SOURCE: Edwards, Simon. “Anorexia Nervosa versus the Fleshpots of London: Rose and Nancy in Oliver Twist.” In Dickens Studies Annual 19 (1990): 49-64.

In the following essay, Edwards examines the interaction of food and sexuality in the formation of identity in Oliver Twist.

While everyone recognises the importance of food in Dickens' novels, there are, to my knowledge, only two essays which have attempted to assess its role critically. Barbara Hardy has discussed the moral significance of feasting and hospitality in Great Expectations. Ian Watt, noting the same lack of critical interest in the subject, offers a suggestive psychoanalytic account of Dickens' sensitivity to various aspects of oral behavior, finding a connection between eating habits and the impulse towards verbal display and performance. He rightly stresses that the putatively “regressive” nature of oral fixation is an effective strength of Dickens's art, enabling him to identify imaginatively with kinds of human...