How Dickens Makes Readers Aware of Poverty in A Christmas Carol

Explore how Dickens makes his readers aware of poverty in A Christmas Carol

One of the major themes in "A Christmas Carol" was Dickens'

observations of the plight of the children of London's poor and the

poverty that the poor had to endure.

Dickens causes the reader to be aware of poverty by the use and type

of language he uses. He uses similes and metaphors to establish clear

and vivid images of the characters who are used to portray his

message.

Dickens describes his characters like caricatures. Dickens exaggerates

characters characteristics in order to make his point and provide the

reader with a long living memory. Dickens' readers enjoy a visual

richness of Dickens' characters. His description of Scrooge provides

the reader with a much larger than life image, assuming the

exaggerated proportions of a caricature.

Early on in "A Christmas Carol" Dickens provides the reader with a

very clear image of Scrooge describing him as "hard and as sharp as

flint," and "solitary as an oyster." These descriptions show that

Scrooge does not like to have conversations with people and therefore

does not have any close friends if any friends at all. Scrooge is also

described as cold hearted and being sharp when he talks to people.

These similes provide the reader with a clear image of Scrooge as

somebody who is wealthy but is unwilling to share what he has got.

In writing the novel Dickens presents a portrayal of the rich and poor

people in 1843. The fictional works of Charles Dickens are profoundly

intertwined with the real events of his past. Dickens' themes often

prove to have powerful reference points in his personal experience,

particularly to those of his youth and adolescence. The warehouse work

at age 12, the humiliating shadow of prison and family debt, questions

of money and social rank, and topical issues of law and reform

preoccupied him in early life - but they rankled and haunted him

through his later years as well, and are present in various forms in

all of his writings. In all of these fictional imaginings, drawn from

the turmoil of his own life, the reader senses Dickens' compassion for

the less fortunate and his desire to find real meaning and substance

behind an individual's worth favoured by society, wealth, class,

power, and education.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812, in Portsmouth, England. He spent his

formative years in London, and began his schooling at age nine. In

1824, his father, John, suffered financial difficulties and was

stripped of his house by creditors. As was the custom, the entire

Dickens family was banished to debtor's prison at Marshalsea until