This page shows questions in the Joyce Dickens public release module at MSDE. 8th Grade ELA
"Joyce Dickens"

Today you will analyze a passage from Oliver Twist and a passage from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. As you read these texts, you will gather information and answer questions about the effect of dialogue or events so you can write an essay.

Read the passage from Oliver Twist. Then answer the questions.

from Oliver Twist

by Charles Dickens

1 The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at meal-times. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more—except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cookshop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next to him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.

2 The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

3 "Please, sir, I want some more."

4 The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.

5 "What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.

6 "Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."

7 The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

8 The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said,

9 "Mr Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!"

10 There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.

11 "For more!" said Mr Limbkins. "Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?"

12 "He did, sir," replied Bumble.

13 "That boy will be hung," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. "I know that boy will be hung."

14 Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.

15 "I never was more convinced of anything in my life," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning: "I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung."

16 As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white-waist-coated gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I ventured to hint just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination or no.

From OLIVER TWIST, CHAPTER II: TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST'S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD — Public Domain

Read the passage from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Then answer the questions.

from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

by James Joyce

1 The bell rang and then the classes began to file out of the rooms and along the corridors towards the refectory. He sat looking at the two prints of butter on his plate but could not eat the damp bread. The tablecloth was damp and limp. But he drank off the hot weak tea which the clumsy scullion, girt with a white apron, poured into his cup. He wondered whether the scullion's apron was damp too or whether all white things were cold and damp. Nasty Roche and Saurin drank cocoa that their people sent them in tins. They said they could not drink the tea; that it was hogwash. Their fathers were magistrates, the fellows said.

2 All the boys seemed to him very strange. They had all fathers and mothers and different clothes and voices. He longed to be at home and lay his head on his mother's lap. But he could not: and so he longed for the play and study and prayers to be over and to be in bed.

3 He drank another cup of hot tea and Fleming said:

4 —What's up? Have you a pain or what's up with you?

5 —I don't know, Stephen said.

6 —Sick in your breadbasket, Fleming said, because your face looks white. It will go away.

7 —Oh yes, Stephen said.

8 But he was not sick there. He thought that he was sick in his heart if you could be sick in that place. Fleming was very decent to ask him. He wanted to cry. He leaned his elbows on the table and shut and opened the flaps of his ears. Then he heard the noise of the refectory every time he opened the flaps of his ears. It made a roar like a train at night. And when he closed the flaps the roar was shut off like a train going into a tunnel. That night at Dalkey the train had roared like that and then, when it went into the tunnel, the roar stopped. He closed his eyes and the train went on, roaring and then stopping; roaring again, stopping. It was nice to hear it roar and stop and then roar out of the tunnel again and then stop.

9 Then the higher line fellows began to come down along the matting in the middle of the refectory, Paddy Rath and Jimmy Magee and the Spaniard who was allowed to smoke cigars and the little Portuguese who wore the woolly cap. And then the lower line tables and the tables of the third line. And every single fellow had a different way of walking.

10 He sat in a corner of the playroom pretending to watch a game of dominoes and once or twice he was able to hear for an instant the little song of the gas. The prefect was at the door with some boys and Simon Moonan was knotting his false sleeves. He was telling them something about Tullabeg.

11 Then he went away from the door and Wells came over to Stephen and said:

12 —Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?

13 Stephen answered:

14 —I do.

15 Wells turned to the other fellows and said:

16 —O, I say, here's a fellow says he kisses his mother every night before he goes to bed.

17 The other fellows stopped their game and turned round, laughing. Stephen blushed under their eyes and said:

18 —I do not.

19 Wells said:

20 —O, I say, here's a fellow says he doesn't kiss his mother before he goes to bed.

21 They all laughed again. Stephen tried to laugh with them. He felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment. What was the right answer to the question? He had given two and still Wells laughed. But Wells must know the right answer for he was in third of grammar.

From A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce — Public Domain

Both Charles Dickens and James Joyce incorporate dialogue into their passages.

Use evidence you have gathered from both passages to write an essay analyzing how the dialogue in each passage functions to reveal aspects of the characters. You should discuss more than one character from each passage.

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