Context

Question 1

Charles Dickens was a social reformer, deeply concerned with the harsh plight of the

Answer 1

lower and working classes

Question 2

He sought to remedy the inequities the lower classes faced through the use of his

Answer 2

writing and the recognition that it

brought him

Question 3

He frequently took part in benefit engagements and

Answer 3

charity events

Question 4

Dickens was particularly concerned with the health, treatment and well-being of

Answer 4

children

Question 5

By the mid-nineteenth century, it is believed that well over __________ children in London had never attended a school of any kind

Answer 5

100,000

Question 6

Those children who did not attend school

Answer 6

worked

Question 7

They worked in

Answer 7

factories, mines, shipyards, construction businesses and chimney sweep enterprises

Question 8

Some children had been working since the age of

Answer 8

three

Question 9

Some children worked in some of the more dangerous workplaces, such as

Answer 9

iron or coal mines

Question 10

Life expectancy generally didn’t exceed the mid

Answer 10

twenties

Question 11

As a result of increased mechanization in such workplaces, children were often the preferred workforce – they could be paid less than

Answer 11

adults

Question 12

Dickens never quite experienced the same levels of
poverty as so many of his fellow Londoners, but his
family did contend with

Answer 12

hardship and separation

Question 13

After losing his job as a pay clerk for the British

Navy in 1824, Dickens’ father was sent to a

Answer 13

debtor’s prison

Question 14

After Dickens’ father was sent to the debtor’s prison, he was followed soon after by his wife and
children with the exceptions of their daughter
Fanny (who remained in school) and Charles who
had been removed from school and sent to work in a

Answer 14

boot-blackening factory

Question 15

Although his stay in the factory was comparatively short, the experience for Charles was

Answer 15

life-altering

Question 16

In A Christmas Carol, the “squeezing, wrenching, grasping” Ebenezer Scrooge, when asked for a charitable donation for the less-fortunate, responds by

Answer 16

asking after the state of prisons and workhouses and the status of several poor-relief laws sponsored by taxes

Question 17

Scrooge believes the state of prisons and workhouses and the status of several poor-relief laws sponsored by taxes, is the extent of his duty to the poor and his sentiments were common ones, particularly among the

Answer 17

upper classes

Question 18

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was intended to end relief to any able-bodied person and make the remaining charity as minimal as possible to deter all but the most desperate from

Answer 18

requesting such aid

Question 19

It was Dickens’ belief in a ___________________, which put him at odds with the line of thinking of ideas such as the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and informed much of his writing

Answer 19

social contract, an unbreakable bond amongst all people

Question 20

Dickens would use his writing time and again to call attention to the plight of the poor, often raising the thorny
question of who was ultimately responsible (the government? The Church? Individuals? Some combination of the three?) for the care of the

Answer 20

less fortunate

Question 21

Dickens’ work, also addressed the importance of

Answer 21

home and family, of kindness and

gentleness and humility

Question 22

Dickens’ work, however, also addressed the importance of home and family, of kindness and
gentleness and humility as well as the potentially insulating and isolating effects of

Answer 22

money, class and status

Question 23

Dickens’ novels were serialized as a way to make them more affordable for

Answer 23

readers of all classes

Question 24

In A Christmas Carol Dickens outlines his concerns for the

Answer 24

welfare of the poor and needy (and particularly their children), the plight of the working class, the alleged indifference of the upper class to those less fortunate, the importance of family and home

Question 25

It is telling that Dickens names two of his characters

Want and Ignorance, warning to beware of both but especially Ignorance “for Ignorance is ____ _____ __ __ ______.”

Answer 25

Doom, unless it be erased

Question 26

Dickens, in letters to friends, expressed a fear that unless the needs of poor and desperate children were met, nineteenth century civilization would be forever be

Answer 26

altered for the worse

Question 27

Through Ebenezer Scrooge and his ghostly visitations, Dickens advances his concerns of what may happen to society in the absence of immediate changes – the poor getting

Answer 27

poorer, the sick getting sicker, the lower classes trapped in a spiral of poverty, a widening gulf between those with much and those with little.

Question 28

In A Christmas Carol, Tiny Tim, the lame son of Scrooge’s
beleaguered clerk, Bob Cratchit, suffers from what
is most likely a form of kidney disease, a condition
that was treatable for those with

Answer 28

sufficient means, which the Cratchits were not

Question 29

Tiny Tim’s disease symbolises the question as to ‘‘who is responsible (is each person responsible for his or her own health, regardless of means or situation?) for a

Answer 29

healthy society?’’

Question 30

Dickens’ concerns extended to those employed in less-than-desirable conditions. Why would Cratchit choose to endure the harsh treatment of an employer such as Scrooge? Was his position with “Scrooge and Marley” the only ______ way that he could support his family?

Answer 30

honest

Question 31

Had Cratchit left Scrooge’s employ, what would have happened to the Cratchit _____ – debtor’s prison? Residence in a workhouse?

Answer 31

family

Question 32

Dickens once said in a benefit speech that employer and employee share

Answer 32

“a mutual duty and responsibility”?

Question 33

It was Dickens’s belief that duty and responsibility to one another was common to

Answer 33

everyone