Earticle

This paper examines how the genre elements parodied in Oliver Twist are related to Charles Dickens’s poetics, using the analytical perspective of M. M. Bakhtin. To this end, in this article, we replaced “parody” with the Bakhtinian term “parodic-reprocessing” in order to focus on the use of other genres, and looked into what kinds of genres are parodically reprocessed in the novel. A few of these genres include melodrama, fairy tales, Gothic literature, Pilgrim’s Progress, Newgate novels, magazines, and so on. By parodically reprocessing these genres, Dickens is able to criticize the social problems of 1830s England, especially those related to the New Poor Law, indirectly while simultaneously enhancing the entertainment value of the novel. This also allows Dickens to compose a novel that enables readers to think about various perspectives toward their society. At the level of language, Oliver Twist is a novel which has the multi-voiced consciousness and zone of maximal contact with the present. This allows readers to think about social issues from various angles. Through this narratology, Dickens prevented his social criticism from turning into dogma. Meanwhile, readers gained a new perspective on their society through the maximum interaction with the present facilitated by the novel.