Context Flashcards
Charles Dickens was a social reformer, deeply concerned with the harsh plight of the
lower and working classes
He sought to remedy the inequities the lower classes faced through the use of his
writing and the recognition that it
brought him
He frequently took part in benefit engagements and
charity events
Dickens was particularly concerned with the health, treatment and well-being of
children
By the mid-nineteenth century, it is believed that well over __________ children in London had never attended a school of any kind
100,000
Those children who did not attend school
worked
They worked in
factories, mines, shipyards, construction businesses and chimney sweep enterprises
Some children had been working since the age of
three
Some children worked in some of the more dangerous workplaces, such as
iron or coal mines
Life expectancy generally didn’t exceed the mid
twenties
As a result of increased mechanization in such workplaces, children were often the preferred workforce – they could be paid less than
adults
Dickens never quite experienced the same levels of
poverty as so many of his fellow Londoners, but his
family did contend with
hardship and separation
After losing his job as a pay clerk for the British
Navy in 1824, Dickens’ father was sent to a
debtor’s prison
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
boot-blackening factory
Although his stay in the factory was comparatively short, the experience for Charles was
life-altering
In A Christmas Carol, the “squeezing, wrenching, grasping” Ebenezer Scrooge, when asked for a charitable donation for the less-fortunate, responds by
asking after the state of prisons and workhouses and the status of several poor-relief laws sponsored by taxes
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
upper classes
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
requesting such aid
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
social contract, an unbreakable bond amongst all people
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
less fortunate
Dickens’ work, also addressed the importance of
home and family, of kindness and
gentleness and humility
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
money, class and status
Dickens’ novels were serialized as a way to make them more affordable for
readers of all classes
In A Christmas Carol Dickens outlines his concerns for the
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
It is telling that Dickens names two of his characters
Want and Ignorance, warning to beware of both but especially Ignorance “for Ignorance is ____ _____ __ __ ______.”
Doom, unless it be erased
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
altered for the worse
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
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.
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
sufficient means, which the Cratchits were not
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
healthy society?’’
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?
honest
Had Cratchit left Scrooge’s employ, what would have happened to the Cratchit _____ – debtor’s prison? Residence in a workhouse?
family
Dickens once said in a benefit speech that employer and employee share
“a mutual duty and responsibility”?
It was Dickens’s belief that duty and responsibility to one another was common to
everyone
