The antihero of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist is the “villainous-looking and sinister” Jewish moneylender, Fagin. Fagin is referred to as “the Jew” 257 times throughout the first two-thirds of the novel, often in the context of him doing something nasty, salivating over his gold, or beating poor Oliver. While working on the final third of the novel, however, Dickens forged a friendship […]
