Fagin's Coin of Truth
Economic Belief and Representation in Oliver Twist
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13008621 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Keith Clavin (Auburn University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 122-138 |
| Publication date | 2014-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victoriographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2044-2416 • E-ISSN: 2044-2424 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/vic.2014.0166 |
| OpenAlex | W2047875808 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
This essay examines Fagin from Oliver Twist as a villain whose construction joins Victorian anxieties about counterfeiting and economic deceptiveness with separate yet related concerns about the author's role in representing criminal life. Dickens triangulates Fagin's identity through cultural fears about Jewish participation within secondary markets, increased distance between purchaser and seller in an expanding credit economy, and moral ambiguities in respect to fiction-making. Read against non-literary Victorian writing about counterfeiters and crime, Fagin can be understood as a forger of identities and narratives. His ability to exploit interpersonal belief and economic value is a central feature of his villainy and one with precedent in other aspects of Victorian financial life. Dickens critiques capitalist culture by associating it with the imitative, fictional, and Jewish culture. In contrast, he aligns sincerity and truth with the middle-class, normative characters. Throughout, he marks the distinction between these two groups with comic incidence. The marginalised figures are fodder for humour and irony, while the conventional heroes are earnest
Aesthetics · Art · Irony · Judaism · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Law · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
Genres of the Credit Economy
The long twentieth century
The New Economic Criticism
Outline of a Theory of Practice
Money, Language, and Thought
Dickens's “Jewish Question”
Antisemitism and Social Critique in Dickens's Oliver Twist
Poetic Justice
Writing the Victorian City
Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious 1905
A History of Capitalism
| Highly cited | No |
|---|