"Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens. A Nineteenth Century Fairy Tale?

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1.3 ("excellent"), Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie), course: Social Disruptions in the Victorian Novel, language: English, abstract: This seminar paper deals with whether and to which extent Charles Dickens' popular Victorian novel "Oliver Twist" displays fairy tale characteristics, and whether the concept of Social Realism is compatible with fairy tales. For this matter, I will analyse Oliver Twist for fairy tale influences by first defining the fairy tale in general (Chapter 1) and by showing how it has influenced Dickens life and writing (Chapter 2). Chapter two deals also with the question which fairy tales Dickens read and knew. Then, I will take a close look at fairy tale elements in the novel by examining parallels between well-known fairy tales, specifically by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.