From BookJive
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| Name: | Fagin |
| Description: | A racially depicted Jew who recruits and trains boys for thievery. |
Fagin is a fictional character who appears in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, referred to in the preface of the novel as "a receiver of stolen goods", but referred to more frequently within the actual story as "the merry old gentleman" or just "the Jew".
Born in London, Fagin is described as "disgusting" to look at, he is the leader of a group of children, the Artful Dodger among them, whom he teaches to make their livings by pickpocketing and other criminal activities in exchange for a roof over their heads. At the time of the novel, he is said by another character, Monks, to have already made criminals out of "scores" of children who grow up to live – or die – committing the same crimes as adults. Bill Sikes, one of the major villains of the novel, is hinted to be one of Fagin's old pupils, and Nancy clearly was. Whilst portrayed as relatively humorous, he is nonetheless a self-confessed miser who, despite the amount he has acquired over the years from the work of others, does very little to improve the squalid lives of the children he takes in, allowing them to smoke pipes and drink gin "with the air of middle-aged men". In the second chapter of his appearance, it is shown – albeit when talking to himself – that he cares less about those children who are eventually hanged for their crimes and more about the fact that they do not "peach" on him and the other children. Still darker sides to the character's nature are shown in his attempted beating of Oliver for running away and allowing himself to be taken in by the kind man Mr. Brownlow, and in his own involvement with various plots and schemes throughout the story. He could also be said to be indirectly responsible for Nancy's death, due to his informing Sikes – mistakenly – that she had betrayed him. Near the end of the book, Fagin is hanged following capture, in a chapter that portrays him as being pitiful in his anguish.
