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The Artful Dodger - was he a good person?


He was kind to Oliver Twist in the beginning, but he would often join in when the other children and Fagin were mocking Oliver during later scenes. In addition, there was no need for him to rat on Nancy, which indirectly contributed to her death (he could have just lied about what she was doing without risking anything).
The Artful Dodger did try to make amends at the very end, but it's still sad how everything turned out.

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Well, in the bluntest sense, he was a good person, on a way to transition into a bad one. If you use street gangs, modern ones, as a comparison, you have little kids running around with criminals. Little boys acting as lookouts for police, helping to organize drug packets, and all the rest. Are they "good" people? Of course they are. They are innocent, only doing what they have been brought up to do. You put 90% of these children into a better environment with strict, but loving, obviously, parents, and they turn out all right. If not, then they will, ultimately, become bad people.

The William Sikes of the world were very often children like Dodger. One day, they step over a line, it is up to the justice system that later catches them to determine if they can cross back over that line, sadly, most don't, even if they can.

Finally, Dodger's character was not guilty of anything in regard to Nancy. It was Bill, and to a lesser extent, Fagin, responsible for her death.

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The beauty of Dickens' novel is that it assumes that most people are ultimately good until circumstances cause them to change. They are victims of unfortunate events, and while some have character strong enough to overcome what happens to them, others will succumb. The Artful Dodger has a kind soul but also a hunger for mischief, which takes him more into villain territory. But he wasn't evil in the cold-hearted sense, the way Bill Sikes was. Whether or not he would turn out that way is ultimately for the reader/viewer to decide.

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Thank you both for the nice responses!

I tend to concur, I may have been slightly harsh in judging him, as he was simply a normal kid (he didn't mind teasing others and appeared to be very confident in himself, but was in no way vicious or heartless), albeit relatively mature for his age. It's just that he was in the wrong company (mostly through no fault of his own), so his actions were always bound to warrant closer scrutiny.

Regarding Nancy - I meant that the Artful Dodger could have chosen to lie/not divulge any information to Fagin about her late night stroll (and it's unlikely that Fagin or Bill could have discovered the truth with the help of aa different informant), and then he wouldn't have set in motion the chain of events that resulted in Nancy's death (the Dodger should have been aware of Sikes' bad temper). However, Fagin and especially Bill Sikes were of course the ultimate culprits.

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If Dodger chose to keep Nancy's betrayal secret, the whole of Fagin's gang would have been arrested when Brownlow went to the police - including Dodger, since he was a thief. On the positive side, he did try to tell Fagin alone what he discovered, without Sikes being present.

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I always tought his actions were straight forward for what he was.
He was only a kid.


Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down and a Wagging Finger of Shame

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