Oliver Twist

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

“The Chimney Sweeper”

• a Romantic era poem by William Blake
• connects to themes of goodness and institutional corruption, particularly as the two intersect (what is the significance of the children’s “goodness” given the society in which they live? Are the final lines of the poem ironic?)

Othello’s murder of Desdemona

• from William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello
• compare and contrast with Sikes’s murder of Nancy, which contains several allusions to Othello (consider especially Dickens’s use of light and the handkerchief)
• connects to themes of goodness (Othello generally strikes readers as sympathetic despite his actions, whereas Sikes is far less likeable) and possibly identity (how does race—specifically, Othello’s insecurity regarding his race—influence his actions? How does Nancy’s lower-class status inform the scene?)

Interview with Alex Kotlowitz

• available in both transcript and audio form
• discusses Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, a 1991 work of nonfiction that tells the story of brothers Pharoah and Lafayette, who grow up in Chicago public housing experiencing crime, domestic violence, and substance abuse
• connects to themes of institutional corruption, goodness, and identity