Neal
A Christmas Carol ii. “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.”
‘A Christmas Carol contains lessons not only for Scrooge, but for the society of Dickens’s day.’ Discuss.
Set against the backdrop of rampant industrialism, Charles Dickens’ classic novella, A Christmas Carol endorses the notion that all life is precious and equal. By taking his apparently irredeemable protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, on a supernatural journey, Dickens intends to convey to the complacent classes of the era the necessity of various traits among society that are vital such as the responsibility to those less fortunate and to employees as well as other necessary lessons such as charity. Dickens also warns the reader of the consequences that will follow if these lessons are not taken in heed.
Through the use of characters such as Tiny Tim and the Cratchit family, Dickens is able to display to scrooge and his audience the extent of the poverty within society. Dickens foreshadows the penurious family through the Ghost of Christmas Present sprinkling his torch, ‘to a poor one most’, because ‘it needs it most’ upon the Cratchit household. Their impoverished circumstances are further displayed by Dickens through their surroundings. For example their inability to boast an array of glass, ‘two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle’ and other household items. Despite this, the jubilance exhibited by the family act as a stark contrast to their circumstances which acts to teach Scrooge and Dickens’ audience of the importance of happiness in life over wealth. Through Tiny Tim, Dickens also intends to critique the ideologies expressed by Bentha and Malthus, popular philosophies of the time, who believed greatest happiness in the greatest number and that famine and poverty acted as a form of natural intervention to prevent over population. Through Scrooge’s shame upon heaving his regurgitated words said by the Ghost of Christmas Present in regard to decreasing the ‘surplus population’
‘A Christmas Carol contains lessons not only for Scrooge, but for the society of Dickens’s day.’ Discuss.
Set against the backdrop of rampant industrialism, Charles Dickens’ classic novella, A Christmas Carol endorses the notion that all life is precious and equal. By taking his apparently irredeemable protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, on a supernatural journey, Dickens intends to convey to the complacent classes of the era the necessity of various traits among society that are vital such as the responsibility to those less fortunate and to employees as well as other necessary lessons such as charity. Dickens also warns the reader of the consequences that will follow if these lessons are not taken in heed.
Through the use of characters such as Tiny Tim and the Cratchit family, Dickens is able to display to scrooge and his audience the extent of the poverty within society. Dickens foreshadows the penurious family through the Ghost of Christmas Present sprinkling his torch, ‘to a poor one most’, because ‘it needs it most’ upon the Cratchit household. Their impoverished circumstances are further displayed by Dickens through their surroundings. For example their inability to boast an array of glass, ‘two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle’ and other household items. Despite this, the jubilance exhibited by the family act as a stark contrast to their circumstances which acts to teach Scrooge and Dickens’ audience of the importance of happiness in life over wealth. Through Tiny Tim, Dickens also intends to critique the ideologies expressed by Bentha and Malthus, popular philosophies of the time, who believed greatest happiness in the greatest number and that famine and poverty acted as a form of natural intervention to prevent over population. Through Scrooge’s shame upon heaving his regurgitated words said by the Ghost of Christmas Present in regard to decreasing the ‘surplus population’