Oliver's apprenticeship

Oliver Twist's apprenticeship is the formal mechanism through which the parish system disposes of its unwanted children, transforming them into bound laborers with no rights and few prospects. For Oliver, this state begins when the Board of Guardians, horrified by his audacious request for more gruel, offers a five-pound reward to any tradesman who will take him off their hands. The apprenticeship is not a path to a trade but a legalized form of exploitation, a system that the novel exposes as a cruel farce of benevolence.

The Apprenticeship to Sowerberry

Oliver's first apprenticeship is to Mr. Sowerberry, the parochial undertaker, a tall, gaunt man who sees the boy's melancholy expression as a marketable asset for children's funerals. The arrangement is made on "liking," a term that means the master can assess whether he can extract enough work from the boy without putting too much food into him. Oliver is taken before the board and informed that if he complains or returns to the parish, he will be sent to sea to be drowned or knocked on the head. He evinces so little emotion at this news that the board pronounces him a hardened young rascal. In truth, Oliver possesses too much feeling, and his silence is the result of brutal stupidity induced by years of ill usage. He is led away to the undertaker's shop, where his bed is under the counter, among the coffins, and he wishes that it were his own coffin so he could sleep forever in the churchyard.

Life Under Noah Claypole

At Sowerberry's, Oliver is subjected to the daily torment of Noah Claypole, a charity-boy who, having himself been the target of scorn, vents his accumulated malice on the nameless orphan. Noah taunts Oliver about his mother, calling her a "regular right-down bad 'un," which finally provokes Oliver into a violent rage. He seizes Noah by the throat and fells him to the ground, an act of rebellion that astonishes his tormentors. Mrs. Sowerberry and Charlotte beat Oliver, and he is locked in the cellar. Mr. Bumble, summoned to deal with the crisis, diagnoses the problem not as cruelty but as "Meat," arguing that Oliver has been overfed and that paupers have no business with soul or spirit. Oliver is subsequently beaten by Sowerberry and locked in the back kitchen, but that night, alone in the gloomy workshop, he resolves to run away. He ties up his few belongings and, at first light, sets out for London, leaving behind the only home he has known.

The Apprenticeship to Fagin

Oliver's second apprenticeship is to Fagin, though it is never formalized by indenture. After being recaptured by Nancy and Bill Sikes, Oliver is brought back to the Jew's den, where Fagin and the boys celebrate his return with mockery. The Artful Dodger rifles Oliver's pockets, finding the five-pound note Mr. Brownlow had entrusted to him. Oliver falls on his knees, begging them to return the money and books, but Fagin chuckles that the theft will make Oliver appear guilty to his benefactors. The boy is stripped of his new clothes and forced back into his old rags, a symbolic re-enslavement. Fagin then delivers a long lecture on the sin of ingratitude, threatening Oliver with the fate of a young lad who, having proved unworthy of trust, was hanged at the Old Bailey. Oliver's blood runs cold as he comprehends the dark threats. He is kept a prisoner in the house, allowed to wander through its dirty, decaying rooms, and is gradually drawn into the gang's games and stories, as the wily old Jew slowly instills the poison of criminality into his soul.

The Burglary and Its Aftermath

The apprenticeship reaches its crisis when Fagin and Sikes decide to use Oliver as a tool for a burglary at Chertsey. Sikes warns Oliver that if he speaks a word during the expedition, a loaded pistol will be fired into his head without notice. Oliver is taken to a ruined house, where he meets Toby Crackit, and is forced through a small window to open the street door for the burglars. Inside, Oliver resolves to alarm the family, but his attempt is thwarted when the household is roused. He is shot in the arm and left for dead in a ditch by Sikes and Crackit, who flee the pursuing servants. Oliver, bleeding and feverish, crawls to the very house that was robbed, where he is taken in by the Maylies. His wounded arm is bound and splintered, and he lies in a deep sleep, a mere child worn with pain and exhaustion. The doctor, Mr. Losberne, and the ladies are astonished that this delicate boy could be the pupil of robbers, and Oliver tells them his simple history, a weary catalogue of evils and calamities. His apprenticeship to crime is thus broken, and he begins a new life of kindness and recovery, though the shadow of his former state lingers in the advertisement Mr. Brownlow places in the paper, offering a reward for information about the boy who absconded from his home at Pentonville.