Critical Essay

 "Natural" Identity in Oliver Twist and Fingersmith

 Introduction        Part 1        Part 2        Conclusion

Abstract

            This essay focuses on one of the thematic methods in which Fingersmith operates as a raw materials adaptation of Oliver Twist. Specifically, it shows how Fingersmith expands upon the idea in Oliver Twist that identity is a malleable and unstable object that is constructed by the operations of outside forces. In Oliver Twist, the reader finds that the outside context which shapes individual identity is that of the market which Oliver Twist attempts, and fails, to center in the urban realm. Fingersmith, though, liberalizes this notion to include discourse as a whole as the means for identity formation.

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