Oliver Twist and Agnes Fleming

Oliver Twist and Agnes Fleming are mother and son, a relationship that is both the novel's originating wound and its ultimate resolution. Agnes dies in the workhouse giving birth to Oliver, leaving him an orphan whose parentage is deliberately hidden; the gradual uncovering of this bond drives the mystery plot and finally restores Oliver to his rightful family and fortune.

Identity and Background

Agnes Fleming was a young, beautiful, and gentle woman, the daughter of a naval officer retired from active service. She fell in love with Edwin Leeford, a married man trapped in an unhappy union, and became pregnant by him. Edwin Leeford, who was already separated from his wife, had contracted a solemn engagement with Agnes, the first true passion of her guileless heart. He gave her a small gold locket containing two locks of hair and a plain gold wedding ring, with the name "Agnes" engraved inside and a blank left for the surname he hoped one day to bestow upon her. He also wrote her a letter, a penitent confession, explaining that some secret mystery prevented him from marrying her just then, and praying her not to curse his memory if he died. Agnes trusted him patiently until she trusted too far and lost what none could ever give back.

Birth and Death

When her time came, Agnes, with her feet cut and bruised from walking and all soiled with dust and blood, was brought to the workhouse. She was found lying in the street, her shoes worn to pieces, and was brought there by the overseer's order. In the same room and the same bed where old Sally, the parish nurse, would later lie dying, Agnes gave birth to a boy. The surgeon, who had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire, rose and advanced to the bed's head, saying with more kindness than might have been expected, "Oh, you must not talk about dying yet." But Agnes, raising her pale face feebly from the pillow, asked to see the child and die. The surgeon deposited the infant in her arms; she imprinted her cold white lips passionately on its forehead, passed her hands over her face, gazed wildly round, shuddered, fell back, and died. The surgeon, after examining her left hand and finding no wedding ring, remarked, "The old story," and walked away to dinner. The nurse, having picked up the cork of a green bottle, proceeded to dress the infant. Agnes was buried without a coffin in the parish grave, and her child, Oliver Twist, was left to the tender mercies of the workhouse.

The Concealment of the Relationship

Agnes had charged old Sally, the only woman about her, to keep safe the gold locket and ring, the only things she had. But Sally, seeing the gold, stole it from the corpse when it had hardly turned to one, and later pawned it, saving the pawnbroker's duplicate. On her deathbed years later, Sally confessed to Mrs. Corney (later Mrs. Bumble) that she had robbed the dead mother, and that the child's death, perhaps, was on her besides, for they would have treated him better if they had known it all. The locket and ring were eventually bought by Monks, Edwin Leeford's legitimate son, who destroyed them by tying them to a leaden weight and dropping them into the river, thus eliminating the only proofs of Oliver's identity. The letter Edwin Leeford wrote to Agnes never reached its destination; it was kept by his wife, along with other proofs, in case they ever tried to "lie away the blot."

Revelation and Resolution

The truth of the relationship is finally revealed in the climactic scene at the hotel in Oliver's native town. Mr. Brownlow, drawing Oliver to him and laying his hand upon his head, declares: "This child is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your father, my dear friend Edwin Leeford, by poor young Agnes Fleming, who died in giving him birth." Monks, the legitimate son, confirms the fact, though he sneers at Oliver as "the bastard child." The full story of Edwin Leeford's will, which left half his property to Agnes and their child, and of its destruction by Monks's mother, is then laid bare. Oliver, who had always felt an inexplicable tenderness for the portrait of the beautiful lady in Mr. Brownlow's house—the portrait of Agnes—now learns that his instinctive love was for his own mother. Rose Maylie, who had been taken in as a child by Mrs. Maylie, is revealed to be Agnes's younger sister, making her Oliver's aunt. The revelation transforms Oliver from a parish orphan into the heir of a substantial fortune, and reunites him with his only surviving blood relative, Rose.

Thematic Significance

The relationship between Oliver and Agnes Fleming is the novel's foundational secret, the hidden truth that the plot works to uncover. Agnes's death in the workhouse, without a wedding ring and with her shame exposed, exemplifies the brutal social condemnation of unmarried mothers in Victorian England. Yet her portrait, which Oliver instinctively loves, and her dying prayer that her child might find friends in the world, establish a counter-narrative of pure, self-sacrificing love that transcends her social disgrace. Oliver inherits not only her gentle nature—as Edwin Leeford's will predicted—but also her physical likeness, which Mr. Brownlow recognizes when he first sees the boy. The revelation of their bond thus serves as the novel's moral and emotional climax, restoring Oliver to his family, his inheritance, and his true identity, and vindicating the memory of the mother who died to give him life.