It is always instructive to give special thought to how a writer begins a novel. Almost everyone has had difficulty in starting to write something — even a letter. Consider how much more agonizing the novelist's position may be when he is faced with setting down the opening words of the crucial first chapter. The method chosen is, naturally, regulated by the overall organization of the book, and there are many possible solutions. A traditional technique much adhered to is to begin in medias res, in the midst of things — that is, at the height of the action — and then gradually to fill in the background. Although Dickens uses this in-the-middle-of-things approach in Oliver Twist, the reader won't be able to identify it right away.
So far as the career of Dickens's main character is concerned, we are led to expect a straightforward chronological account of his life because the action begins with Oliver's birth, when the reader is promptly introduced to the newborn pauper, who is "the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter."
Dickens treats the setting of the opening action with artful subtlety. He does not give the town a name or state a date when the action takes place. The only fact essential to the reader is that the events occur in a workhouse, an institution common to most localities. In this manner, Dickens announces that he is going to deal with topics of general import and focuses attention on the workhouse by leaving its immediate setting vague.
