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Question: Read from ‘From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children’ to ‘This girl is Want’ (Stave Three, page 63). In this extract, Scrooge questions the Spirit about what is hidden beneath its robes.
Starting with this extract, explore how Dickens presents ideas about poverty.
Write about:
- how Dickens presents poverty in this extract through the description of the children
- how Dickens presents ideas about poverty in the novel as a whole.
Charles Dickens presents poverty in this extract through the description of the children by giving a terrible picture of them. He says they are ‘frightful, hideous, miserable’. They are also kneeling down so they could be begging for help. One of them has ‘a stale and shrivelled hand’ which shows they are hungry or disabled.
Scrooge is appalled by them: ‘Scrooge started back, appalled.’ The Spirit says the boy is called Ignorance – ‘This boy is Ignorance.’ The girl is called Want – ‘This girl is Want.’ This will be because the boy had never been to school because there were no schools back then. The girl did not have enough money for food or clothes and other things she needed. This was the same for a lot of children at that time.
It is very different from people having a happy time at Christmas as we saw in rich people’s houses such as Fred’s. This is to show the difference between rich and poor people at that time.
There is a lot of poverty shown in the rest of the novel as well. Some people are rich, such as Scrooge, and some people are poor, such as Bob Cratchit. Bob has to work long days and only has a small piece of coal in his fire. His family is poor and his son Tiny Tim is disabled. They do not have a lot of food but they are happy to get together and they feel as if they are having a great time even though they don’t have very much.
There are other poor people mentioned when the charity collectors come and ask Scrooge for a contribution, but he refuses. He thinks they should stay in prisons and workhouses, but Marley’s ghost tells him he is wrong and teaches him a lesson with the ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. The message of the book is that we should help the poor at Christmas. Charles Dickens thought the rich people like Scrooge made a lot of money, but they did not care for others. This is because the Victorian times had a lot of poor people living in the cities and lots of children were orphans who were badly treated.
By the end Scrooge is convinced that he should be more generous and he turns over a new leaf. He gives Bob Cratchit a pay increase and helps his family. ‘Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim who did not die, he was a second father.’
I think it is a really good story with a strong message.