I hate when people call books like Oliver Twist anti-semitic

[Jtolj]

There are Jewish criminals, and they tend to be in crime movies and books a lot, so what is wrong with showing a character, who is a villian, to be a Jew? I hate the anti-semitism complainers. Semites just like all other races have the right to be potrayed as villians. It's horrible. What if I want a Jew to be the villian? That could be awesome. So many modern crime movies have Jew characters and they're all awesome, so what is wrong with classic literature doing it. Back in the day, many Jews were as criminal as the Sicilians and Irish.

[vili]

I think the complaint in Dickens's case, at least in terms of literary theory, is that it is far too easy to kick someone already in the mud, so to speak, so it is really a cheap device for Dickens to use a Jewish character in the role. You would, at least, then expect it to be a more complex character (cf. Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock), which it does not develop into.

At the end of his life Dickens reacted to the criticism he received for his portrayal of the Jewish character in Oliver Twist through his writing in Our Mutual Friend, which, it has been argued, to a large extent deals with the question of identity and the way you are being seen by the others. Perhaps he himself came to realise that he had fallen victim to the social prejudices in his early novel, and that it had as a result affected the quality of his own work. I cannot, of course, offer any physical evidence for this, other than the hazy memory of Dickens starting to write Our Mutual Friend after receiving a letter from a reader saying that while she loved all of his novels, Oliver Twist had always troubled her considerably due to his portrayal of the Jewish people. But this is just a hazy memory, and I am far from being a Dickens expert.

[Nightwalk]

Semites just like all other races have the right to be potrayed as villians. It's horrible. What if I want a Jew to be the villian? That could be awesome. So many modern crime movies have Jew characters and they're all awesome...

You make it sound as if it's a privilege and "awesome" to be a villain.

That's one thing I like about those kinds of scenes in literature: it depicts the attitude and mentality of times past.

I agree with your point. Political Correctness is the disease of the times.

[Jtolj]

The thing is though that when people portray Italians as criminals, most know it's just for fun, while when Jews are portrayed, people tend to object.

[vili]

The thing is though that when people portray Italians as criminals, most know it's just for fun, while when Jews are portrayed, people tend to object.
I would imagine that this is for rather clear historical reasons. I don't recall anyone targetting Italians on the scale Jews were persecuted in Europe for centuries. Hence, anyone familiar even with some rather recent history is able to draw parallels. I suppose that it is not an issue of what you mean, but rather what you could be taken to mean.

An additional explanation, of course, is probably that Jews are politically and economically a relatively powerful group of people despite of their rather small number. This, in fact, can at least in parts be seen as deriving from the way they were persecuted throughout history, not only by making them stick together tighter, but also economically. For example, one might argue that because of the economic restrictions imposed on them and denying them the rights for a lot of economic activity and land ownership, the only professions they could take were moneylending and certain trade businesses. Which, I suppose, would then explain why they ended up having large trading networks and accumulating wealth. And wealth, in today's democratic world, of course rather directly also seems to give you a say over matters.

Or so I would suggest.

[higley]

I think vili hit it right on the nose.

I'm half-Jewish myself and it bothers me to see stuff like Fagin in classic literature. And I know it annoys my dad. There's nothing to mean that Jews can't become criminals, but neither were they responsible for every social or economic disaster that befell Europe as often they were held to be. Such prejudices were what Dickens and other authors based characters like Fagin on. The act of writing a Jew as a criminal is not wrong in itself; I have no problem with that. What upset me was their purpose for doing so. And to disregard that in favor of supporting "equality" seems to me to be missing the point.

[Jtolj]

I'm Jewish too, and I didn't think Fagin was seen as the cause of the world's ills. I thought the book contained non-criminal Jews.. Also, he was my favorite character and the most sympathetic.

[Evi]

I just love Charles Dickens work generally and i dont think that i can judge him as a writer ( because i dont have the talent to be a writer) I think that you can judge a proffesional in his work only if you have teh same proffesion. For example, i am a lawyer and i accept critic in my work only by my colleagues. Anyway, i have read Oliver Twist and i have to say that the character of Fagin is the only one Jew who is criminal. All the other members of the clan are Christians ( as i can understand) and if we think about it the murderer of Nancy ( the girl who was helping Oliver) is the worst character in this book and not Fagin. I dont think that Dickens intension was to blame Jews, only because he gave this religion to one of his characters.

Can i ask something? If the character of Fagin was Greek or Italian , would we had this question here?

Evi

[kingleo]

I just love Charles Dickens work generally and i dont think that i can judge him as a writer

You just did. It's a very common misconception people have that one needs to be as proficient in something to critique another person's work, but the recipient of a service (in this case the reader) has every right to judge. If you have a favorite author, favorite movie, favorite music, or favorite anything, you've made a judgement.


Can i ask something? If the character of Fagin was Greek or Italian , would we had this question here?

Italian maybe. The complaint comes up fairly often when dealing with movies depicting sterotypical Italian Mafia families.

[holograph]

we are a world of stereotypes. it sucks, but it is what it is. i think any good writer would not succumb to direct stereotyping because that it pretty cheap. but anti semitism is a hard case to deal with because of the jewish history (:) to vili). depicting a jew as a criminal is fine in a work of literature, because it is the freedom of the author to do so. At the same time, you have to understand that in the Jewish community any extra blow, however small or large it is, is dangerous and puts them into an even more precarious position. Any slight TV news story or such that undermines the Jewish community is automatically used against them these days, just like a work of literature was able to affect the views of so many people then and now. But most of it is really due to the times--I mean what writers of the 20th century, pre WWII, were not anti semitic. Cummings, Eliot, etc. they were great writers but all anti-semites. Just like people who believed the world was flat and the universe rotated around the earth. Anyway, I think this rant had a point but now I'm not too sure. I'm half-Jewish, and Dickens is still one of my favorite writers.

[Jtolj]

People are hardly anti-semitic, anyway, many Jews have renounced the Judiasm and become independants (like me).

[The Jackle]

:idea:There is a similarity between Fagin and skies when it comes to dickens referring to them. Dickens calls skies robber throughout the novel and even murderer towards the novels end. Hence, I must be led to the conclusion that its just the way Dickens writes not racism. We must remember, despite the novels ground breaking style and form, the novel plays on a lot of stereotypes and melodrama, which is common of English literature of the period. If the holocaust happened before dickens wrote the novel, with the true face of racism exposed, then I’m sure dickens would of never described Fagin as The Jew.

[samora]

i have two point about this, i agree with the point that those books are not antismetic .

i think in general ,author 's writing always represent the mentality of the age and socity in that time ,yes i think mention someone relgion and add it to charcter hurt ,but i don't think charles meant to give it that way of antismesatic person but i feel it was tjat wrong view of time beside of adding more drama to the story ,like show various detalis or colores from that socity,
i must say that when shakspear mentined shaylok as jewish ,someone easily can have bad impression about the poeple of that relgion but coming back to the mentality of the age ,it shows quit good view about all thoughts in that age ,,and author who was from that age in my view was like mirror who reflect the life and thoughts of people that time,now i don't think that is right and i don't think mention ones relgion is good point in novel nor it can make it better because technicaly people would think all people are truly like that but as i said again,it was the one of many negative menaltiy happened in socity , ,perosnally i didn't see fagin as the hatefull personality as monk and sikgi who killed nancy ,but in general ,i find charles' work are quit intreseting and so worthy to be read ,and in my view i think librar'es should't ban books but probably lighten the alttiude of someone's relgions because when you read this story i don't think fagin relgion is really the point in this story among all those poor life those poeple who lived it in dark wit those children .

[Panflute]

It's easy to point the finger at a 1837 book and condemn it. I think one should place it within its time context. Back then, it was not something anyone would take immediate notice of. In books of Poe, for example, you can also find negative references to black characters, but it's best to take it with a pinch of salt and laugh at it, rather than turning the issue into a politically correct dramabomb. By the bye, I don't find the portrayal of Fagin anti-semetic, it's just that his looks might be a bit prejudiced, but it didn't disturb me (in fact, I rather liked Fagin), as the main point of the book is still a brilliant one.

[kilted exile]

Well according to my edition of Oliver Twist Fagin was based on a real life Jewish fence called Ikey Solomons

[RJbibliophil]

I don't think Dickens was anti-semitic in his writing. It was a description he used. One might even say it added diversity to the thieves.

[Laura-Taylor]

I have recently been studying Oliver in my GCSE English class and after doing extensive research on the perpetrators of suffering in the novel, I found out that Dickens did not make Fagin a Jew out of racism. I also read that he regretted making Fagin a Jew as some of his readers took it the wrong way. He was NOT trying to make a statement about Jews, it was just a coincidence and he regretted this choice.



Laura x :crash: x

[cactus]

If I went about reading classics with this view in mind I would probably discard wonderful books like The Adventures of Tom Saywer already!

[t.s.eliot42]

I just wonder why Dickens needed to make it a point that Fagin was Jewish. Why couldn't Fagin simply have been someone who lived in London who taught young boys how to pick pockets. Why is his ethnicity/religion even relevant. Answer. Because I'm sure Dickens was influenced by his enviroment, which I believe, every author is, and so he believed Jews made up a large portion of the criminal class. He made Fagin's ethnicity/religion relevant, but only because he probably based it on preconceived prejudices and ideas already accepted in Dicken's time. In other words, Dickens would not have mentioned that Fagin was a Jew if Anti-semitism were not as prevalent as it was in 19th century Europe.

[DancPing]

Dickens was definitely influenced by social prejudice, but personally, I don't see a problem with that. It wasn't his intention to persecute Jews, and I don't see how he could have made Fagin's character quite so striking or memorable without tapping into the feelings people had about them. I don't mean to sound insensitive, but can you think of anything else that could have inspired the same feelings in people at the time of the book's writing? Witches and warlocks maybe? That would've ruined his book.

Though I wouldn't have the book written any other way, I can definitely understand why it upsets members of the Jewish community. If I were a Jew, I'd probably have a very hard time appreciating it, too. Still, I think his only crime was being insensitive in his quest to write a great book. He chose a role that brought his character to life in the eyes of his audience, and in my opinion, the book is better for it.

[kev67]

According to the chapter notes of my copy:

9. a very old shrivelled Jew: In 1860, Dickens sold Tavistock House for 2000 guineas (£2100) to James Phineas Davis, a solicitor, whom he first described as 'a Jew Money-Lender' -only to be surprised by how 'satisfactory, considerate and trusting' the 'money-dealings' were. Later Mrs Davis remonstrated with Dickens for having made Fagin a Jew, and he replied that such criminals were almost invariably Jewish (see Introduction, p. xxxix). Peter Fairclough cites a contemporary report: 'A Jew seldom thieves, but is worse than a thief; he encourages others to thieve. In every town there is a Jew, resident or tramping;...if a robbery is effected, the property is hid till a Jew is found, and a bargain is then made.' It was thought until recently, indeed, that Fagin was at least loosely based on a famous Jewish fence, Ikey Solomons. At any rate the severe restrictions on Jewish occupations and property-holding did push a number of Jews into illegal activities. Dickens also says in response to Mrs Davis, 'firstly, that all the wicked dramatis personae are Christians; and secondly, that he is called "The Jew", not because of his religion, but because of his race' (letter of 10 July 1843). He did however respond by putting a sympathetic Jewish character, Mr Riah, into Our Mutual Friend (1665); and in 1867 he changed most references to 'the Jew'.

From Philip Horne's introduction:

There is, however, a sinister side to the initial mythic effect Fagin makes before the complicating, somewhat deflating explanations kick in. We must be uneasy about the anti-Semitic legends of child-killing which Dickens irresponsibly allows to colour or 'naturalize' a phrase like 'the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils' (I,18); Fagin's red hair, miserliness, resemblance to the devil, inhuman air of a 'goblin' or 'hideous phantom' or 'loathsome reptile' (III, 5, 9; I,19), and general malevolence, all have some invidious connection with racial sterotype. Further on in his career Dickens, himself by habit not more than a casual anti-Semite, was to make partial amends when a Jewish lady he knew protested against his encouragement of 'a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew', by creating the virtuous Riah in Our Mutual Friend. Dickens' defence that Fagin was Jewish 'because it unfortunately was true of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew' is inadequate justification of the array of stereotypical stage properties with which he adorns his old crook (the most notorious Jewish fence of the time, Ikey Solomons, was brown-haired and beardless, and wore smart modern dress). The strongest mitigating circumstance may be Dickens' intense relish of and twisted identification with this unforgettable embodiment of self-interest, especially at the end when Fagin faces the gallows.

[Jackson Richardson]

Until Oliver meets Mr Brownlow, Fagin is the only person to show him anything like affection and treat him with respect, allbeit with the intention of corrupting him. (Although his treatment in the workhouse was potentially corrupting - see Noah Claypole). Mr Brownlow is pretty unconvincing as a character.

The Jewishness shows Fagin as outside society. But as society is represented by Mr Bumble, it is not such a bad thing to be outside.

[kev67]

The Jewishness shows Fagin as outside society. But as society is represented by Mr Bumble, it is not such a bad thing to be outside.

An important point.


I regard Fagin rather like King Louie from the Disney Jungle Book. Alright, in the final analysis he is a somewhat racist stereotype, but he is so good I am prepared to let it slide.

The writer of the introduction of my copy of Oliver Twist went on to mention that Lionel Bart, who wrote the musical, and who was Jewish himself, did not exactly tone down the stereotype.

imho, and from a 21st century perspective, I think Dickens was treading on thin ice but that he gets away with it.

Dickens also managed to upset the Inuit people. He accused them of killing some British sailors because he could not bring himself to believe British sailors had cannibalized their crewmates. One of Dickens' descendants apologized to them on his behalf. I would like to think from Dickens' response to Mrs Davis's upbraiding of him about Fagin, that he would have been embarrassed about what he wrote regarding the Inuit, if he were alive today.

I have to say I was slightly ill-at-ease about Borioboola-Gha running gag in Bleak House.

[Jackson Richardson]

No, the Borioboola Gha gag isn't racist. It's mocking Mrs Jellaby's patronising attitude.

[Carousel]

Political Correctness

Our culture has been re-written
Washed squeaky clean, and dried
Do you remember friend
The day when laughter died

[Jackson Richardson]

If political correctness means courtesy, consideration and generosity, rather than self righteousness, there's nothing the matter with it.

On consideration that if someone already thinks all Jews are wicked, then reading about Fagin will reinforce that view.

Equally if someone has a racist and colonalist view that all Africans are only savages, then reading Dickens on Mrs Jellyby critizing her for ignoring her family while planning to help Africans, will confirm their view that Africans should be treated with no respect.

[Carousel]

Fagin was just one of a hundred or so of Dickens characters, how can anyone assume that Fagin represented his own views on Jews? Do all an author’s characters mirror the views of their creator, of course not? By that benchmark Thomas Harris would have a preference for the taste of human flesh.
If Dickens had named child gang master MacDonald would that have meant that he was expressing a racist view of the Scots?
The bad guy in the Merchant of Venice was also a Jew so obviously Shakespeare was a racist too.

Do me a favour.

[Pompey Bum]

With respect--exclusively--to those who expressed an opinion in 2015 (not just because I know you guys, but because the inanity of some of the earlier comments beggers belief), I want to suggest that the real question is not: was Dickens an anti-Semite?; but: is Fagin a dangerous character? And unfortunately the answer is: oh yes, very much so.

I want to make two points before getting into my argument. The first is about Dickens and the second about me. Dickens wrote Oliver Twist as a satire against utilitarianism and the inhuman system of workhouses it produced in England. He wanted to show that workhouses were only a brief stopover for children who were destined for lives of crime and vice. Thus, in addition to being morally repugnant, workhouses were everybody's problem. Exposing the alleged nastiness of Jews was not on his agenda.

Unfortunately he opened himself to that charge by using the satirical stock-in-trade character of the demonic Jew, rather than having the artistic confidence to create a completely original character, as he did later with characters like Mr. Smallweed from Bleak House and Ebenezer Scooge from A Christmas Carol. Both of those hard cases would have fitted the same racist caricature that was used for Fagin, but were presented as Jews. Jonathan is the expert here, but my memory is that although Smallweed wears a skullcap on occasion---as non-Jewish characters like old Mr. Dorrit sometimes do in Dickens)--his religion is never specified. And can you imagine what a catastrophe it would have been if A Christmas Carol had been the tale of a miserly old Jew who converted to Christianity? The story would have lost its appeal and charm (and would have been an ugly and petty work besides).

That was the part about Dickens. Here is the part about me. Despite it's flaws, I like Oliver Twist. Not all of it: like Jonathan, I find Brownlow to be an unconvincing character. And since I am not nearly as good a person as Jonathan, I also find Brownlow irritating and occasionally contemptible (as he is when he chastises Nancy for her morality). In fact, I find those demerits to apply to a greater or lesser extent to all the "respectable" characters in Oliver Twist. In my opinion, apart from Bumble & Co, the only characters worth reading about in the novel are the members of the Fagin gang; and none more so, I'm afraid, than Fagin himself.

I would go further. Despite his ontological flaw, Fagin is Dickens greatest villain, and one of the great characters in western literature. In my opinion, that paradox speaks to Dickens genius as a writer: he was able take the utter muck of a crude stock-in-trade character and breathe an eternal (if eternally nasty) life into his nostrils. That was not necessarily a good thing. For all his Dickensian glamor, Fagin remains a profoundly anti-Semitic character. And while Dickens inherited that evil from his model, it was he, to be fair, who let the vampire into the house.

Fagin is a dangerous character because he sits beside the still glowing embers of an ancient lie: the morally and physically demonic Jew. That lie has its origins, perversely, in a once common interpretation of the New Testament verse, John 8:44. In that passage, Jesus is confronting "Jews" (a strange term, since Jesus himself was a Jew--or does it mean "people from Judea" as opposed to Galileans?). The Jews are said to have formerly believed in Jesus, but to have lapsed. John notoriously has Jesus say to them "You have the devil for your father and you do your father's work." The passage goes on to refer to the devil as "the father of liars."

Interpretation of the verses varied over time and place. One of them, which affected (infected?) art history, and from there moved to popular prejudice, was that Jews are the physical descendants of Satan. It sounds stupid (and it is stupid), but look at the demonic physical features that Christian artists gave Jews in Medieval times, and with which they were caricatured in modern times. (For more on this, see Joshua Trachtenberg's scholarly classic, The Devil and the Jews). And lest you think this is obscure and ancient stuff, the please note that the same caricatures were posted on billboards the more active Christian communities in the Third Reich during the Jewish Holocaust--along with the verses from John 8:44.

Now look at Fagin. Look at how he is described physically. To quote from Kev's quotation: "Fagin's red hair, miserliness, resemblance to the devil, inhuman air of a 'goblin' or 'hideous phantom' or 'loathsome reptile' (III, 5, 9; I,19), and general malevolence, all have some invidious connection with racial stereotype." Note where Dickens places Fagin throughout most of the story: beside a fire. Note what he generally holds in his hands: a long fork with which he roasts things and torments the boys. Fagin is a liar and a perverter of innocence. In short, he fully participates in the calumny of the demonic Jew that had been a staple in Christian art for centuries and had become, by Dickens time, a commonplace of satiric caricature. It is true that it was not a commonplace of 19th century English novels, but very few Jews appear in that literature. Dickens the satirist had to draw on a tradition of graphic representations when he made Fagin. That is why there is such an emphasis on his physiognomy.

Thus Fagin participates in a pernicious anti-Jewish tradition that was centuries old by 1837, and would still be active when millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis in the 1940s. Of course that does not mean that Dickens caused the Holocaust or would ever have wished for such a thing. Like many liberal Victorian Christians, Dickens would have seen Jews as damned unless they accepted Christianity, but to be welcomed joyfully whenever they did. It has already been pointed out that Dickens made some attempt to tone down his anti-Jewish rhetoric when Jews he respected took him to task for it. It surprises me that no one has mentioned the scene near the novel's end in which Dickens actually distances Fagin from Judaism. As Fagin fearfully awaits his execution, he rejects the consolations of a visiting rabbi. All he considers is his own neck--nothing of Israel. This seems to be how Dickens resolved Fagin in his own mind. Once again, the target of Oliver Twist was what Dickens saw as the perversion of Christian morality by the introduction of a utilitarian principles into England's social programs for the needy, not the wiles of a (supposedly) nasty old Jew. Fagin is really just a bystander, albeit a guilty one.

But Dickens anticipates some of the problems to come for Jews when he says "in response to Mrs Davis...that [Fagin] is called 'The Jew', not because of his religion, but because of his race." (One again, I am quoting Kev's quotation). That supposed distinction--between Jewish belief and racial "Jewishness"--resurfaced later in the 19th century, not in connection with Dickens (who was already dead by then) but with a German journalist named Wilhelm Marr. Marr popularized the term "anti-Semitism" as part of his theory that Jews were categorically a race, an that they were locked in an existential struggle with the "German race." Although Marr later renounced anti-Semetism, other German rationalists found his ideas a convenient way to establish a (supposedly) scientific basis for their anti-Jewish prejudices without falling back on Christian anti-Judaism--which many of them held to be irrational (!). And the ideas of those anti-Semites (among others) would later prove fatally attractive to failed artist Adolph Hitler (among others). Belief in Jewish racial identity was the basis for the Nazi policy that Jews could not opt out of extermination through conversion. Faith didn't matter (much) to the Nazis, but race did. Again, I am not saying that Dickens contributed directly German anti-Semitism. But it is a bit chilling (to me, anyway) to hear him say that "[Fagin] is called 'The Jew', not because of his religion, but because of his race" (including presumably his diabolical physiognomy) forty years before Marr.

In my opinion, understanding these things means that the vapid apologetics in the pre-2015 posts above will not do. The fact that people stereotype Italians as criminals is not relevant to the question of whether the character of Fagin is dangerous to Jews. Neither is the issue of whether Dickens used a Jewish fence as his initial inspiration for Fagin. I agree with Carousel about the way that mindless political correctness depletes us intellectually, culturally, and even (as he points out) in terms of our humor. But I strongly assert that recognizing the potential danger to Jews that the character of Fagan continues to represent--and understanding why--is quite the opposite of political correctness. By contrast, the bizarre and insipid idea (expressed above) that Fagin's Jewishness provides his den of thieves with a healthy degree of "diversity" shows PC at its Looney Tunes best. But it would also be an example of mindless PC (and laziness) to use the excuse that "Dickens is racist" to avoid reading his magisterial works.

It would also be wrong, in my opinion, to simply shrug and say: "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." The persistence of anti-Jewish racist ideology into the 21st century requires us to amend that expression to: "The past is a foreign country, and we need to be damn sure that we do things differently here."

Fagin is an anti-Semitic character. In my opinion, those of us who love Oliver Twist need to look that fact squarely in the eye. To understand is not to excuse, but to make excuses is. Understanding Fagin does not mean bowdlerizing him out of the story, or placing Oliver Twist at the back of the bookcase between two dusty volumes of Olive Schreiner. It means teaching Oliver Twist in schools. It means understanding why a moral man like Dickens would have put such a potentially dangerous character in a book that aimed at social reform. In fact, understanding what is wrong Fagin frees us to safely appreciate what is right about him as a character and a villain. And it allows us to more fully appreciate the genius of his puppet master, who took an ugly and despicable racial stereotype, and somehow managed to give us the outrageous and ferocious Fagin of London.

[kiki1982]

Wow, I didn't know the portrayal of Fagin was that bad! Seems pretty amusing from a historical point of view.

And those were interesting points.
Obviously there was an element of 'casual racism' in any work prior to the time that people got regularly acquainted with people of a darker skin colour as being like them. There is no doubt about that.
The point is, should you label a work written in such an era as racist based on your modern (justly politically correct) principles? I don't think you should, because their writers didn't even think about it (unless they were taken to task over it, like you say Dickens was).
But indeed you have to teach why this was the case. Just as you should address other weird points like physiognomy, because they are important to understand such passages.

[Pompey Bum]

The point is, should you label a work written in such an era as racist based on your modern (justly politically correct) principles? I don't think you should, because their writers didn't even think about it (unless they were taken to task over it, like you say Dickens was).

Thank you for your comments, kiki. My view is that accusing Dickens of being a racist is beside the point and counterproductive. And annoyingly, it is often used self-righteously ("Dickens was a racist--not like me!") or even as a way to justify academic laziness ("No, I haven't read Dickens, and I am unapologetic about not reading racists!") On the other hand, I see it as too easy to simply attribute such issues to historical context. In my opinion we need to ask ourselves why good men like Dickens participated in something as wrong as the calumny of the demonic Jew. Perhaps you are right that he didn't understand what he was doing until Jews he knew explained it to him. Personally I suspect that is exactly what happened. But if so, let's acknowledge it--as you and I do--rather than make excuses that Fagin wasn't so bad, or that lots of groups suffer stereotypes, or that everyone acted like that in those days (why did everyone act like that?), or that making Fagin a Jew gave Oliver Twist diversity. To do that, in my opinion, is merely to hide the monster under the bed. And ask any six year old: monsters never stay there.

[Carousel]

But is Fagin a dangerous character? And unfortunately the answer is: oh yes, very much so.

What point are you making? Literature is populated with thousands upon thousands of dangerous characters of all cultures, religious beliefs and skin colours etc.

It surprises me that no one has mentioned the scene near the novel's end in which Dickens actually distances Fagin from Judaism.

Oh he did that far earlier in the novel; Fagin is pictured with a toasting fork cooking sausages for himself and the boys. Sausages that invariable would have contained pork and strictly non kosher.

Did Jewish child gang masters exist in London of the 1830s? Very probably but I think certainly not to the extent that non Jews were. However some Jews were heavily engaged in both women and child prostitution in the 19th century. It had a name ‘White Slavery’ and of course money lenders who date back to Shakespeare’s time and before. Money lending is not a crime in itself but recovering the loan plus the high interest rate charged from destitute borrowers often resulted in vicious criminal practises.

This is not to say that Jewish criminals were more or less evil that their English contemporary’s, but to deny any writer the right to expose their activities on the grounds that they were Jewish doesn’t ring my bell.

Dickens drew his characters from all walks of life and most could be judged as stereotypes or characterisations that made them easy recognizable to the general public which was the audience his work was aimed at.
To infer that Fagin was a dangerous character for the Jews would at least call for some proof that he was i.e. after publication of the book if attacks on the Jewish population occurred. That fact is they definitely did not, actually rather the opposite as around that time the bill for the Emancipation of the Jews was passed.

In the east end of London at that time both Jews and the English poor lived cheek by jowl with each other and suffered equally in the abject poverty together. Both were the victims of the rigid class system, the overhangs of which are still around today. ‘Know your place and stay there; it is the will of God’. If you are looking for a writer who supported the class divide look no further than Agather Christie--- Miss Marple on being told of the murder of her servant girl “Oh such a pity, it takes so long to train another girl”
An attitude that Dickens fought against all of his life.

[Pompey Bum]

What point are you making?

That accusing Dickens of racism is not helpful and that attempting to contextualize Fagin is potentially dangerous to Jews. And that rather than waste our time with self-serving platitudes (that which you have called political correctness), we need to understand and teach about why a good man and social reformer like Dickens would have felt in 1837 that there was no harm in evoking in the ancient calumny of Jewish diablolism.


Literature is populated with thousands upon thousands of dangerous characters of all cultures, religious beliefs and skin colours etc.

Right, well like I said that point is irrelevant. It's also a fallacious one (called the appeal to common practice), but we don't need to get into it. My view is that we need to understand and teach about other dangerous characters, too. Making excuses for them doesn't help any more than sanctimonious accusations against their creators or (God forbid) politically correct Bowdlerizing of their texts.


Oh he did that far earlier in the novel; Fagin is pictured with a toasting fork cooking sausages for himself and the boys. Sausages that invariable would have contained pork and strictly non kosher.

Interesting point, although it's probably a stretch. Dickens may have been using the sausages to show that Fagin was a hypocrite (hypocrisy being a part of the anti-Jewish calumny from which Fagin sprang); or (less likely) that he was somehow to be distinguished from other Jews. I say less likely because in that earlier part of the novel, Dickens repeatedly refers to Fagin as "Fagin the Jew" or even simply "The Jew." (Reducing the frequency with which he used the epithet was the way Dickens toned down his rhetoric in the later chapters of the book). And you are certainly wrong that "the sausages would invariably have contained pork and [been] strictly non kosher." Kosher meats had been widely available in Europe since the 17th century (or earlier), and there would have been no problem for Jews to obtain kosher sausages in a super-metropolis like Fagin's London. Still, I like the idea that the demonic Fagin, as he sits by his fire with his fork, is sneaking pork sausages behind the Torah's back. It's a clever joke. Does Dickens ever say that they were pork sausages?


Did Jewish child gang masters exist in London of the 1830s? Very probably but I think certainly not to the extent that non Jews were. However some Jews were heavily engaged in both women and child prostitution in the 19th century. It had a name ‘White Slavery’ and of course money lenders who date back to Shakespeare’s time and before. Money lending is not a crime in itself but recovering the loan plus the high interest rate charged from destitute borrowers often resulted in vicious criminal practises.

That is also irrelevant to the argument. We are agreed that Dickens believed himself to be satirizing a real social problem. It is the history of that satire (pre-and post-Dickens) that presented and continues to present the danger. That is the point--not whether Dickens was a Jew-hater. He wasn't.


This is not to say that Jewish criminals were more or less evil that their English contemporary’s, but to deny any writer the right to expose their activities on the grounds that they were Jewish doesn’t ring my bell.

Me neither, Carousel. Understand my argument and I think you'll see that. But for now, what you've got is a just another fallacious argument (straw man this time).


Dickens drew his characters from all walks of life and most could be judged as stereotypes or characterisations that made them easy recognizable to the general public which was the audience his work was aimed at.

I'll do you even better than that. Dickens was a satirist par excellence. Fagin, Smallweed, Krook, Scrooge, Uriah Heep: these are caricatures. They were not supposed to be "photographs" of people any more than political cartoons are today. Again, my argument is not that Dickens was picking on Jews when he made Fagin. It's that he drew on an existing caricature (the demonic Jew from John 8:44) that had already contributed to centuries of anti-Jewish violence and was a part of the Jewish Holocaust in the 20th century. Dickens did not cause the Holocaust and neither did Fagin. But Fagin is the popular and acceptable face of that caricature today. That, and the persistence of anti-Jewish violence into the 21st century make Fagin a "handle with care" character. The caricature (in which Fagin participates) remains a danger.


To infer that Fagin was a dangerous character for the Jews would at least call for some proof that he was i.e. after publication of the book if attacks on the Jewish population occurred. That fact is they definitely did not, actually rather the opposite as around that time the bill for the Emancipation of the Jews was passed.

Well, it would require evidence, right? Not "proof" of an inference. (But let's not get into that again). Unfortunately, there is no shortage of evidence of Jewish blood shed over the demonic Jew stereotype that produced Fagin, either before or after Oliver Twist. To cite only one example (albeit one of mass murder), images of Jews with demonic physical features were posted in the Third Reich (along with passages from John 8:44) to encourage Christians to hand over Jews during the Holocaust (which they did in the millions). But please understand what I am arguing, Carousel. It is not that Dickens caused all that by creating Fagin, or even that the demonic Jew stereo type alone was responsible for those deaths (although it had a role). It is that Dickens drew on the ancient calumny that Jews were physical as and moral heirs of the devil (as evidenced by Fagin's diabolical physiognomy); that that stereotype contributed to the murder of Jews before and after Dickens time; and that the caricature must not be uncritically accepted or excused because of the potential for danger that it--the caricature--can still represent (especially in the environment of increasing anti-Semitism in 21st century Europe). Fagin is a dangerous character because of his participation in that caricature.


In the east end of London at that time both Jews and the English poor lived cheek by jowl with each other and suffered equally in the abject poverty together.

Um yeah, well I mean, the Jews of England were (and are) English, right? Anyway, I know what you're trying to say.


Both were the victims of the rigid class system, the overhangs of which are still around today. ‘Know your place and stay there; it is the will of God’.

We agree that the English class system was (and is) wrong.


If you are looking for a writer who supported the class divide look no further than Agather Christie--- Miss Marple on being told of the murder of her servant girl “Oh such a pity, it takes so long to train another girl” An attitude that Dickens fought against all of his life.

We agree that Agatha Christie sucks. :)

[kev67]

Phillip Horne in the introduction of my copy writes:

Dickens' defence that Fagin was Jewish 'because it unfortunately was true of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew' is inadequate justification of the array of stereotypical stage properties with which he adorns his old crook (the most notorious Jewish fence of the time, Ikey Solomons, was brown-haired and beardless, and wore smart modern dress).


I have been pondering what the stereotypical stage properties were. I don't know how Jews were portrayed on stage in the C19th. Ikey Solomons might have been brown-haired and beardless and wore smart modern dress, but Ikey Solomons is definitely a Jewish name while I don't think Fagin is. Apparently, someone Dickens met at the blacking factory was called Fagin, which more an Irish name. Red hair is not a particularly Jewish characteristic. In the musical and the Polanski film, Fagin wears unusual clothing, which could be stereotypically Jewish, but when Oliver first meets him he is described as wearing a greasy flannel gown, not particularly Jewish. I have not read any mention of his nose. He is portrayed as being like the Devil, and he is constantly referred to as the Jew. All the same, he must have been recognizably Jewish, or this sentence, when Oliver meets Fagin for the first time, would not make much sense.

"In a frying-pan which was on fire, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair."

When Sikes first appears, he calls Fagin a 'covetous, avaricious, in-sa-ti-able old fence'. That is a Jewish stereotype.

Fagin and Sikes wanted to stop Oliver from peaching on them, basically by killing him. Jews have been accused of child-killing in the past, but that is surely more Mediaeval folk-lore. Would C19th readers have been aware of those associations? They would have been aware of the anti-Semitism in the Gospel of St John. Splitting hairs, I would not call that stereotyping.

So, I don't think that the problem is that Fagin is more stereotypically Jewish than Ikey Solomons was. The problem is that he is represented as a Jew being like the Devil and as a Jew being a child killer.

Actually, despite Dickens' defence that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew may not have been true. While I was googling the Fagin surname, I came across a newspaper articl (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069538/Was-Charles-Dickens-Fagin-based-60-year-old-black-child-stealer-Henry-Murphy.html)e that suggested Fagin was based on a black child-stealer called Henry Murphy.

[Pompey Bum]

"In a frying-pan which was on fire, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair."


Although I am now toying with the idea that Fagin is such a hypocrite that he is actually sneaking pork sausages on the sly, the symbolism of this image is all too obvious: Fagin is a fiery devil who skewers souls with his fork and roasts them on his fire.


Jews have been accused of child-killing in the past, but that is surely more Mediaeval folk-lore. Would C19th readers have been aware of those associations?

Unfortunately the "blood libel," that Jews abducted and murdered Christian children, sometimes to use their blood in ceremonial foods, sometimes to crucify them as human sacrifices, and sometimes just for the hell of it, was well known and continued to be reported through the 19th century (as was the calumny of diabolical Jewish physiognomy). For the record, blood libels were also reported in the 20th century, and are currently all the rage in the Middle East. The most recent one mentioned in this Wiki is from August 2014--five months ago. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel


So, I don't think that the problem is that Fagin is more stereotypically Jewish than Ikey Solomons was. The problem is that he is represented as a Jew being like the Devil and as a Jew being a child killer.

Stereotypical or not, I agree that those things are the problem. Fagin partakes in an ancient lie that is still potentially lethal to Jews.

[Carousel]

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of evidence of Jewish blood shed over the demonic Jew stereotype that produced Fagin, either before or after Oliver Twist haracter because of his participation in that caricature.

Have you considered that a stereotype has no meaning to the public if it doesn’t at least bear some relationship to the type of person the writer is characterizing i.e. that the public can recognize? All characterizations follow the same principle.

I suggest that your insistence that the character created by Dickens was dangerous because of the threat it fueled of an anti Semitic response against the Jewish people is only feasible if such a reaction happened. It didn’t then nor did it happen when Oliver Twist was repeated in numerous plays and movies over the ensuing hundred years plus in which there was no major adjustment made on Dickens’ description of Fagin in fact the movies graphically enhanced the Jewish nature of the character.

Although you refute the connection with Dickens portrayal of Fagin and the Holocaust you still allude to both in the same paragraph. While Fagin is a fictional character Dickens used as a tool to tell a story; the Holocaust was prepared by a nation wide wave of anti Semitic propaganda on a massive basis. Sorry, to say that both have even remotely any connection with each other is laughable.

The musical Oliver was written by Lionel Bart ne Lionel Begleiter, a Jew who presumable had no qualms about Fagin warbling 'Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two' would bring about dire retribution on his race. It gets worse; Ron Moody the actor who played Fagin, said quote “I'm 100% Jewish — totally kosher!"

[Pompey Bum]

Have you considered that a stereotype has no meaning to the public if it doesn’t at least bear some relationship to the type of person the writer is characterizing i.e. that the public can recognize?

So you're suggesting that the reason that the character of Fagin resonated with Victorian audiences is that Jews really were the descendants of Satan? That's a pretty lame argument, Carousel, not to say dangerously bigoted.


All characterizations follow the same principle.

So blacks are lazy and stupid? How about Poles and Italians? Are they comically dumb, as the popular racist stereotype would have it? And women? Too emotional for the workplace? Because all of those things follow from the "same principle."


I suggest that your insistence that the character created by Dickens was dangerous because of the threat it fueled of an anti Semitic response against the Jewish people is only feasible if such a reaction happened. It didn’t then nor did it happen when Oliver Twist was repeated in numerous plays and movies over the ensuing hundred years plus in which there was no major adjustment made on Dickens’ description of Fagin in fact the movies graphically enhanced the Jewish nature of the character.

So the murders of "demonic" and "child-stealing" Jews between the reign of Theodosius the Great and the Holocaust (and beyond) never really happened? Because, as you know, my argument is:


that Dickens drew on the ancient calumny that Jews were physical as and moral heirs of the devil (as evidenced by Fagin's diabolical physiognomy); that that stereotype contributed to the murder of Jews before and after Dickens time; and that the caricature must not be uncritically accepted or excused because of the potential for danger that it--the caricature--can still represent (especially in the environment of increasing anti-Semitism in 21st century Europe). Fagin is a dangerous character because of his participation in that caricature.


Although you refute the connection with Dickens portrayal of Fagin and the Holocaust you still allude to both in the same paragraph.

Well, that's not really what the word "refute" means, Carousel perhaps you meant rebutted?) But it's pretty clear in any case that you aren't really following the argument. Granted it is a nuanced argument, but you should still be able to get it. Why don't you take a deep breath and just try to work it out again. Remember that we don't have to agree about everything to agree about some things. Good luck!


While Fagin is a fictional character Dickens used as a tool to tell a story; the Holocaust was prepared by a nation wide wave of anti Semitic propaganda on a massive basis.

That argument again:


Dickens drew on the ancient calumny that Jews were physical as and moral heirs of the devil (as evidenced by Fagin's diabolical physiognomy); that that stereotype contributed to the murder of Jews before and after Dickens time; and that the caricature must not be uncritically accepted or excused because of the potential for danger that it--the caricature--can still represent (especially in the environment of increasing anti-Semitism in 21st century Europe). Fagin is a dangerous character because of his participation in that caricature.


Sorry, to say that both have even remotely any connection with each other is laughable.

Heh heh. Yup, ipsa res loquitur all right. :)


The musical Oliver was written by Lionel Bart ne Lionel Begleiter, a Jew who presumable had no qualms about Fagin warbling 'Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two' would bring about dire retribution on his race. It gets worse; Ron Moody the actor who played Fagin, said quote “I'm 100% Jewish — totally kosher!"

What could be less relevant to the question of whether the character of Fagin is dangerous to Jews? Good luck with your endeavors in any case! :)

[JoeLopp]

It is really impossible to separate the historical from the current when it comes to ingrained, societal prejudices. One flows nearly seemlessly from one place in time to the other over the generations. It is both correct in lit. criticism to question the stereotypes an author may be consciously, or not, promoting... just as it is to take the character for what he/she is quite apart from ethnicity and regard whether that character was successfully deployed in the story on purely technical grounds.

Whether we, if we take a more 'western' view of things today, and to wit, we would be much less inlined to portray a Jewish person in the way Dickens did, but would we feel the same reticence about a Muslim 'villain'?

[Pompey Bum]

It is really impossible to separate the historical from the current when it comes to ingrained, societal prejudices. One flows nearly seemlessly from one place in time to the other over the generations.

Yes, unfortunately that has been the historical reality. Attempts to contextualize bigotries only give them an innocuous-looking haven until their embers flare up again. Better to understand about them and to teach about them, in my view.


It is both correct in lit. criticism to question the stereotypes an author may be consciously, or not, promoting... just as it is to take the character for what he/she is quite apart from ethnicity and regard whether that character was successfully deployed in the story on purely technical grounds.

I agree. Without Fagin, Oliver Twist would lose about a third of its effectiveness--the other two thirds mostly involving Bumble et al., and the Dodger. (I suppose Nancy and Sykes work, too, but they seem a creative echelon lower, at least to me). Fagin is one of Dickens' great characters, and his greatest villain in my opinion. But he is dangerous, too. We need to understand that and to help others understand.


Whether we, if we take a more 'western' view of things today, and to wit, we would be much less inlined to portray a Jewish person in the way Dickens did, but would we feel the same reticence about a Muslim 'villain'?

It's a great point. The same could be said for Eastern Europeans. There was a great character in Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, called Boris. Boris was maybe Ukrainian, maybe Polish, maybe Russian. He had converted to Islam at one point, but was no longer observant. He was roguish, devil-may-care, an IV drug user, an IV drug dealer, and a player in the world of international organized crime. He was emotional, fiercely loyal to the main character, and fierce and defiant in general. Without Boris, The Goldfinch would probably have been the boated and plodding thing that Tartt's critics (unfairly) claim it to be.

But The Paris Review excoriated Tartt for her characterization of Boris, claiming that it was based on a popular American stereotype of Eastern Europeans as over-the-top criminals. And in a way, the paper was correct. It is useless to plead that (the oddly likable) Boris isn't all that bad; or to point to the Eastern Europeans who really are over-the-top criminals. My own take on Boris--and for me, his saving grace--is that his personality and his "dark twin" relationship to the main character seem drawn in part from the character of Rogozhin, Prince Myshkin negative image in Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. (Boris reads and discusses The Idiot in the course of the story, The Goldfinch's tenth chapter is called "The Idiot," and Tartt discusses some of Dostoyevsky's novel's troubling ambiguities in the later pages of her own). But the truth is that the parts of Boris that are not drawn from Rogozhin are fleshed out with the popular prejudice.

That does not, of course, make Tartt a "Ukranian-hater," nor does it make the Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Goldfinch a novel that ought to be suppressed or Bowdlerized. It just means that one of Tartt's more interesting characters is flawed in a way that deserves to be discussed and understood.

And so, too, of Dickens, Fagin, and Oliver Twist.

[Carousel]

All Jews as descendants of Satan?

Well no, that’s your understanding of how the character of one tired old Jew is portrayed in the Oliver Twist and a hilarious one at that.

Further, it was certainly not the view of how the English of the time distinguished the Jewish race. England provided safety for Jewish immigrants escaping from the many pogroms against them in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Neither would they have knighted a Jew or allowed them to become Members or their Parliament or elected a Jew as their Prime Minister if the English had thought of Jews as guys with forked tails and brandishing tridents.

So African Americans actually are lazy and stupid? How about Poles and Italians? Are they comically dumb, as the popular racist stereotype has it? And women? Too emotional for the workplace? Because all of those things follow from the "same principle."

No, did I ever suggest that any racial stereotype was an authentic description of any race or gender? However by saying stereotyping is invalid as an educated evaluation of any race or gender (Which I agree it certainly is) it ignores the fact that it is a very common appraisal held by many and not restricted to race or colour. Take a look at the Jewish jokes told by Jewish comedians virtually all are about the Jewish stereotype, is that not ‘dangerous’ in your opinion?

While Fagin is a fictional character Dickens used as a tool to tell a story; the Holocaust was prepared by a nation wide wave of anti Semitic propaganda on a massive basis.

That argument again:

Yes that argument again, which is the basis of your argument i.e. that the portrayal of Fagin by Dickens posed a threat to Jewish race. You really can’t make a statement like that without any evidence (Happy now?) to back it up.
As I stated earlier; it didn’t then nor did it happen when Oliver Twist was repeated in numerous plays and movies over the ensuing hundred plus years in which there was no major adjustment made on Dickens’ description of Fagin in fact the movies graphically enhanced the Jewish nature of the character.
How much more time do you need before any evidence comes to light that supports your argument?

The musical Oliver was written by Lionel Bart ne Lionel Begleiter, a Jew who presumable had no qualms about Fagin warbling 'Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two' would bring about dire retribution on his race. It gets worse; Ron Moody the actor who played Fagin, said quote “I'm 100% Jewish — totally kosher!"

What could be less relevant to the question of whether the character of Fagin is dangerous to Jews?

Relevant? Oh yes in as much that the author and the actor who played Fagin and being both English Jews obviously do not share in your views, because they understood that bringing Oliver to the silver screen posed no threat to the Jewish nation.

. Oliver Twist is a work of fiction, right? The Oxford dictionary defines the word fiction as--Something that is invented or untrue: I repeat; invented or untrue.

Racialists don’t need fictional roll models to fuel their hatred; it’s already ingrained in their nature and it certainly doesn’t rest on one fictional character they might have read from a novel.
If all fictional characters were removed from books because some objected to their portrayal what would we be left with? The recent events in France come to mind.

Fagin is dangerous? Oh yes simply on the grounds he was depicted as a Jew, a not very convincing picture of a Jew apart from the large nose and a grossly overdone manner of speech.
I was born and brought up in London and knew quite a few of the Jewish faith and never met one who had red hair. Fagin, as I remember, showed no connection to the Jewish faith i.e. he never observed the Sabbath or the Jewish holidays the Pesah
(Passover), Sukkoth (Tabernacles) never ate kosher food and never attended the synagogue etc. Neither did he mention his family which is very strange considering the Jewish connection to family is very strong. Even on the eve of his execution he didn’t call on his god.
In fact the only part that rings true of Fagin was his trade in stolen goods i.e. a Fence because if you were a criminal looking for somewhere to sell your proceeds from a robbery a Fence was the answer and more often or not in the London of the 1830s, the Fence would be a Jew.

So why was Fagin presented in the book as an outcast not only from society and from his own people? In many respects a cartoon facsimile of a real person. It was not that Dickens had scant knowledge of the Jewish population of the East End, he knew far more about them than we could ever know. Interesting.

In your last post you say this--- Fagin is one of Dickens' great characters, and his greatest villain in my opinion. But he is dangerous, too. We need to understand that and to help others understand.

Really? I think we know who the most dangerous person is in Oliver. Who would you be keen to avoid meeting in a dark alley in the East End of the 1830s Fagin or Bill Sykes?
I think most of us understand who we would choose but thanks for your help.

[Pompey Bum]

really?

Yup, really. :)

[Pompey Bum]

thanks for your help.

Oh you're welcome. Take care! :wave:

[kev67]

There was a bit in the second book that slapped me in the face:

When the inmates of the house, attracted by Oliver's cries, hurried to the spot from which they proceeded, they found him, pale and agitated, pointing in the direction of the meadows behind the house, and scarcely able to articulate the words 'The Jew! the Jew!'.

Oliver had had a waking dream that Fagin and Monks had been looking into the window of his room.

imo, it is as well that Dickens responded to Mrs Davis' upbraiding of him, or his reputation would have been more damaged. I wonder how that conversation came to be reported.

[kev67]

I read this in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. This was actually said by a Jewish buyer and seller of clothes.

'It is very seldom,' my informant stated, 'very seldom indeed, that a Jew clothes man takes away any of the property of the house he may be called into. I expect there's a good many of 'em,' he continued, for he sometimes spoke of his co-traders as if they were not of his own class, 'is fond of cheating - that is, they won't mind giving 2s. for a thing that's worth 5s. They are fond of money, and will do almost anything to get it. Jews are perhap the most money-loving people in all England. There are certainly some old-clothes men who will buy articles at such a price that they must know them to have been stolen. Their rule, however, is to ask no questions, and to get as cheap an article as possible. A Jew clothes man is seldom or never seen in liquor. They gamble for money, either at their own homes or at public houses. The favourite games are tossing, dominoes, and cards.'

Fagin is a bit more culpable than that obviously. It is not just that he does not ask questions, and he fences more than clothes.