Literature in English - Prose (Short Stories)

A. Historical Milieu & The Poor Law of 1834:

Charles Dickens penned Oliver Twist to expose the brutal inhumanity of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. The parish authorities established workhouses designed to be so punitive, humiliating, and starvation-ridden that only the utterly destitute would seek shelter.

B. The Gruel Scene & The Rebellion:

• The Starvation Regime: The boys were fed three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays. The bowls never needed washing because the starving boys polished them with their spoons until they shone.
• The Council of Desperation: Driven wild by starvation, one tall boy darkly hinted that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might eat the small sleeping boy beside him! A council was held; lots were cast; the task fell upon Oliver Twist.
• The Iconic Confrontation: After the boys consumed their meager portion, Oliver advanced to the master, basin and spoon in hand, and said: "Please, sir, I want some more."
• The Institutional Hysteria: The master, a fat, healthy man, turned pale and clung to the copper for support. He aimed a furious blow at Oliver's head with his ladle, shrieked for the beadle Mr. Bumble, and rushed him before the board. Mr. Limbkins declared: "That boy will be hung... I know that boy will be hung." Oliver was locked in a dark room, and a notice was pasted on the gate offering five pounds to anyone who would take him off the parish's hands.

C. Literary Devices & Satire:

Dickens employs biting, sarcastic irony: referring to the cruel, gluttonous board members as "sage, deep, philosophical men" who realized that the poor "liked" starving to death. Mr. Bumble represents pompous parish bureaucracy.

A. Character & Predicament:

Hughie Erskine is exceptionally handsome, warm-hearted, and popular, but financially inept. He has tried tea-trading, stock-selling, and sherry-importing, but failed at all. He is deeply in love with Laura Merton, the charming daughter of a retired Colonel. The Colonel loves Hughie but sets an impossible condition: Hughie cannot marry Laura until he possesses ten thousand pounds of his own.

B. The Studio Visit & The Beggar-Man:

Hughie visits his artist friend, Alan Trevor, who is finishing a life-sized painting of a beggar-man. Posing on a raised platform is a wizened, ragged old man with a tattered brown cloak, patched boots, a battered hat, and an outstretched hand. Hughie feels profound sympathy for the pitiable figure.

C. The Act of Pure Charity & The Climax:

• When Trevor steps out of the studio, Hughie slips a sovereign (a gold coin, virtually all the money he possesses in his pocket) into the beggar's hand. The old man starts in surprise and offers a faint, grateful smile.
• That evening at the Palette Club, Trevor reveals the truth with booming laughter: the beggar was not a pauper at all, but Baron Hausberg, one of the wealthiest financiers in Europe, who had commissioned Trevor to paint him as a beggar!
• Mortified, Hughie walks home in despair, convinced he has insulted a European titan.

D. The Resolution & Moral Aphorism:

The following morning, a messenger from Baron Hausberg arrives with a sealed envelope. Inside is a cheque for £10,000 with the inscription: "A wedding present to Hugh Erskine and Laura Merton, from an old beggar."

At the wedding, Alan Trevor acts as best man, and Baron Hausberg attends the breakfast, prompting Trevor's immortal Wildean epigram: "Millionaire models are rare enough, but model millionaires are rarer still!"

A. The Humble Origin of the Rumor:

The story opens with Nathu, a young sweeper-boy employed at the Pipalnagar Bank owned by Seth Govind Ram. Nathu is grumbling because the bank has failed to pay his regular salary of four rupees, despite repeated requests. He complains to his friend Sitaram, the washerman's son.

B. The Snowballing Chain of Exaggeration:

1. Sitaram to Mrs. Prakash: Sitaram delivers laundry to Mrs. Prakash and mentions that the bank's sweeper is looking for work because the bank hasn't paid him.
2. Mrs. Prakash to Mrs. Bhushan: Mrs. Prakash meets her friend Mrs. Bhushan under a tamarind tree and remarks that the bank has stopped paying all its employees!
3. Mrs. Bhushan to Mr. Bhushan: Mrs. Bhushan tells her husband at the jeweler's shop that the bank has collapsed and Seth Govind Ram has fled the country!
4. Deepchand the Barber: The news reaches Deepchand's barbershop. Deepchand is so startled that he accidentally nicks the ear of his customer, an elderly gentleman, who leaps from the chair and telephones his home to withdraw his savings.
5. Old Ganpat the Beggar: Old Ganpat, who had a crooked leg and had begged on the pavement for years, suddenly leaps to his feet and sprints at astonishing speed toward the bank to recover his substantial secret deposit!

C. The Bank Run, Mob Violence & Masterful Irony:

A frenzied crowd besieges the Pipalnagar Bank. The harried bank manager exhausts all cash reserves, pleading that Seth Govind Ram is merely holidaying in Kashmir. The furious mob accuses the manager of hiding the Seth in a safe and pelts the glass doors with stones. The next morning, Nathu arrives with his broom, surveying the broken glass and debris, muttering in utter bewilderment: "Who would have thought a bank could collapse?" unaware that his own grumbling sparked the entire catastrophe!

A. The Village Setting & Phatik's Wild Freedom:

Fourteen-year-old Phatik Chakravorti is the spirited, mischievous ringleader of the village boys in rural Bengal. When he plots to roll a heavy sal-log into the river, his younger brother Makhan stubbornly sits on it. Phatik rolls the log anyway, dumping Makhan into the mud. Makhan runs home, lies to their widowed mother, and claims Phatik beat him. The mother strikes Phatik, who bitterly resents her favoritism.

B. The Move to Calcutta & The Stifling Aunt:

Phatik's maternal uncle, Bishwamber, arrives and offers to take Phatik to Calcutta to be educated alongside his own sons. Phatik leaps at the opportunity. But in Calcutta, his aunt views him as an unwelcome intruder, an uncouth country brat who consumes food and annoys her children. In the stifling brick-and-mortar alleyways of Calcutta, Phatik suffocates, yearning for the open fields, the riverbanks, and the kites of his village.

C. Alienation, Delirium & The Tragic Conclusion:

• At school, Phatik is humiliated by teachers and mocked by cousins. When he loses his lesson-book, his aunt mocks him viciously.
• Overcome by shame and a raging malarial fever, Phatik runs away in pouring rain. Two police constables bring him back unconscious.
• In his delirium, Phatik mutters about boatmen measuring water depth ("By the mark!—three fathoms!"). Bishwamber summons Phatik's mother.
• When the weeping mother bursts into the room crying, "Phatik, my darling, my darling!", Phatik turns his dying eyes toward her and softly murmurs his final words: "Mother, the holidays have come."

Read the extract from Oscar Wilde's "The Model Millionaire" and answer the questions:

"Poor old chap!" said Hughie, "how miserable he looks! But I suppose, to you painters, his face is his fortune?"
"Certainly," replied Trevor, "you don't want a beggar to look happy, do you? What an artist's model wants is not happiness, but a picturesque appearance."

Model Questions & Answers: