Why do you think dickens chose to introduce oliver in a workhouse? how does this choice affect the story that follows? support your response with evidence from the text. (oliver twist)

Workhouses were nineteenth-century institutions that provided food, lodging, and employment for the poor. However, they were excellent examples of the moral hypocrisy of the upper and middle classes. The officials governing such workhouses considered themselves to be morally upright and superior to the poor inmates. They forced the inmates to work long hours on a meager diet in order to build their character. Yet the officials themselves were well-fed and rarely did any strenuous work themselves.

Setting the novel in a workhouse also allowed Dickens to reveal the widespread suffering and oppression of the poor during his lifetime. Besides being poorly fed, the residents of such workhouses were often subjected to harsh laws. These laws included forcefully separating poor married couples in order to reduce the overall population of the poor. By introducing Oliver in a workhouse, Dickens makes upper- and middle-class readers of his time aware of the poor class's plight. In doing so, he negates the commonly held belief that the poor were happy in the workhouses. The author hints at this belief with the following satirical remark:

The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered—the poor people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work.

Dickens emphasizes the inadequacy of the care provided by the workhouse by giving an example of a child who threatens his fellow inmates with eating his neighbor:

Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age.

When Oliver asks for more food, it creates a scandal among the board members. They sharply rebuke the boy and subject him to severe punishment rather than notice his poor health. This incident also highlights the lack of morals among the people running such institutions and among the upper and working classes of Dickens’s era.

(PLATO)

Explanation:

1. read the following excerpt from franklin d. roosevelt's "fireside chat 19":

on the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the germans in, let us say serbia or norway, us; that a successful russian offensive against the germans us; and that british successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

remember always that germany and italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the united states at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with britain or russia. and germany puts all the other republics of the americas into the same category of enemies. the people of our sister republics of this hemisphere can be honored by that fact.  

the true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. when we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. we americans are not destroyers — we are builders.

analyze the effectiveness of this excerpt. how does it function within the speech as a whole? how does the structure of the excerpt to convey the speech's purpose and key points? support your argument with evidence from the speech. (10 points)

answer: c

explanation: