Oliver Twist

Chapter 16 begins with Sikes on one side of Oliver and Nancy on the other, both ensuring that the young boy is unable to escape. Sikes orders his dog to attack Oliver, should the young boy continue to call out for help. Oliver decides to stay quiet lest he be mauled. Sikes drags Olive through the dark night. As the clock strikes eight, Nancy begins to listen to the loud tolling. She soon begins thinking about all the people she might know in the Newgate prison and their horrible fates. Sikes is far less sympathetic, saying, “[w]ell, they’re as good as dead, so it doesn’t much matter” (176). Nancy wishes to take a moment for the people about to be hanged, telling Bill that she’d never leave the Newgate prison if Bill were to be hanged inside it. Instead of being swayed by her devotion to him, Bill says that if he were arrested, he would prefer her to smuggle him rope and help him escape instead.

A while later, Sikes, Nancy, and Oliver arrive to a narrow street, at a house that looks abandoned on the outside. The Artful Dodger leads them into the house, where