Fagin
An etching by George Cruikshank titled Fagin in the condemned Cell, November 1838.
First appearance	Oliver Twist
Created by	Charles Dickens
Portrayed by	Lon Chaney, Sr. (1922), Alec Guinness (1948), Ron Moody (1968), Dom DeLuise (voice, 1988), Gary Farmer (2003), Ben Kingsley (2005), Timothy Spall (2007)
Information
Gender	Male
Age	probably over 60 (claims to be an "old man")
Date of death	execution by hanging
Occupation	criminal
Address	London, England

Fagin (pronounced /ˈfeɪɡɪn/) is a fictional character who appears in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, referred to in the preface of the novel as "a receiver of stolen goods", but referred to more frequently within the actual story as "the merry old gentleman" or just "the Jew".

Character

Described as "hideous" to look at, Fagin is the leader of a group of children, the Artful Dodger among them, whom he teaches to make their livings by pickpocketing and other criminal activities in exchange for a roof over their heads. At the time of the novel, he is said by another character, Monks, to have already made criminals out of "scores" of children who grow up to live- or die- committing the same crimes as adults. Bill Sikes, one of the major villains of the novel, is hinted to be one of Fagin's old pupils, and Nancy clearly was. Whilst portrayed as relatively humorous, he is nonetheless a self-confessed miser who, despite the amount he has acquired over the years from the work of others, does very little to improve the squalid lives of the children he takes in, allowing them to smoke pipes and drink gin "with the air of middle-aged men". In the second chapter of his appearance, it is shown- albeit when talking to himself- that he cares less about those children who are eventually hanged for their crimes and more about the fact that they do not "peach" on him and the other children. Still darker sides to the character's nature are shown in his attempted beating of Oliver for running away and allowing himself to be taken in by the kind man Mr. Brownlow, and in his own involvement with various plots and schemes throughout the story. He could also be said to be indirectly responsible for Nancy's death, due to his informing Sikes – mistakenly – that she had betrayed him. Near the end of the book, Fagin is hanged following capture, in a chapter that portrays him as being pitiful in his anguish.

Historical basis

Dickens took Fagin's name from a friend he had known in his youth while working in a boot-blacking factory^{[citation needed]}.

Fagin's character was based on the criminal Ikey Solomon^{[citation needed]}, who was a fence at the center of a highly-publicized arrest, escape, recapture, and trial. Some accounts of Solomon also describe him as a London underworld "kidsman". A kidsman was an adult who recruited children and trained them as pickpockets, exchanging food and shelter for goods the children stole.

Antisemitism

Fagin is noted for being one of the few Jewish characters of 19th century literature, let alone any of Dickens' pieces. Fagin has been the subject of much debate over antisemitism. In an introduction to a 1981 Bantam Books reissue of Oliver Twist, for example, Irving Howe wrote that Fagin was considered an "archetypical Jewish villain."

In later editions of the book printed during his lifetime, Dickens excised many (but not all) of the references to Fagin's Jewishness. In his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, he included a favourable Jewish character, Mr. Riah.

Dickens sold his London home to a Jewish banker, James Davis in 1860. "The purchaser of Tavistock House will be a Jew Money-Lender," he told a friend. Later he wrote "I must say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well, and that I cannot call to mind any occasion when I have had moneydealings with anyone that has been so satisfactory, considerate and trusting." Dickens was rather attached to his wife, Eliza Davis, who reproached him in a letter of 1863 for the "great wrong" he had committed in Oliver Twist. Two years later, Dickens created, in Our Mutual Friend, the noble character of Riah, an elderly Jew who finds jobs for downcast young women in Jewish-owned factories. "I think there cannot be kinder people in the world," exclaims one of the girls. "There is nothing but good will left between me and a People for whom I have a real regard and to whom I would not willfully have given an offence," wrote Dickens to Mrs Davis. He set about revising Oliver Twist in the light of her criticisms, removing almost all mention of "the Jew" from the last 15 chapters. In one of his final public readings in 1869, a year before his death, Dickens cleansed Fagin of stereotypical caricature. A contemporary report observed: "There is no nasal intonation; a bent back but no shoulder-shrug: the conventional attributes are omitted."

The comic book creator Will Eisner, disturbed by the antisemitism in the typical depiction of the character, created a graphic novel in 2003 titled Fagin the Jew. In this book, the back story of the character and events of Oliver Twist are depicted from his point of view.

Film and theatre

Numerous prominent actors have portrayed Fagin. In the 1922 film, Lon Chaney, Sr. played Fagin, while Alec Guinness performed the role in the 1948 film version directed by David Lean. Ron Moody's portrayal in the musical Oliver! is recognisably influenced by Guinness' portrayal, as was Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley portrayal of Fagin in Roman Polanski's 2005 screen adaptation. In Disney's version, Oliver & Company (1988), Fagin is voiced by Dom DeLuise. In the 2003 film Twist (a film loosely based on Dickens' Oliver Twist) Fagin is played by actor Gary Farmer. In the 2007 BBC Television adaptation Fagin is played by Timothy Spall. In many of these versions, Fagin is portrayed much more favorably, and escapes with the Artful Dodger at the end.

Popular culture

• In his Little Fuzzy novels, H. Beam Piper makes reference to the crime of "faginy;" using minors or incompetents (in this case the Fuzzies themselves, extraterrestrials with no understanding that what they are doing is wrong) to commit crimes. The punishment for faginy is the same as for enslavement: death.

• In slang term used largely among American criminals and gangsters, "fagin" became a commonly accepted label for an adult who teaches minors to steal and keeps a major portion of the loot.

References

• Howe, Irving. Selected Writings, 1950-1990. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, New York, London, 1990

Footnotes

External links

• Fagin at the Internet Movie Database

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Characters	Oliver Twist | Bill Sikes | Fagin | Mr. Brownlow | Nancy | Rose Maylie | The Artful Dodger
Film adaptions	Oliver Twist (1948) | Oliver! | Oliver & Company | Oliver Twist (1997) | Twist | Boy called Twist | Oliver Twist (2005)
Other adaptions	Oliver! | Fagin the Jew | Oliver Twist (TV miniseries) | Oliver Twist (TV serial)
Songs	As Long as He Needs Me | Consider Yourself | Food Glorious Food | I'd Do Anything | Oliver! | Where Is Love? | You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two

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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Fagin". Image Credit.

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