Independent Reading Response #7

Oliver Twist

Response #7: Page 1-53
Response Type: Connections through experiences, memories, or issues

The book that I have been reading is called “Oliver Twist” written by Kathleen Olmstead and retold from the Charles Dickens. This novel is about a boy who named Oliver and he is staying in Mr. Bumble’s house as an orphan. Mr. Bumble is very strict person and always gives him hard work with less food. Dick who is very weak and he is the only one friend that Oliver has. He couldn’t do any work and even though he has very heavy sick, Mr. Bumble doesn’t care about it. When Oliver asks Mr. Bumble to give him more food and meat, he gets mad and advertises to every citizen that if someone takes care of Oliver, the person will get five pounds. Oliver is sold by Mr. Bumble and bought by Mr. Sowerberry who is also strict as Mr. Bumble. Oliver worked hard in new house without much food. Finally, he got tried of it and escaped from the house. Where he is going is London where he thinks it is the best place to get more opportunity to be success in his life. This is what I read so far and I can connect to two stories with this novel. Those are Harry Potter and Cinderella.

Firstly, I think this Oliver Twist has very typical plot. In Harry Potter, it has the similarities with this novel. The first similarity is the beginning which begins with that the main character is placed with someone’s house. In Harry Potter, Harry was placed with the relative’s house but for Oliver, he was just sent in a house where he doesn’t know and doesn’t have any relatives. Even though the place where they stay is different, it is the same that they don’t know and have never seen their parents face before they become aware of the things around. The other similarity is that both Oliver and Harry had to do hard work, even though the people in the house don’t treat them well. Oliver doesn’t get much food and he had to sleep on the floor. Harry had less work, but he had to sleep in the lumber room and he had to wake up early to make the first break for his relatives. Therefore, those are the similarities between Harry and Olive.

Furthermore, I found the other similarities between Olive and other story which calls Cinderella. As people know the story, Cinderella’s sisters and mother forced her to clean their house up while sisters and mother go to the party. Actually, she doesn’t want to, but she couldn’t argue them, so she just followed what they asked. It is same as Olive that even though he doesn’t like to do the work, he should do, because that is what Mr. Bumble forces him to do. Also even Olive asks to give him some more meat for his friend, Dick, Mr. Bumble yelled at him and doesn’t give any food. However, Cinderella had better treatment than Olive. Here is the similarity of the treatment between Cinderella and Olive that both of them had bad treatment as well Harry.

Harry and Cinderella have similar problem as Olive, but I predict the ending of this novel that Olive will be rich person or lucky person because as we know about the Cinderella, she got the happiness at the end. Also for Harry, he goes to school which he loves. Therefore, I hope Olive will get the happiness at the end and he will be kindest person in the world. I really love this book, because this story has very common plot that I can predict what will happen next and also this novel has many chapters which means one chapter is very short, so when I want to stop reading it, I can stop at that chapter. I love this book so far and I want to keep continue to read it.