In English novels, Jewish characters have routinely been depicted as greedy, fussy, and miserly. They are usually, but not always, merchants, moneylenders, or middlemen: Shylock from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Isaac from Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and Fagin from Oliver Twist, among other Jewish characters, are the best-known examples of such racial and cultural stereotype. Oliver Twist is Charles Dickens' second novel and was first published in serial form in 1837-9. Through his astute description of the difficult life of the orphan Oliver Twist, Dickens reflects the reality of the lower-class poor in that time period. And the novel's evil character, Fagin, and his Jewish identity have always been controversial to readers of all cultures and generations. In this essay I will talk about the antisemitism in Oliver Twist personified in Fagin. I will present the difference in attitude towards Jews seen in Fagin through comparison between Dickens's original novel and other later adapted versions, in particular David Lean's 1948 film adaptation and Roman Polanski's 2005 film adaptation. Additionally I will demonstrate the causes and consequences of different stages of attitude towards Jews in these versions of Oliver Twist made in three different time periods. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Dickens's Archetypal Jew, Lauriat Lane makes several arguments. First, he claims that Dickens follows the “anti-Semitic tradition in English literature” by creating the evil character of Oliver Twist: Fagin as a Jew (94 Lane). However, Lane also argues that Dickens shows himself “in no way exempt from the general attitude and prejudices of his age” (95). Lane argues that Dickens's Jewish character is grounded in reality. Certainly true of what he mentioned in the preface to Oliver Twist, Dickens aims to make the novel realistic - "to draw a knot of such accomplices in crime as have really existed... to show them as they really were" (). Despite Dickens's aim to be realistic, Lane denies the character of Fagin as a purely realistic study of Jewishness. The evidence offered by Lane is a letter Dickens wrote to Mrs. Eliza Davis, of Fagin, "to the effect that that class of criminals was almost invariably a Jew" (94). Furthermore, “some passages in Dickens's other letter reflect the same prejudice. On September 12, 1843, he wrote to Thomas Hood that a Mr. Colburn had made 'money-lending, bill-brokering, clothing-bagging by the Jews, and pawnbroking on Saturday evenings by taking advantage of your temporary situation'” (95). All this suggests that Dickens not only follows the anti-Semitic tradition in his writings, but in reality also supports a firm stereotypical attitude towards Jews. However, Dickens in his time was not actually the only anti-Semite. Historically, anti-Semitism has been a long-standing racial prejudice in both literature and reality. To better understand the meaning and causes of anti-Semitism it is necessary to grasp its opposite, the meaning of Semitism, or a more properly defined definition. The word would be philo-Semitism or Judeophilia, both words refer to people with "an interest, a respect and a appreciation for the Jewish people, the historical significance, and the positive impacts of Judaism on the world, especially from a Gentile.” "[]. However, this ideological stereotype, as the French Jewish literary critic Bernard Lazare convincingly argues in the preface of his book Anti-Semitism: Its History and Its Causes, “was not born withoutcause” (5 Lazare). He noticed that wherever Jews settled, anti-Semitism developed. It should also be noted that he disputes the word anti-Semitism to describe this certain attitude towards Jews. He states that he would prefer to call it anti-Judaism, which is a more accurate word. Various opinions have been given to explain the cause of anti-Semitism. The religious theory of ancient times is that, from the Christian point of view, the Jews are the "killers" of Jesus, the progenitors of Jesus; from the point of view of Judaism they arrogantly declare that they possess the mentality of a chosen people. The racial theory propagated by the Nazis is that Jews are considered an inferior race. The conspiracy theory holds that Jews are hated because they are the cause of most of the world's problems: Adolf Hitler often denounced international capitalism and communism as part of a Jewish conspiracy. In the original novel, Fagin is described as "a very old and wizened Jew, whose evil and repulsive-looking face was obscured by a great deal of matted red hair" (63; ch. 8). Such a seemingly stereotyped description of Jewishness by Dickens was not on a personal basis. In Victorian Britain, anti-Semitism was considered a social convention: Oliver Twist arose from an era and literary tradition that was “predominantly anti-Semitic” (Stone 225). As Harry Stone has suggested, Dickens “exhibited anti-Semitism and this anti-Semitism was typical of his era” (225). Laws, parliamentary debates, newspapers, magazines, songs and plays, as well as novels, reflect the latent antisemitism that was part of the Victorian legacy. In 1830 a Jew could not open a shop in the city of London, be admitted to the bar, receive a degree or sit in Parliament... In 1830 the majority of the twenty to thirty thousand English Jews earned their living by buying and selling clothes . , drug dealing and money lending. Fictional portraits of Jewish cloth merchants staggering under enormous sacks of rags, of bearded peddlers haggling with country wives, and of miserly moneylenders exulting in their secret treasures were brought to life not only by a long literary tradition but also from the intermittent evidence of the streets of London. (225)Another factor contributing to anti-Semitism in the Victorian era, as depicted in Oliver Twist, is Dickens' Christianity. Susan Mayer argues in Antisemitism and Social Criticism in Dickens's Oliver Twist that Dickens “invokes Christianity” as the moral center in Oliver Twist (239 Mayer). Various discussions of Dickens's Christianity are used as evidence: writing in 1962, John Gross, noting Dickens's interest in redemption and resurrection, commented that Dickens's Christianity “is more relevant than one tends to think nowadays 'today” (xii). Twenty years later, Andrew Sanders again noted that the combination “of a sincere but fairly simple faith with a general refusal to proclaim it from the top of the houses… [has] rendered Dickens's insistent Christianity… irrelevant to modern critical discussion of his work. (Resurrection xi) Mayer further argues that, in Oliver Twist, Dickens “emphatically criticizes what he represents as unchristian in the behavior of the English towards the poor” (241 Mayer). “In the opening chapters of the novel, set in the unnamed town where Oliver was born, a critique is made of those who created the new poor laws and those who justify, administer and benefit from them, as well as all viewers indifferent people who profit from them. , or do not help to heal the situation of the poor" (241-245). Mayer perceives these defects of both individual and institutional morality as the “failure ofChristianity” (242). The 1948 film adaptation of Lean follows George Cruikshank's illustration: in the film adaptation, Fagin played by Alec Guinness, has a repulsive appearance along with the huge hooked nose, chipped teeth, shaggy eyebrows and disheveled hair, representing the conventional Jewish racial stereotype worldwide. the time. This anti-Semitic image also provoked protests from Jewish objectors from the New World to the European continent. Regarding the 1948 film adaptation with historical background for the time, Liora Brosh provided context for understanding Lean's cinematic portrayal of Fagin and the audience's perspective (particularly the Jewish protests): In aDeparting from the novel, Lean's idea is less about the private domestic sphere and more about British collective identity. …Lean's Oliver Twist is obsessed with those characters who subvert national boundaries. Both Fagin and the prostitute Nancy are portrayed as unreliable and unreliable Britons. … Although Lean is said to have relied on Cruikshank for his film, unlike the illustrations, Fagin is not small and lanky. … In the illustration that Cruikshank drew for the novel, Fagin is thinner, smaller, and shorter than any of the other adult characters, especially Sikes. … This film was made when World War II was a recent and vivid memory, the British Empire was disintegrating, and Jews were fighting the British to establish their independent Jewish state. …These new historical contexts changed the conventional cliché of the cowardly feminized Jew depicted in Dickens. (Brosh 94-95) As Brosh and other sources have explained, the anti-Semitic portrayal of Fagin in Lean's 1948 film adaptation is set up as political propaganda to satisfy diplomatic demand: Zionism emerged in the late 19th century. “After the death of the son of the pro-British moderate Zionist leader, also due to anti-Zionist policies in Britain, the leadership of the Zionist movement passed to the Jewish Agency led by the anti-British Socialist Party” (125-135 Cohen) . In an attempt to gain independence for the Jewish state in Palestine, the Zionists waged a guerrilla war against Great Britain. Like the 1948 film adaptation, numerous subsequent adaptations of Oliver Twist were also widely criticized. In the London theater premiere of Lionel Bart's 1960 musical adaptation, Fagin played by actor Ron Moody received criticism for his "stereotypical nasal infection and his songs sung in the style of Jewish folk music" (Gross). To avoid the controversies that arose with previous adaptations, Carol Reed's 1968 film version made a few adjustments: "instead, she played with gay stereotypes, making her way through 'Pick a Pocket or Two,' and twirling a pink parasol with frills." in 'I would do anything'” (gross). Unlike Lean's 1948 film adaptation and other previous versions of Oliver Twist, Roman Polanski takes an obviously different approach in making his 2005 film adaptation of Oliver Twist. His idea to move closer to the character of Fagin has been revealed in a phone interview in which he said "We've lived long enough to know that certain things should be done for certain reasons. Without analyzing them. Which would be embarrassing, you know?" (Gross). When dealing with Fagin, Polanski completely abandoned the anti-Semitic characteristics employed in previous adaptations. He does not identify Fagin as either a Jew or the usual evil exploiter of children. He focused on both evil and good -.