:: and what happened after (chs. 52-53) ::

truth be told, the last two chapters of oliver twist seem like an epilogue to me. the wrap-up is really in the few chapters before (see last post. I have reasons for my titles), and these last two are just and-here's-what-happened-to-everyone-after-they-calmed-down-a-little.
 
chapter fifty-two is called "the jew's last night alive"; well, um, yeah. that pretty well sums it up.
   I know it could seem like why do we care what happened to fagin at his trial? he's going to die for his crimes, and that's good, but so what? I also know I was going to try to read this as if it were my first time; but you know, that's so hard and I kept seeing new things in the book all because it was my second time through. ...sooooo, knowing the essentials of the chapter meant I could focus more on the writing (which is amazing and descriptive and powerful and I loved it!). it really brings together the themes of dark versus light that -- I realized -- have been there throughout the book.
   yes: the 'darkness as death/life and goodness as light' idea is painfully obvious and I would look smart and literary if I picked something a little more subtle. life/death, light/dark... original, right? this isn't one of those 'universal' themes you find in, like, every good book, you know? you've never read any other books with those themes going on, have you? *coughcough heartofdarkness lordoftherings crimeandpunishment coughcough* nope! didn't think so!
   however, universal doesn't have to mean trite and clichéd and stupid; I mean, it's universal, so we can all obviously relate in some way, or such international writers wouldn't pick up on it by themselves (polish joseph conrad, english j.r.r. tolkien, russian fyodor dostoevsky). 
   
   some very general outworkings of this theme that I noticed: 
   most of the evil that occurs is done under the cover of darkness. when sikes kills nancy, he tries to get away from the light -- "[The sun] lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay. It did. He tried to shut it out, bit it would stream in. If the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all that brilliant light!" oliver, when recovering from his injury at the housebreaking, recoups in the spring and summer; all things are "glad and flourishing" and the countryside is "steeped in sunshine". now, fagin is condemned to death, and he both longs for and dreads the light: longs, because the dark is oppressive, evil -- but the light means he is all the closer to death.

        To be hanged by the neck, till he was dead -- that was the end. To be hanged by the neck till he was dead. As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means. They rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. ... Some of them might have inhabited that very cell -- sat upon that very spot. It was very dark; why didn't they bring a light? The cell had been built for many years. Scores of men must have passed their last hours there. It was like sitting in a vault strewed with dead bodies -- the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that hideous veil -- Light, light! ... [several pages omitted] ... Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, and joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of it all -- the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death.

chapter fifty-three: in which everyone lives happily ever after but the bad guys. hooray!
   one note on charley bates's new leaf: I was all for him when he tries to turn sikes in. if I don't think about it too hard, it doesn't seem utterly sudden, unexpected, and out of character (quite as it would be if it were the artful, or something).
   and everyone else is exactly what you'd think. 

        It is a standing and very favourite joke, for Mr. Brownlow to rally [Mr. Grimwig] on his old prophecy concerning Oliver, and to remind him of the night on which they sat, with the watch between them, waiting his return; but Mr. Grimwig contends that he was right in the main, and, in proof thereof, remarks that Oliver did not come back, after all: which always calls forth a laugh on his side, and increases his good humor.

so we come to the last pages of oliver twist. 

        I have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection, and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy, and whose great attribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained.