Crime writing: specimen question commentary

An explanation of how a question taken from the Sample Assessment Material addresses the assessment objectives, with some suggestions of how the task might be approached.

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every point that could be made but it gives teachers and students some guidance that will support their work on this paper.

Paper 2A, Section B

Paper 2, Section B questions are similar in construction to those in Paper 1, Section B. They will focus on a critical viewpoint about an element of crime or political and social protest writing in each of the texts. Students will be asked ‘to what extent’ they agree with the given view and they will be reminded to include detailed exploration of authorial methods. The student will of course have to be mindful of whether the text is poetry, drama or prose to show how these major genres operate in terms of the sub genre (crime or political and social protest writing) which they are discussing. In their chosen question, students can show how their text can be interpreted in different ways and they can also offer a strong personal view which is rooted in the text. Students have access to their texts in the examination and they should be using those texts to select relevant material to provide detail in their answers.

Sample question

‘In Oliver Twist Dickens presents criminals as products of their society.’

To what extent do you agree with this view? Remember to include in your answer relevant detailed exploration of Dickens’ authorial methods.

How the question meets the assessment objectives

In this question, as throughout the paper, the assessment objectives are all assessed. The key words and phrases in the question are: to what extent, relevant detailed exploration, authorial methods, and these are clearly connected to the assessment objectives. Students also need to engage with ‘criminals as products of their society’.

AO1 will be tested through the way the students construct their arguments and express their ideas. AO2 is set up in the requirement for students to include a detailed exploration of Dickens’ authorial methods and in doing this they will show how these methods shape meanings. Here students will specifically need to address narrative methods. AO3 will be addressed through the students’ showing their understanding of the crime writing contexts of Oliver Twist as they focus on criminals and in addition, their debates will incorporate relevant contextual factors about ‘society’ and when the text was written and how it has been received. In writing about, and engaging with criminals as products of Dickens’ constructed society, AO4 will be addressed as students will be connecting implicitly with concepts of the wider crime writing genre. AO5 will be addressed when students assess the viewpoint of whether or not Dickens’ criminals are presented as products of their society. Students will need to engage with the idea that Dickens might exonerate his criminal characters by placing the blame at the hands of society. Here they will be able to use their texts in an explicit way to select apposite material to support their arguments and it would be sensible to use that same material to interrogate authorial method. Comment on structure, voices, settings and language can be woven into the argument. Students need to think about how the methods selected help them to decide to what extent the given view is valid.

Possible content

There is ample room for students to debate the statement in this task, to discuss how far Dickens presents his characters as being ‘products’ of his constructed society. Some will see the novel directly as a social critique. The under privileged are seen as fighting for survival. Focus here is likely to be on Fagin, Sikes, Nancy and the boys, specifically the Artful Dodger. Comments could be made about the manner in which these individuals are forced into a life of crime by a society that has failed them and offers them no other opportunity. The ‘society’ is obviously a created world in Oliver Twist though students might well comment on how this society is drawn from Dickens’ London in the 1830s. There may even be a contrast between the treatment of boys by the parish and the boys under Fagin – the destitution of boys such as Oliver results in their seeing no other means of survival (Fagin does at least provide them with a home, clothing and food). This is an improvement on the treatment Oliver, for example, receives from Mr Bumble. Fagin could also be regarded as a paternalistic figure in contrast to the likes of Mrs Mann in the way he offers the boys some sense of safety and community. Students may comment on the lack of provision for children without families that thus forces them into the criminal world as their only means of survival particularly given their lack of education and the lack of state concern.

Students may also examine the manner in which society and the justice system is far from just thereby making ‘criminals’ into victims. Society, in Dickens’ novel, offers no sympathy for or understanding of law breakers. Many who transgress are desperate and many are children. Significantly all who transgress are punished by adult law. Comments could be made about the contrast between the manner in which those in socially privileged positions are treated and those of the lower classes. For example, whilst Mr Brownlow’s taking a book from the bookseller is quickly forgiven, Oliver’s supposed theft of a handkerchief is swiftly prosecuted in the harshest fashion despite lack of proof. Students could refer to the comments made by ‘criminals’ such as the Artful Dodger who are critical of the establishment and recognise that there is a very little justice to be found for individuals in the lowest rung of society.

Some students may argue that Dickens presents his criminal characters as products of their society in the way that they die: Nancy at the hands of her pimp and Fagin through hanging. Society thus either fails to protect them or punishes them, casting them as victims of a cruel and uncaring world rather than perpetrators of evil. Comments could likewise be made about the contrast between criminals and those in positions of power, such as Mr Bumble, who shape the behaviours of the underclass through their contempt of them. The powerful in Oliver Twist lack sympathy for and have no desire to understand those in the social classes below them thereby making the criminals products of their society.

Some students will challenge the given statement and argue that Dickens’ position is somewhat ambiguous regarding criminals being products of their society. Although it is clear that he has sympathy for Nancy and the children, he does not present explicit mitigating circumstances for Monks, Fagin or Sikes. Sikes is cast as a terrible villain particularly when he brutally murders Nancy who chooses to do good regarding Oliver despite her attachment to Sikes.

Sikes, and to some extent Fagin and Monks, appear not only criminal but malevolent in their brutality and treatment of others. In some ways they are classic examples of crime writing villainy motivated by greed and ill gotten gains. Students might well focus on the speech Dickens givens these characters and his description of them thereby making implicit links with the wider crime writing genre. It could also be argued that Dickens’ anti-Semitic presentation of Fagin and Fagin’s manipulation and often threatening treatment of the boys whom he is happy to see punished for his criminal gain, make it difficult to see those who run criminal enterprises as products. Moreover, given that Oliver is the novel’s hero and given that sympathy lies primarily with him, Fagin and the other boys’ treatment of Oliver in taking him from the care of Mrs Bedwin, Mr Brownlow’s kindly housekeeper, and denying him potential happiness for some time, casts them as villains and agents of society rather than products of it. Some may simply propose that Dickens suggests that criminals choose their lifestyle. The Artful Dodger, for example, seems to enjoy his work.

It could also be argued that the only real products of the society Dickens presents are the boys, such as Oliver and Dick, who are abused and ignored by a system which sees little value in them. Their morality contrasts with the immorality of Sikes, Fagin and Monks, which makes it difficult to see the adults themselves as products. Significantly Dickens does not provide biographies or psychological profiles for these adult criminals in any attempt to excuse or explain their behaviour. In fact, Dickens could be seen as censorious, presenting them and their criminal acts in an overwhelmingly negative light implicitly condemning their refusal to work in an honest and decent way. Students might also argue that Fagin and Sikes set up an alternative society over which they rule and that children become products of this world. Sikes is portrayed as a psychopathic; Fagin takes all the boys gain for himself and is happy to see them punished for his crimes as long as they do not ‘peach’ on him; Monks appears bent on the destruction of Oliver; even the Artful Dodger is canny and worldly-wise and thus happy to manipulate the innocent Oliver for his own ends. Therefore it could be argued that it is difficult to perceive them as anything but inherently bad and not products of the wider society. As a result Dickens suggests that they therefore deserve their fate.

This resource is part of a Elements of crime writing resource package.