obliterated, and he becomes completely passive).

Not that all this time his mind was for an instant free from one oppressive, overwhelming sense of the grave that opened at his feet; it was ever present to him. (52.9)

Fagin isn’t mentioned by name a single time during the trial scene – he’s always referred to as "he" or "him," so the reader has to infer what character it is (not hard to do). But the effect of that is further to alienate Fagin from the crowd (and the reader), and to make him seem less like an individual with a unique identity (and name), and more like a distant object of interest.

Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble tablet, which bears as yet but one word, – ‘Agnes!’ (53.16)

Oliver’s mother lost the moral right to her own last name (which was Fleming, in case you’ve forgotten) when she left her father and shamed him into changing his name. And she never got to take Oliver’s father’s last name (Leeford), because he never actually married her. So even in death, she can be remembered only by her first name, "Agnes."