Dickens' Aims in A Christmas Carol
In 'A Christmas Carol', Dickens is trying to get across to the rich
people of society the difference between their lives and those of the
poor. He does this by using Scrooge, who personifies the rich people.
It is set at Christmas time in early Victorian times, a time of giving
and compassion. This signifies that the rich should give to the poor,
especially at a festive time like Christmas. Dickens saw the cold,
ugly conditions that the poor were living in and thought that he had
to do something about it, so he wrote 'A Christmas Carol'. He sees the
rich people as those with the power to change the poor people's lives.
It is the rich who need to be educated about the power they have to
change things for the benefit of the poor. The poor also need to be
educated so that they can earn money for themselves.
The tool that Dickens uses is Scrooge, he is a caricature of the
problems and he portrays what the rich people were like. The rich
people were the equivalent to Scrooge. He uses Scrooge to show the
wilful ignorance of the rich. Although Scrooge can afford to support
the poor, he only does this through paying his taxes which go towards
the workhouses and treadmill. Scrooge is a miser; he does not want to
give anything away. When Scrooge's clerk asks for Christmas day off
work:
'It's not convenient' Said Scrooge, 'and it's not fair. If I was to
stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be
bound?'
Scrooge is very selfish here. He can easily afford to not have his
clerk in for the most festive time of giving in the year but Scrooge
wants to ignore the time of year and ca...
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...ckens achieved his aims as part of a social
change. This was not because of 'A Christmas Carol' but it helped
people realise.
Dickens describes Scrooge with miserable adjectives at the start of
the book:
'A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old
sinner!'
At the end of the book when Scrooge has undergone his change Dickens
uses delightful adjectives:
'Golden sunlight: Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh,
glorious. Glorious!'
The rich people themselves could experience this change too if they
are willing to help the poor. When Scrooge visits his ex-fiancée, she
is married to someone else and they are quite poor. The room is small
but full of comfort, warmth and love. If Scrooge had not been so
obsessed with making money all of the time, that could have been him.
Dickens displays guilt as the main form of how Scrooge’s character develops into a compassionate person by the end of the novella. As Scrooge feels this quilt, it's purely based on the visions that the ghosts provide which further causes Scrooge to realise the consequences of his actions. His alienation from specific characters that he used to love such as Belle, “...has displaced me…” whom left Scrooge, due to his desire for money and wealth which grew. This desire grows with him as he is rejecting the christmas joy and spirit as he continuously states that Christmas is a “humbug,” but by stating this it provides comparison. Dickens depicts that Scrooge has become a better person because of fear but in the end he has become kinder. As the
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.
A Christmas Carol is presumably the most famous cost of fiction that Charles Dickens at any point composed.
Attitude Toward the Poor in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol Dickens encourages readers to change their views by showing what scrooge is like before, during and after the ghosts have visited him. " A Christmas Carol" is about a horrid old accountant and how people react around him on Christmas Eve. He is visited by 3 ghosts and they try and change his wicked ways. Dickens knows what it is like to work in factories because, as a child. he used to work in one, putting labels on shoe polish bottles.
work for a long working hour and not get any break or time off at any
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens is a tale of the morality changes of a man. The uncharitable, cold heart of the main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, melts with ardent love as he receives visitations from three Christmas spirits who enlighten his soul with wise lessons and bring a warm change to his heart. In the beginning of the novel, Scrooge expresses his vices of greed and cold heartedness by his words and actions, but as the story unfolds, his life is renewed by these Spirits who shed light and truth upon him, resulting in making him become a better man, portraying the virtue of charity.
you did not life was very tough. It is not a place where, I feel,
... contribute, and therefore are left out, pushed aside by the rich, who can rule. This nation is not the democracy Aristotle speaks, but rather an oligarchy very similar to Sparta.
Dickens' A Christmas Carol and the Industrial Revolution Besides being the secular story of Christmas time in an urban setting, A Christmas Carol, tells the sacred story of Christmas as well. With A Christmas Carol, Dickens initiated an ongoing creative process in the Anglo-American imagination. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and the growth and development of cities people's lives changed drastically as they moved from the life and traditions of the country into those of the city. As industrialization continued, for many people in the city living and working conditions worsened. As reports of horrible working conditions increased so did the literature of social concern for reform..
A Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and published in 1843. The novel was the first of five in a series of Christmas books that Dickens was commissioned to write. It is thought that several of the darkest episodes in his novels are based on his own personal experiences, for instance when his father spent some months in a debtor’s prison in London.
was no then they had to change for the better as no one wants to be
It is hard to believe that there is anyone on the planet that hasn't heard of the story "A Christmas Carol". Although it isn't hard to believe that people do not realize that there are differences between movies and novels. In this case, that fits right into that subject. Here are some of the differences between the movie and the novel.
“A Christmas Carol” written by Charles Dickens, is about a man named Ebenezer Scrooge , who realizes that all actions in life has a consequence. Ebenezer Scrooge was a nasty, mean, and cold-hearted person. He wouldn’t let his employees take off work for Christmas, he was rude to visitors that came to see if he would donate money and he was greedy. In fact he was so greedy that the woman he was engaged to called off the engagement because he was becoming to greedy. This is one example of actions have consequences. Another example is he was being rude to Bob Cratchit and wouldn’t let have the day off for Christmas in fact he wanted to work more. As a result, he had to witness and his own niece and nephew laughing
being seduced to. It has been said by many at the time that sex was
...th what little they have, however; why is it left to the poor to have to suffer the consequences of these political choices. The persistence of extreme poverty and social ills speak to a situation that bears for a different approach. It is clear that capitalism and free market solutions cannot spread wealth as advocated. American governments have shown their reluctance to admit this discrepancy through the strategic creations of welfare policies and welfare reform coupled with placing blame upon the citizens who possess little power to change market decisions that govern and effect their lives.