Greed

Question 1

‘gruel’

Answer 1

Cheap
Used in workhouses
Scrooge isn’t greedy, he accumulated money

Question 2

The idle poor

Answer 2

‘cant afford to make idle people merry’
• refers to expression common in the Victorian era, the ‘idle poor’
• Scrooge’s view isn’t alone - using words popular in society
• don’t work hard enough/save enough
• greed is the greed of the reader - not for excess, but to deny others and look down on the working class by holding on to what you have
• emphasises the most important theme is ignorance

Question 3

‘reduce the surplus population’

Answer 3

• Scrooge interprets this as sending them to workhouses/allowing them to die
• in reality, Malthus was a vicar - just wanted them to marry later in life/have fewer children
• politicians have applied this cruelly - political diatribe
• society is organised in such a way that all the wealth goes to the rich - not just individual avarice

Question 4

‘charwoman’
‘laundress
‘undertaker’s man’

Answer 4

• looking out for the economic needs of other criminals
• emphasises they are not evil
• paid so little by wealthy that they are forced to steal

Question 5

Old Joe - Stave 4

Answer 5

• ‘old Joe’
• ‘nearly seventy years of age’
• ‘the parlour’ - ‘space behind the screen of rags’

After a lifetime of stolen goods, still doesn’t have any money
• kept poor by those paying
• so perhaps it isn’t Scrooge that is greedy but society
• if middle class, you would have a maid and
• maid of all work - £6
• Scrooge pays Bob £39 - how ‘tight fisted’ society is, doesn’t just reflect on individuals
• greed of society is set up in a way to exploit the poor

Question 6

‘Another idol has displaced me… A golden one’

Answer 6

• reference to the Bible
• don’t believe in Jahovvas witness
• golden idol is someone who turns away from Christian values
• reader spends money on lots of employees by making sure they stay poor

Question 7

‘ a weeks delay’

Answer 7

• doesn’t hope that he won’t have to pay back the loan
• only hopes for a delay because he knows every other business man will do the same
• symbolic that Scrooge is every other man of business
• just charges the going rate
• it’s society

Question 8

‘a great many back payments’
‘salary’

Answer 8

• tension builds more as Scrooge announces he will increase Cratchits ‘salary’
• because Scrooge is emphasising if everyone raised wages it would have a greater affect than just charity - this is how society will change