Bill Sikes becomes a victim of a mob, and although we know that he is guilty, as opposed to Oliver, there is still an eerie similarly between Sikes’s mob and Oliver’s, that reminds us how easily such a mob can turn against anyone, whether or not that someone is truly guilty. We also see mobs act against the antagonists in the novel.

We see mobs act against Oliver, the most striking example of which is when he is accused of stealing Mr. Similarly, the mobs in Oliver Twist all take on lives of their owns, so that the individuals within them can display their cruelest character.

Institutional cruelty can be seen to be an example of a specific kind of mob mentality-not literally, but a mob in which individuals are not held accountable for their actions, and so can be as heartless as they like, with the blank face of the bureaucracy to cover them. The horrifying power of mob mentality is also an important theme in Oliver Twist, and one that is closely related to that of institutional cruelty. This cruelty is not nameless or faceless, it is just so prevalent that not all the perpetrators can be named. Bumble is often directly involved in the institutional unkindness that Oliver faces. Although the parochial board that decides Oliverâs future carelessly and without sympathy is largely anonymous, the man in the white jacket generally voices the specific cruel sentiments, so that they are not presented as having come from nowhere, or just from laws, but from the individuals in power. The cruelty of these institutions, however, is not separated from the cruelty of individuals. Although institutions show both passive and active cruelty in Oliver Twist, active cruelty is more prevalent, a move that serves to exaggerate and thus satirize this cruelty and make it seem intentional. Dickens wrote the book largely in response to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which represented the government's both passive and active cruelty to the poor and helpless. The cruelty of institutions and bureaucracies toward the unfortunate is perhaps the preeminent theme of Oliver Twist, and essentially what makes it a social novel.

Dickens oliver twist