The premise for Wolff’s sometimes outlandish assertions about the precise nature of crime in Oliver Twist is the idea of ‘cryptic delinquency’. That is, rather than reading only the obvious crimes that Dickens portrays in the novel, largely thievery and prostitution, one might guess at what is more obliquely inferred, and that more mysterious, and certainly disturbing criminal activity is also present. Wolff initially cites Dickens’s 1841 preface to Oliver Twist, highlighting what he feels might exist surreptitiously in Dickens’s language as he talks of ‘unavoidable inference’. Yet while Wolff pushes the point that the censure of more than just swearing is present in the novel, it seems hard to believe Dickens is also suggesting the idea of the ‘boys…as prostitutes’. After all, Dickens seems to find it shocking enough to break it to the reader the obvious natures of his criminal characters:
It is, it seems, a very shocking circumstance, that some of the characters in these pages are chosen from the most criminal and degraded of London’s population; that Sikes is a thief, and Fagin a receiver of stolen goods; that the boys are pick-pockets, and the girl is a prostitute.Dickens seems to save the worst confession, regarding Nancy, until last, as if to break it to the reader gravely and gently. The idea of his going beyond what he already feels is ‘vilest evil’ to crime that may well cause mass offence and disgust in readers (Wolff suggests pederasty, involving Fagin himself), seems far-fetched. Wolff indicates that Dickens’s reliance on inference amounts to a freedom of interpretation in the novel, yet what he seems to imply is that anything may then be possible, regardless of little evidence.
An important textual reference for Wolff is in Nancy’s words, following her kidnap of Oliver from Brownlow and his return to Fagin. In an outburst, she cries that Oliver will be ‘a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad’ from that day on, in the company of Fagin, Sikes and co. Wolff takes this breakdown of specificity of description, from ‘thief’ to ‘all that’s bad’ as evidence for some other, unutterable vice. Yet this may be attributed simply to her loss of articulation in her passion, rather than hinting at something worse than devilish. There is scope for the idea that vice cannot help but associated with sexuality after a point, yet there is something unashamedly comforting in the idea that while Fagin may be crooked, greedy, bullying, even violent, he would never stoop to a level of indecency which if it were widely broadcast, would make sinister, even inappropriate reading. Wolff further uses some historical material to show the contextual presence of the boy-prostitute, yet it is undeniable that this was not as commonly regarded as the woman or girl prostitute.
After again quibbling some specific ‘language of criminality’ which might give some clue as to what type of juvenile crime Oliver is really caught up in, Wolff picks up on the emphasis on Oliver’s looks in the text. Fagin favours Oliver for his looks, this is true, yet it is more persuasive that Oliver’s beautiful, innocent looks (as his register of speech) are a symptom of his true place in a better society than the one he is dragged into, rather than as a some obscure means of sexual allurement. After all, it is not only Fagin who comments on Oliver’s looks; he is used as a mourner by Mr Sowerberry early on in the novel in consequence of them. In addition, Wolff suggests that Oliver’s particular ‘spiritual agony’, according with his looks and character, at being made a thief, also implies ‘that there is more at stake than stealing’.
Following this, Wolff discusses various contextual testaments to houses of corruption that existed in the 1830s, in which ‘diabolical practices’ took place, involving both males and females. He links this to further evidence about the ‘illicit sexual lives of Victorian men’, and more broadly to relationships between gentlemen and young boys both contextually and specifically in Oliver Twist. Again, Wolff implies the possibility of untoward relations taking place, yet the idea is dependent on the ‘if’ clause, i.e. this can only be the case ‘if’ criminal inferences extend to sexual vices. Therefore it seems that even Wolff is hesitant to suggest that Brownlow, if not Fagin’s, interest in Oliver in any way oversteps the paternal. It cannot be denied that a deliberate depiction of such crime written in by a philanthropic, gentleman-like author fond of children is somewhat grotesque.
Wolff’s final point in his defence of ‘cryptic delinquency’ regards the ‘sexualisation of Oliver’s innocence’. He draws on the imagery of Oliver asleep, for example, and the significance of the older, male eyes upon him (Fagin and Monks at the window in a memorable scene). Yet as even Wolff points out, the interpretation of Oliver as an object of titillation to the ‘respectable gentlemen within the text’ is only secondary to what this must force the reader to do, i.e. engage in ‘a possibly pornographic relation to the innocent child’ – abject and unlikely.
As such, the article uses some persuasive arguments regarding the nature of the criminal world Dickens portrays in Oliver Twist. However, despite the use of historical documents to bolster his hypotheses on this issue, it seems that there is little concrete evidence in the text to fully support such ideas. While it is true that Dickens is often vague about the gritty details (as well as the swearing) that actually take place in the criminal underworld of the novel, it is difficult to believe that he is hinting at such sexual vice in a text that already exposes what he considered ‘shocking circumstance and ‘degraded aspect’.
[Comments please: what do you think of Wolff's argument, and Alice's response?]
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