Oliver Twist, Chapter 1

"what an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist was! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar;…but now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged  and ticketed, and fell into his place at once-a parish child-the orphan of a workhouse-the humble,  half-starved drudge- to be cuffed and buffeted through the world-despised by all, and pitied by none." (chapter 1, page 5).

     I found this quote interesting. How, before he had clothes on, Oliver Twist was not defined into any one category. You could not tell to which category, to which class, he belonged to. As Dickens points out, he could have been the son of a rich man, or the son of a poor man. then, as soon as they put clothes on him, he was categorized. He belonged to a certain category, to a certain group. Clothes are a thing of the world, earthy thing, created by man, and we do judge people, put them in certain groups sometimes by their clothes. Fashionable…not fashionable…rich…not rich…simple…girly…sporty….I'm not saying that everyone does, but as a whole we do. You look at someone dressed sloppily, and you assume they are a slob, that they are messy. It's why we dress nicely and professionally at job interviews, or at important events. Coz the world judges us by how we dress, even if it does not like to always admit it does.  It's different than what Dickens is talking about here, but at the same time it is the same. We might not category into classes like in the quote, but we assume that things sometimes when we see how someone is dressed.  Oliver Twist when he did not anything of the world on him, but just what God created, could have been anyone. He was the same as all people. as soon as things of the world where added to him, then he was marked not being the same as certain type of people(upper class, rich, etc). I really found this interesting. If we took away all the things that of the world that we have created, "we" being man, and only took into account those things God created and gave, then we would all be the same. What makes us all  "separate" from others, is things that we ourselves have created.