Editing Artful Dodger (section)

==Role in the novel==

In the novel, Jack becomes Oliver's closest friend (although he betrays Oliver when Oliver is caught) and he tries to make him a pickpocket, but he soon realises that Oliver will not succeed and feels sorry for him, saying "What a pity it is he isn't a prig!" He also has a close relationship with [[Charley Bates]]. 

The Artful Dodger is characterised as a child who acts like an adult. He is described as wearing adult clothes which are much too large for him. Like an adult, he seldom gives in to childish urges:
{{blockquote|The Artful, meantime, who was of a rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifled Oliver's pockets with steady assiduity.}}

{{blockquote|
He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age: with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment—and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them. He was, altogether, as roistering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in the blushers.
}}
[[File:Oliver Twist, (1875?) "Hullo, My covey! What's the row?" (3983518702).jpg|thumb|[[James Mahony]]'s 1871 engraving of the Artful Dodger (left) introducing himself to Oliver as "Jack Dawkins," known as "the artful Dodger". Dodger uses [[Cockney]] slang which is juxtaposed with Oliver's 'proper' English.]]
[[File:Dodger introduces Oliver to Fagin by Cruikshank (detail).jpg|thumb|[[George Cruikshank]]'s original engraving in 1838 of the Artful Dodger (centre), introducing Oliver (right) to Fagin (left). It can be argued that Cruikshank originated the Dodger's trademark top hat -- Dickens never specifically describes the hat.]]
Ultimately the Dodger is caught with a stolen silver [[snuff box]] and presumably [[penal transportation|transported]] from England to a [[convicts in Australia|penal colony in Australia]] (only alluded to in the novel). The absurdity of the master pickpocket being caught over something so small is remarked upon in the book:
{{blockquote|'They've found the gentleman as owns the box; two or three more's a coming to identify him; and the Artful's booked for a passage out', replied Master Bates. 'I must have a full suit of mourning, Fagin, and a hatband, to wist him in, afore he sets out upon his travels. To think of Jack Dawkins—lummy Jack—the Dodger—the Artful Dodger—going abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box! I never thought he'd a done it under a gold watch, chain, and seals, at the lowest. Oh, why didn't he rob some rich old gentleman of all his valuables, and go out as a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor glory!
}}
The Dodger chooses to consider himself a "victim of society", roaring in the courtroom, "I am an Englishman, ain't I? Where are my priwileges?"<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/charles_dickens/olivr10/chapter43.html |author=Charles Dickens |title=Oliver Twist |quote=Project Gutenberg |publisher=Nalanda Digital Library |chapter=XLIII |access-date=20 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322131244/http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/charles_dickens/olivr10/chapter43.html |archive-date=22 March 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The jailer tells him "You'll get your privileges soon enough", while the judge has little patience for the Dodger's posturing and orders him out of the courtroom immediately after the jury convicts him of the theft. Dickens describes him this way:

{{blockquote|With these last words, the Dodger suffered himself to be led off by the collar, threatening, till he got into the yard, to make a parliamentary business of it, and then grinning in the officer's face, with great glee and self-approval.
}}

Dickens had first used a similar term to "Artful Dodger" in his previous novel, ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]''. At the close of Chapter 16, [[Sam Weller (character)|Sam Weller]] refers to the recent schemes of Mr Jingle: "Reg'lar do, sir; artful dodge."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/posthumouspaper22dickgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/posthumouspaper22dickgoog/page/n289 214]|title=The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club|last=Dickens|first=Charles|date=1838-01-01|publisher=Carey, Lea and Blanchard|language=en}}</ref>

The Artful Dodger, though a pickpocket, is not a heartless character. He has a great respect for Fagin – "There ain't no teacher like Fagin!" (chapter 3) – to whom he delivers all of the pickpocketing spoils without question.