Fagin is the secondary antagonist in the 1838 Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. He is an elderly gang leader who abducts children and trains them to steal for him.
While introduced by the Artful Dodger as a hospitable gentleman willing to offer shelter to those who need it, this is simply a front he uses to induct desperate children into serving him as pickpocketers. While he lets the mask slip on multiple occasions, he hides his true nature until he is no longer concerned with keeping up appearances with Oliver after the boy attempts to desert the gang. Unlike the main antagonist, Bill Sikes, Fagin has a more personal conflict with Oliver as Oliver's half-brother, Monks, hires him to disinherit the orphan of what is rightfully his by turning him into a fugitive.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- He'd been abducting children into his gang as pickpocketers for many years to a point where Monks states that he had made "scores" of criminals out of children (with Bill Sikes and Nancy being examples).
- He shows no care for the children he keeps beyond what use they are to him, further supported by how he makes no effort to improve their well-being or living situation despite his wealth.
- He recalls finding executions at the gallows funny, even orchestrating some of them himself. It's expanded on when he fondly remembers the hangings of five of his criminal associates as it meant they couldn't turn him in.
- To make matters worse, he heavily implies that one of these associates was a boy in his care who talked to the authorities in a story he uses to scare Oliver, making him indirectly responsible for child murder.
- He abuses his boys if they return from pickpocketing empty-handed or do anything against his wishes.
- When he believes Oliver overheard him discussing criminal activity, he threatens him with a knife, only stopping when Oliver insists that he didn't hear anything.
- He kidnaps Oliver from Mr. Brownlow, fearing he may talk about the gang.
- When Oliver attempts to escape, he beats him, only stopping because Nancy forces him to.
- Oliver's half-brother, Monks, pays him to work out a way of disinheriting the boy of their father's fortune (with Fagin also keeping Oliver's identity papers). Their solution is to turn Oliver into a criminal, ruining his life in the process.
- Fagin first comes up with the idea of isolating Oliver from any human interaction and having Dodger and Charley Bates become his friends so he would join the gang willingly.
- When that fails, he has Bill Sikes forcibly make Oliver an accomplice to a burglary. However, it goes wrong, leading to Oliver getting shot in the arm.
- He contemplates asking Nancy for help with murdering Bill Sikes.
- While he appears disheartened upon hearing that Dodger was arrested and would likely get put away for life, he only sees it as the loss of his best pickpocketer as opposed to feeling any genuine grief, even making jokes at Dodger's expense with the rest of the gang.
- Upon discovering that Nancy had revealed Fagin's plot with Monks to Mr. Brownlow, although she still refused to give him and Bill Sikes up, he grows enraged and misleads Sikes with this information (intentionally excluding where she stated she wouldn't rat him out). He did this with the full knowledge that Sikes would kill her, making him indirectly but knowingly responsible when he inevitably did.
- In the days leading up to his execution, he behaves spitefully instead of feeling remorse.
- Although Oliver Twist is a critique of 19th-century London as a whole in how the horrible conditions placed on the poor sometimes causes them to resort to crime, Fagin far subverts that excuse as it's clear he has more than enough riches to leave his criminal lifestyle behind him but he continues to use children for theft out of greed.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- Unlike with the rest of his boys, he seems to have a twisted care for Oliver despite abusing and mistreating him relentlessly. He expresses sadness upon hearing Oliver that was shot and abandoned at the Maylie household, he tells him the location his identity papers even though he had no pragmatic reason to, and he is affable to him in his final moments (although this could just be attribute to Fagin losing his sanity).
- His mental deterioration in prison before his death is played for sympathy. However, this is more due to Oliver's compassionate reaction to him instead of Fagin having actually earned any, making it a minor prevention.
Trivia[]
- Many of the portrayals of Fagin in popular media would not qualify as they are either written too sympathetically or their crimes are heavily watered down. Examples include Fagin from the 1968 musical Oliver! and the 1988 Disney animated movie Oliver & Company (the latter who isn't even a villain but a petty yet good-hearted crook).
- He is the oldest book character to qualify as Near Pure Evil thus far and the third oldest overall, the second being Macbeth and the first being Aaron the Moor.
External Links[]
- Fagin on the Villains Wiki