# Mr. Sowerberry — Oliver Twist character guide

> Mr. Sowerberry in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Sowerberry

**First appearance:** 0003-iv-oliver-being-offered-another-place-makes-his-first-entry-into-public-life

## Snapshot

The parish undertaker who apprentices Oliver as a child's mute, a henpecked tradesman whose professional eye sees profit in a boy's melancholy face.

## Who they are

Mr. Sowerberry takes Oliver from the workhouse as an apprentice and promptly reduces him to a walking advertisement, dressing him in black and putting him at children's funerals because his sad expression makes a 'superb effect.' He is timid before his sharp-tongued wife, deferential to Mr. Bumble, and entirely comfortable with the idea that a child's grief can be sold by the yard. His household is Oliver's first taste of the working world outside the parish — and of how readily respectable trades turn human misery into merchandise.

## In the story

### [IV: Oliver, Being Offered Another Place, Makes His First Entry Into Public Life](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/oliver_twist_se/chapters/iv-oliver-being-offered-another-place-makes-his-first-entry-into-public-life)

The undertaker who takes Oliver as an apprentice; he jokes with Bumble about coffin profits and shows little concern for Oliver's welfare.

### [Oliver Mingles with New Associates. Going to a Funeral for the First Time, He Forms an Unfavourable Notion of His Master’s Business](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/oliver_twist_se/chapters/v-oliver-mingles-with-new-associates-going-to-a-funeral-for-the-first-time-he-forms-an-unfavourable-notion-of-his-master-s-business)

Mr. Sowerberry takes Oliver on his first funeral job, showing a pragmatic attitude toward death and poverty.

### [Oliver, Being Goaded by the Taunts of Noah, Rouses Into Action, and Rather Astonishes Him](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/oliver_twist_se/chapters/vi-oliver-being-goaded-by-the-taunts-of-noah-rouses-into-action-and-rather-astonishes-him)

Mr. Sowerberry is absent during the altercation; his wife fears his reaction to Oliver's outburst.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/oliver_twist_se/characters/mr_sowerberry
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/oliver_twist_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/oliver_twist_se/characters