Write a note on character of Fagin.

Fagin has greater vitality than any of the noble characters in the novel. He represents the world of crime and evil, cruelty and trachery. His gang consists of Bill Sikes The Artful Dodger, Charles Bates, Nancy, Tom Chitling and Tony Chachit. His world is depicted more realistically and vitally. He is a cruel Jew. He has a repulsive face. Fagin is portrayed with greater vigour and sympathy.

Fagin is hardened criminal. He trains thieves and a pickpockets. He has a dark soul. He is an inhuman brute. He is selfish and greedy. He is a Jew so he gives more importance to money over other things. His face is repulsive who crawls forth by might in search of some rich meal. It seems that he is the very essence of evil. Sikes calls him a wolf. His looks are fearful.

Dickens has described Fagin as “a very old shrivelled Jew whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair.” He is a miser. His box is his property. He tells Oliver “They-they remind Oliver my little property. All I have to live upon, in my old age. The folks call me a miser, my dear. Only a miser, that’s all” He is an evil spirit. He keeps hovering around Oliver.

Fagin is a criminal out and out. He is inhuman. His cunning ways deceive others. He has possessive spirit. As evil is self destructive, it is ultimately defeated and punished. Fagin’s end is also very tragic. He loses all courage and dignity. He painfully thinks that he it is be hanged by the neck till death. Fagin remembers the men whom he has seen dying on the gallows. Some of them were forced to die through his means but he never felt pity for them. He becomes delirious as he awaits his own execution. He beats his hand against the door and walls. He screams for light.

Fagin is inhuman monster. His condition becomes very horrible when he is seen as condemned prisoner awaiting his execution. He is having hallucinations and imagins himself to be among his companions. He struggles with the attendants like a mad man. He is hanged. His last night alive’ is one of the most ghastly scenes described in the novel.

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