The spirit of Britishness in Charles Dickens' Book: Oliver Twist:

Abstract

Britishness can be seen as a Historical Phenomenon, as a Social and Legal Construct, and as a Current National Identity in Cruse’s (2008) perspective. This paper will be focused in Britishness as a Social and Legal Construct, nevertheless, it will not discriminate the other perspectives. Thus, Britishness is national identity as a concept linked to citizenship (Cruse, 2008). This paper aims to analyze Charles Dickens’ book as a masterpiece that shows the spirit of Britishness in terms of social construct linked to the contextual and semantic framework. Throughout this paper, it will be argued how the spirit of Britishness can be found in Oliver Twist and its influences in British people’s behaviors. Moreover, this paper will take into consideration the Industrial Revolution as a phenomenon that highly influenced British people’s life in the nineteen century, especially in the period in which Oliver Twist was written. As this book was also written during the early Victorian Period, this paper will take into account aspects of that period that are portrayed in the mentioned masterpiece.

Key words: Britishness; social and legal construct; citizenship; Oliver Twist; literary

analysis.