Hunger in the workhouse

Hunger in the workhouse is the foundational, systemic condition that defines Oliver Twist's early life and drives the novel's opening conflicts. It is not a mere personal hardship but a deliberate instrument of the Poor Law system, designed by the parish Board of Guardians to enforce the principle of 'less eligibility'—making life inside the workhouse so miserable that the poor would prefer any alternative. This state of chronic starvation, enforced through a diet of thin gruel, transforms the boys into desperate, wild creatures and directly precipitates the iconic scene where Oliver asks for more, an act that the board interprets as a capital crime and that sets Oliver on his journey out of the parish and into the wider world.

The System of Starvation

The workhouse into which Oliver Twist was born was governed by a Board of Guardians who were "very sage, deep, philosophical men." They had discovered, to their horror, that the poor actually liked the workhouse—it was a "regular place of public entertainment" where they received free meals. To correct this, the board established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative of "being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it." They contracted with a corn-factor to supply small quantities of oatmeal and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays. The system was so effective that the number of workhouse inmates grew thin, and the undertaker's bill increased, but the board was in ecstasies. The dietary was so meager that the bowls never needed washing; the boys polished them with their spoons until they shone, and then sat staring at the copper with eager eyes, sucking their fingers to catch any stray splashes of gruel.

The Desperation of Starvation

Oliver and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months. They grew so voracious and wild with hunger that one boy, tall for his age and not used to such treatment (his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he might some night eat the boy who slept next to him. The others implicitly believed him. A council was held, lots were cast, and it fell to Oliver Twist to walk up to the master after supper and ask for more. The evening arrived; the gruel was served out; a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared, and Oliver, desperate with hunger and reckless with misery, rose from the table, basin and spoon in hand, and said, "Please, sir, I want some more." The master turned pale, gazed in stupefied astonishment, and then aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle, pinioned him, and shrieked for the beadle.

The Consequences of Asking for More

The board was sitting in solemn conclave when Mr. Bumble rushed in with the news: "Oliver Twist has asked for more!" Horror was depicted on every countenance. The gentleman in the white waistcoat declared, "That boy will be hung." Oliver was ordered into instant confinement, and a bill was posted on the gate offering a reward of five pounds to anyone who would take him off the parish's hands. For a week after this "impious and profane offence," Oliver remained a close prisoner in a dark and solitary room. He was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble, who prevented his catching cold by repeated applications of the cane. He was carried every other day into the hall where the boys dined and there sociably flogged as a public warning. At prayer-time, he was kicked into the same apartment and permitted to listen to a general supplication that contained a special clause entreating to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist, who was "an article direct from the manufactory of the very Devil himself."

The Principle of Out-Door Relief

The starvation in the workhouse was part of a broader philosophy of poor relief. Mr. Bumble later explained to Mrs. Corney the great principle of out-door relief: "to give the paupers exactly what they don't want; and then they get tired of coming." He noted that sick families were always relieved with slices of cheese, and that this was the rule all over the country. The system was designed to be so unappealing that the poor would rather suffer outside than seek parish assistance. This principle extended to the farm where Oliver was sent as an infant, where the elderly female superintendent appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, consigning the children to an even shorter allowance than originally provided. The result was that in eight and a half cases out of ten, the child either sickened from want and cold, fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident.

The Enduring Mark of Hunger

Hunger left a permanent mark on Oliver's body and psyche. He was born in the workhouse, a pale, thin child, "somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference." The spare diet of the establishment gave his sturdy spirit plenty of room to expand, but it also made him desperate enough to risk the board's wrath. Even after he was rescued by Mr. Brownlow and later by the Maylies, the memory of starvation never left him. When he was given a basin of broth at Mr. Brownlow's house, he thought it strong enough to furnish an ample dinner for three hundred and fifty paupers. The hunger that drove him to ask for more was the same hunger that later made him clutch at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected, tearing the bits asunder with "all the ferocity of famine." It was a hunger that the system had created and that the system could not contain.