Domestic studies also begin to concern about Dickens’ achievements and limitations. For example, Qiao Guoqiang published an essay entitled “The Anti-Semitism in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist” (Qiao Guoqiang, 2004:63) which mentioned Dickens’ idea of Anti-Semitism by analyzing the image of Fagin. Pei Pei published an essay entitled “A Stereotyped Fagin—A Juxtaposition of Dickens’s Christianity in Oliver Twist”, in this essay the writer emphasized that “dickens simply bases the character on the archetype of the then Jewish criminals” (Pei Pei, 245). 

Some studies also try to analyze the Jewish female stereotype in Oliver Twist. In his thesis, Xu Bin said that “The emergence of the Jewish stereotype images in Dickens’ works is not occasional, but they are the concrete reflection in literature of anti-Semitic tradition in European history and they are deeply imprinted by the Victorian cultural context” (Xu Bin, 2011:7). Based on the early research results, this paper tries to analyze the Jewish images in Dickens’ works and his historical limitations in terms of historical background. Meanwhile, the neglected Jewish female in Oliver Twist also transfers his racial and sexual prejudices. This paper will describe the Jewish female Nancy in detail to elaborate Dickens’ prejudice of Jewish people. 

In conclusion, as a representative of critical realism, to some extent, Dickens really delineates a most complete and realistic picture of English society of his age in Oliver Twist. Nevertheless, because of the influence of social, cultural, economic and religious reasons, Dickens cannot abandon the long-standing prejudices towards the Jewish people and creates some Jewish stereotyped images in this novel. Anti-Semitism has deeply social, religious, cultural origins in the west which has an indispensable impact on writers. As a crucial realist in British literature, Dickens also cannot break away from historical obstacle. Therefore, this thesis aims to have a thorough and objective analysis of Anti-Semitism in Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

2. Analysis of Anti-Semitism

The word Anti-Semitism which appears as a special term is not more than 100 years. But in the Christian Europe, anti-Semitic ideology with contempt, disgust, hatred, and even linked to exterminating all the Jews and other ethnic emotions, can be traced back to ancient times. The anti-Semitic ideology is a general view held by non-Jewish community of the Jewish people. It can be said that because the Jews stick to their own religious beliefs, and refuse religious assimilation, which makes them depressed and hard in real life. Their image is also distorted in the literary works.