Charles Dickens and Forgiveness: Is There a Collision With Social Justice?

I expect that “Please sir, I want some more,” is the best known bit Oliver Twist, but I don’t think it is the most significant.  Young Oliver’s request is one event in a horrific life that leads him to be injured and at Mrs. Maylie’s door.  Going to Mrs. Maylie’s door turns Oliver’s life from one of torment to one of peace.  Forgiveness leads to the change. 

This essay is best read after reading the novel and will reveal significant plot points.

Oliver did not show up at just any door and he did not have just any injury.  Oliver was shot by the owner of a house he was burglarizing.  The door is to a home Oliver had broken into in the past.  Despite this, Mrs. Maylie takes Oliver in and nurses him back to health.  This isn’t necessarily forgiveness, but it is definitely compassion.  A short while later, compassion becomes forgiveness.  Oliver lay in bed, hurt and struggling to survive.  The doctor tending to Oliver explains that a crime is a crime regardless of who commits the act.  Rose Maylie – who lives with Mrs. Maylie – acknowledges the child’s guilt with the reply: 

But even if he has been wicked, think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother's love, or the comfort of a home; that ill-usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for mercy's sake, think of this, before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chances of amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late!

Mrs. Maylie has the pity that Oliver’s advocate requests.  She turns to the doctor, “My days are drawing to their close: and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others! What can I do to save him, sir?”   

I have long wondered where forgiveness fits into the social justice conversation.  Here is my problem: Oliver is easy to forgive.  The ease comes from the fact that Rose’s speculation is almost entirely true.  Oliver is a child.  He never knew his mother.  His father neglected him.  He lived in an orphanage.  Abuse at the orphanage (including insufficient food to eat, hence “Please sir...”) led him to run away.  For want of bread, he befriended Fagin.  Before Oliver realized it, Fagin was teaching him to be a burglar.   

Who wouldn’t want to forgive Oliver?  By today’s standards forgiveness is assumed for similar situations.  Oliver’s actions would unlikely be considered criminal, given his young age.  The man who shot him would be demonized, likely by the courts and certainly by the media.  When I picture Oliver, I can’t help but imagine Jesus looking at him and echoing his words to the woman caught in adultery, “I don’t condemn you either.  Go and sin no more.”  Oliver is an obvious victim of injustice.

But what about the obvious victimizer.  Fagin is not so easy to forgive.  When I picture Fagin, I again hear the words of Jesus:  But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:6, NLT)

(Beyond here are spoilers)

This is what exactly what Fagin did.  Oliver most definitely “falls into sin,” but it would not have happened if Fagin in greed did not take advantage of Oliver’s desperation.  For this, Fagin spends his last night awaiting execution.  When execution comes, his scream is so horrific that it causes a witness to “swoon” and be unable to walk for about an hour.

I couldn’t help but think, “Good.”

That is where is where I am condemned, though.  Jesus did not call for revenge in Matthew 18.  Instead, he gave a warning.  Society does not tolerate people who treat children the way that Fagin treated Oliver.  Fagin did not heed this warning and he died.  

I do not want to detract from what Mrs. Maylie did for Oliver.  She forgave a pitiful child, but she forgave him nonetheless.  She was within her rights to send him off to prison, but she did the right thing by not doing the right thing.  Oliver was saved by this woman’s goodness, not by social rightness.

The second act of forgiveness in Oliver Twist is more shocking.  Oliver forgives.  The witness who swoons after Fagin’s execution is Oliver.  As executioners lead Fagin to the gallows, Oliver jumps up and embraces his villain.  “Oh!  God forgive this wretched man.”  

Mrs. Maylie forgives the forgivable.  Oliver forgives the unforgivable.  

Oliver as forgiver leads to a few questions.  Where do forgiveness and social justice intersect?  What does it look like to forgive the perpetrator of injustice?  Are forgiveness and punishment mutually exclusive or should they co-exist at some level?  Is forgiveness a calling only for the victim or for society as a whole?

Thelast piece I wrote about forgiveness was a thought experiment that referredspecifically to panhandlers.  One thing this thought experiment did not include was a victim.  Even if we assume, “Hey buddy.  Got a quarter,” is an inherently sinful statement, it is hard to believe that anyone that hears it is harmed.  It is possible that the wider society is harmed, but the person asked for change certainly is not.

That is not what happens in Oliver Twist.  Fagin found a weak, defenceless, pathetic child and turned the child into a criminal for his own profit.  Oliver certainly left behind victims of crime, but Fagin leaves victims as well.  Oliver and the other boys are victims of manipulation and exploitation as poor orphans who have no real options for survival.  (Recall Oliver’s experience in the orphanage.)

I wasn’t being hyperbolic when I wrote above that Fagin’s crimes are unforgivable.  We see the scorn society heaps upon those who harm defenceless people in any sort of obvious way.  The very notion of forgiving someone who does the sort of things that Fagin did seems nonsensical.  Nor was I being rhetorical when I asked where forgiveness and justice intersect?  I have no clue.  

Fagin is a sinner in need of forgiveness.  Oliver is a victim in need of justice.  As Christians, we are called to provide both.  I will assume that God does not give us conflicting calls.  I need help understanding how to accept both calls simultaneously, however.