Artful Dodger

Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger, is a character in Charles Dickens' 1838 novel Oliver Twist. The Dodger is a pickpocket and his nickname refers to his skill and cunning in that occupation. In the novel, he is the leader of the gang of child criminals on the streets of London trained and overseen by the elderly Fagin. The term has become an idiom describing a person who engages in skillful deception.

In the novel, Jack becomes Oliver's best friend (though he abandons him when he gets caught) and tries to turn him into a pickpocket, but soon realises that Oliver isn't cut out for it and feels sorry for him, saying "What a pity it is he isn't a prig!" He also has a close friendship with Charley Bates that borders on brotherhood.

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:

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.

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.

Ultimately the Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box and presumably transported from England to a 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:

'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?" 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:

The role of the Artful Dodger has been played by several notable performers in adaptations of the novel.

The role of the Artful Dodger was amplified in the musical Oliver!. The part was first played by Martin Horsey, and later by Tony Robinson, Davy Jones, Leonard Whiting, Steve Marriott, and Phil Collins. Others to have played the role in amateur productions include Adam Levine, Ben Elton, Robbie Williams, Joe Jonas, Claire Josefson, and Hayley Smith.

For the 1962 BBC TV serial, Melvyn Hayes portrayed the character in a manner that reviewers described as faithful to the book's original depiction.

In the 1980 ATV series The Further Adventures of Oliver Twist, the Dodger was played by John Fowler. In this sequel to Oliver Twist, Oliver, who has been sent to a Northern boarding school by Mr. Brownlow, finds that through Oliver's uncle Harry Maylie's intercession the Dodger escaped transportation to Australia and was instead enrolled in the school. The two friends re-unite, and when Oliver flees the school the Dodger follows him back to London after learning of a plot against him. Oliver is made to believe, by Noah Claypole, Noah's girlfriend Charlotte, and Mrs Carraway (Mr Brownlow's corrupt new housekeeper), that Mr. Brownlow is ill to the point of death. After Dodger rescues Oliver from imprisonment in the Brownlow cellar and the two are accused by Mrs. Carraway and Claypole of theft, he and Oliver are forced to take to the streets to uncover the truth, encountering Mr. Bumble, the villainous Monks and their old mentor Fagin (who had escaped execution) along the way; at the series' conclusion, Mr. Brownlow also adopts Dodger as his son along with Oliver.