Storytelling: Artful Dodger (Dickens)

[Abishai100]

Artful Dodger is an iconic character from the seminal orphan-odyssey story "Oliver Twist" (Charles Dickens).

Dodger is a pick-pocket and a street-smart young wanderer and befriends Oliver as they work for the eccentric and odd Fagin.

Artful Dodger is a great spin-off potentiality character in literary history, and it is very easy to imagine stories just about him and extract him from the Oliver bond; perhaps even easier than extracting Watson from Sherlock Holmes or Patroclus from Achilles.

Roman Polanski recently released a modernized (high-resolution photography and digital marketability of cinematography) film version of "Oliver Twist" (Dickens). You might see from the presentation of progressive art tones in Polanski's Oliver that the story itself is fertile for comic book stylized visual branching, perhaps bringing out a street-smarts theme in storytelling for our era of urbanization-paranoia.

Let's think about stories just about the great and unusual Artful Dodger, a fellow who supplies Oliver with a surprisingly different brand of survivalism optimism:

"Dodger brings Oliver two pigeons and tells him the birds are trained to steal food items from the bazaar for them. When one pigeon is trapped by a cruel merchant and killed, Dodger exacts revenge by drawing customers to the merchant's rival competitors at the bazaar."




Artful Dodger - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[HUGGY]

Artful Dodger is an iconic character from the seminal orphan-odyssey story "Oliver Twist" (Charles Dickens).

Dodger is a pick-pocket and a street-smart young wanderer and befriends Oliver as they work for the eccentric and odd Fagin.

Artful Dodger is a great spin-off potentiality character in literary history, and it is very easy to imagine stories just about him and extract him from the Oliver bond; perhaps even easier than extracting Watson from Sherlock Holmes or Patroclus from Achilles.

Roman Polanski recently released a modernized (high-resolution photography and digital marketability of cinematography) film version of "Oliver Twist" (Dickens). You might see from the presentation of progressive art tones in Polanski's Oliver that the story itself is fertile for comic book stylized visual branching, perhaps bringing out a street-smarts theme in storytelling for our era of urbanization-paranoia.

Let's think about stories just about the great and unusual Artful Dodger, a fellow who supplies Oliver with a surprisingly different brand of survivalism optimism:

"Dodger brings Oliver two pigeons and tells him the birds are trained to steal food items from the bazaar for them. When one pigeon is trapped by a cruel merchant and killed, Dodger exacts revenge by drawing customers to the merchant's rival competitors at the bazaar."




Artful Dodger - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


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Attempting to drive new business to the Cruel Merchant's rival is weak payback and in all likelihood would fail.

One must assume that there are already good reasons why people would choose to be the customers of the bad guy. In the setting of Oliver Twist's story everyone probably knows the merchant far better than today's shopper knows the manager of the local Wynn Dixie.

Putting disgusting insects or rat feces in the Cruel Shopkeeper's store might have an adverse effect on shopper loyalty but one could assume that pest infestation is probably the norm.

I must ask myself why the "Nicer Guy Shopkeeper" doesn't already have a higher customer loyalty. Are the A-hole's prices that far out of line?

Dodger can attempt to sabotage the merchandise of the Cruel Merchant's store but can he do enough to make a difference before he is caught? How far is Dodger willing to go to avenge a pigeon? Will he burn down the Cruel Merchant's establishment? In those days, with fire being an especially horrible calamity because of how ineffectual the fire department probably is, the charge of setting such a blaze would most likely bring the death penalty if convicted.