fictional character
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Category: Arts & Culture
fa*gin, fictional character, one of the villains in Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist (1837–39) and one of the most notorious anti-Semitic portraits in English literature.
fa*gin is an old man in London who teaches young homeless boys how to be pickpockets and then fences their stolen goods. Although a miser and exploiter, he shows a certain loyalty and solicitude toward the boys. The Artful Dodger is one of fa*gin’s thieves and, for a time, so is the young Oliver Twist. At the novel’s end, fa*gin is executed for complicity in a murder.
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Vitagraph filmed the first (silent) adaptation of the book in 1909, and the novel remains a perennial favourite in theatres and on television. In the 1948 film adaptation of the novel, fa*gin was portrayed by Alec Guinness. Ron Moody played fa*gin in the stage and film musical Oliver! (1968), and George C. Scott portrayed the character in a televised version of the novel released in 1982. In 2005 Ben Kingsley played fa*gin in director Roman Polanski’s adaptation of the novel.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.
