Poverty Flashcards
“Are there no prisons?” “Are there no workhouses?”
STAVE 2
Scrooge makes it clear that he believes that
-Those who are poor should be imprisoned
- this shows how misanthropic he is
‘Gain, engrosses you.”
STAVE 2
- Belle says this to Scrooge to show how obsessed he is with money ‘Gain’.
‘another idol has displaced me…a golden one’ -
STAVE 2
Metaphor here shows Scrooge’s fear of poverty (perhaps stemming from being left at school alone at Christmas time) and his** obsession with money**.
‘He held his withered little hand’ (Tiny Tim)
STAVE 3
Shows how the poor suffer as they cannot afford proper medical care and therefore, are left** ‘withered’**.
‘A custard cup without a handle’
STAVE 3
-Everything is broken at the Cratchits which shows their poverty and destitution and their need.
‘Brave in ribbons’
- This is said to describe Mrs Cratchits attempt to look good despite her
‘They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish’
‘Wretched’ ‘abject’ ‘hideous’ ‘miserable’
STAVE 3
- Ignorance and Want - they connote the needs of the poor in society - their poverty has made them less humane. They highlight how deeply the poor need support.
The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly…. the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.
STAVE 4
Remember some of key adjectives used to describe the areas in which the poor inhabit in Victorian London and how desperately they need support.
The chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chucklewith which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chucklewith which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.
STAVE 5
Just remember the fact that in Stave Five he helps all kinds of normal people by paying for services and help and Dickens uses the verb ‘chuckle’ five times to emphasise how much it has positively affected Scrooge.
