Compare And Contrast Foils In Oliver Twist

In Oliver Twist there are many characters that serve as foils to each other. One example of this is the characters of Rose and Nancy. Both young ladies of around the same age, they serve as an example of the life both of them could have had if things would have ended differently for them. While Rose has the good life, Nancy does not. Nancy’s existence has been hard, while Rose has known nothing but love and care throughout her life. They are foils to each other because of how similar yet how different they are, and one can see this by comparing and contrasting certain things about them. One could compare and contrast Rose and Nancy by looking at their similar backgrounds and identity issues, how one is shown love and the other is not, and finally how they both end up by the end of the novel. Rose and Nancy both struggle with identity throughout the novel. While Rose has a happy life she still does not know who she is in terms of her family. Even though she has been raised by the Maylie family and treated well, there is still an underlying layer of loss for her as she does not know where she fits in. In a society where family connections and legitimacy are important, this puts Rose in a conflicting position. However,

While Rose ends the novel married to Harry Maylie, Nancy’s final appearance on the page involves her being murdered by Sikes (Find quote). This difference in their ends can also be looked at as a comparison to their characters. Rose who is a good character in terms of her attitude and the way she acts ends up with a good end, while Nancy who is a bad character based on these terms ends up with a bad end. Whether or not Dickens meant for this to be a symbolic thing or not, one can never know, but the argument can still be found since a lot of the good characters in the novel ended up with good endings and a lot of the bad ones ended up with terrible