The central idea of the first six chapters of Oliver Twist is the mistreatment of the poor and the helpless by society in general and by public officials in charge of orphanages and workhouses in particular. These chapters show the severe abuse, exploitation, and daily suffering to which orphans such as Oliver were subjected throughout their childhood.
The suggestion that "Oliver should be 'farmed'" indicates that the parish officials viewed orphans and the poor more as animals than as humans. The outcry at Oliver’s request for more gruel also highlights the deep-rooted lack of humane treatment in the workhouse system. The officials' callousness and hard-heartedness is evident when they consider giving Oliver to a chimney sweeper as an apprentice. They are not concerned with how dangerous the job is and how brutally chimney sweepers treat the boys who work for them. Dickens’s depiction of the officials' cruelty and hypocrisy are bitingly sarcastic, as is evident in these lines:
For a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of the board.
In describing Oliver’s woes, Dickens reminds readers how people (whether rich or poor) treat those they believe are inferior to them. For example, even Noah Claypole, who is himself a "charity boy," mistreats Oliver because he considers Oliver lower than himself in the social order:
The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of “leathers,” “charity,” and the like; and Noah had bourne them without reply. But, now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest.
