01 | September | 2013 | Mandy Eve-Barnett's Blog for Readers & Writers

Destitution – definition: a lack of the means to survive or subsist : utter poverty

This is the first image that came to my mind – Oliver Twist begging for more – as I read today’s word. Charles Dickens portrayal of poverty in the English 18th century was personified by Oliver; to my mind anyway. There was of course, Tiny Tim, in A Christmas Carol but Oliver’s endurance through the workhouse and his subsequent escape from the undertaker are more compelling. Once he was enrolled with Fagin and his gang of young pickpockets, Oliver’s life begins to change. There is kindness and friendship shown to him by Nancy and the Artful Dodger and later his salvation comes in the shape of Mr. Brownlow. Oliver’s innocence and inherent goodness shows through every aspect of his story. Charles Dickens created characters so beautifully rounded that you were drawn or repelled by them in equal measure.