Noah Claypole's idea of class structure is extremely specialized. For him, there is not merely the upper class, middle class, and lower class. Even within the lower class, there is a hierarchy.
Noah antagonizes Oliver due to the supposed class differences between them. From the moment they meet, he tells Oliver, "You're under me." He mocks Oliver for not knowing who his father was and insults Oliver's dead mother to his face.
The ironic thing is that there is not much of a class gulf between Noah and Oliver. Both are seen as poor boys with no good prospects in their future, but because Oliver is an orphan from the work-house and Noah actually has parents, poor as they are, Noah is considered more respectable by comparison. Dickens's narrator describes him and his class snobbery in satirical terms:
Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction.
Noah is used to being belittled himself by those higher up on the class pyramid. We learn that the other children in the neighborhood mock him for being a charity boy on a regular basis. Therefore, he uses Oliver's allegedly lower place to feel more powerful.
Friday, January 10, 2014
What was Noah Claypole's idea of "class" structure in Oliver Twist?
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