Mr. Giles
Mr. Giles serves as butler and steward to the elderly Mrs. Maylie at her country house near Chertsey, a position he fills with an elaborate sense of his own dignity. He is a tall, gaunt man who dresses with scrupulous care in a full suit of black, and carries himself with the stiff formality of one who knows his place and expects others to know theirs. His self-regard is so pronounced that when he recounts the night of the burglary to the kitchen staff, he does so with theatrical flourishes, turning down the tablecloth to imitate bedclothes and acting out his own bravery for an audience of cook, housemaid, and the tinker who had joined the pursuit. The narrative notes that he is "the palest of the party" after the chase, yet he insists on framing his conduct as heroic, claiming he "should have committed murder" if they had caught one of the thieves.
The Burglary and the Shooting
On the night of the attempted robbery, Mr. Giles is roused from sleep by a noise he describes as "a kind of a busting noise." He wakes Brittles, the lad of all work, and together they descend the dark staircase with a lantern. When Oliver, sent through a window by Bill Sikes to unbolt the street door, hesitates and lets his lantern fall, Giles fires a pistol loaded with gunpowder and brown paper. The shot hits Oliver in the left arm, and the boy staggers back, bleeding profusely. In the confusion, Sikes drags Oliver back through the window, and Giles, believing he has wounded one of the burglars, feels a surge of pride. The next morning, when Oliver, weak from blood loss, returns to the very house and collapses at the door, Giles seizes him by one leg and one arm—fortunately not the broken limb—and drags him inside, shouting up the staircase: "Here's one of the thieves, ma'am! Here's a thief, miss! Wounded, miss! I shot him, miss; and Brittles held the light." His boast is immediately undercut by the discovery that his victim is a mere child.
Comic Self-Importance and Exposure
Mr. Giles's pomposity is a running source of comedy. When the Bow Street officers Blathers and Duff arrive, he is put through a melodramatic reenactment of his role in the night's events, which he performs six times, contradicting himself in not more than one important respect the first time and in not more than a dozen the last. The officers quickly see through his bluster, and Duff calls him "a precious muddle-headed chap." The doctor, Mr. Losberne, who has already removed the ball from Oliver's arm, reveals that the pistol was loaded only with gunpowder and brown paper—a discovery that shatters Giles's claim to having shot a dangerous criminal. Giles eagerly seizes on this new explanation, having spent hours under the fear of having mortally wounded a fellow creature. His relief is palpable, but his credibility is destroyed.
Change and Redemption
Despite his initial blundering, Mr. Giles undergoes a genuine transformation. When Oliver is brought into the house, Giles helps carry him upstairs "with the care and solicitude of a woman," and when the young lady of the house, Rose Maylie, asks him to treat the boy kindly, he looks up at her "with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child." Later, when Harry Maylie arrives in a post-chaise, Giles pops his head out of the window in a white nightcap, and after learning that Rose is recovering, he sits on the steps of the chaise, wiping his eyes with a blue cotton handkerchief dotted with white spots. His emotion is genuine, and he is embarrassed to be seen in such a state by the maids, fearing he would "never have any more authority with them." In recognition of his "gallant behaviour" during the attempted robbery, Mrs. Maylie deposits twenty-five pounds in the local savings bank for his sole use. Giles receives this news with an air of majesty, but immediately insists that if he is ever haughty to his inferiors, they should tell him so—a display of humility that is both comic and touching.
Narrative Role and Thematic Significance
Mr. Giles functions as a comic foil to the novel's darker elements, his self-importance deflated by the reality of his own incompetence. Yet his arc also illustrates the novel's broader theme of redemption through kindness: the man who nearly kills Oliver becomes one of his most devoted protectors. In the final chapter, Giles and Brittles are said to still hold their old posts, though Giles is now bald and Brittles quite grey. They sleep at the parsonage but divide their attentions so equally among the households of Oliver, Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Losberne that the villagers have never been able to determine to which establishment they properly belong—a fittingly ambiguous end for a character whose loyalties, once tested, proved genuine.
