The crisis in Oliver's conflicts involves no significant desire on his part. Fagin makes one critical decision when he maneuvers Oliver into the Chertsey fiasco. The unsuccessful burglary is the climax in the boy's misadventures. The grim disaster leaves him utterly helpless, but it is a turning point and his fortunes steadily improve from there. The resolution of his difficulties is achieved by Brownlow's triumph over Monks.
In the smoldering rivalry between Sikes and Fagin, the crisis is reached when Fagin actually plans to have Sikes murdered. Fagin's first step to eliminate Sikes involves having Nancy spied upon. This leads directly to the climax of the girl's murder. With that bloody deed, the entire company of thieves is drawn into a whirlpool of events, which ultimately brings them all to ruin. The denouement discussed earlier — the unknotting of story complications — comes with Sikes literally being hanged in his own noose, at the end of the day when the gang has been demolished.
Dickens's illustrations of the complications and their unraveling are accomplished by means of a complex mosaic of back-illumination. This technique offers several distinct advantages. It makes it easier to raise suspense to a high pitch and keep reader interest at a lively level. In order to draw the numerous persons into the current of events, Dickens is forced to make liberal use of accident and coincidence. By using the tricks and techniques of the dramatist that he was, Dickens is able to obscure his coincidences and accidents to the point where the reader scarcely notices.
