Relevant Context Flashcards
Name a law relevant to A Christmas Carol
1834 Poor Law
Almost 10 years before ACC was written and published
Name a crucial economist whom Dicken’s criticised in A Christmas Carol
Thomas Malthus
Who was ACC likely read by?
The middle and upper classes
‘Dicken’s middle and upper class readership’
This is important because it meant Dicken’s could target and convince these infleuntial groups (who, unlike the poor, also had the ability to vote) to advocate for an easing or abolishment of the 1834 poor law which he portrays as abhorrant and unchristian.
What was Malthus’ main point?
Resources wouldn’t be able to support the rapidly increasing Victorian population
How was the population changing in Victorian times?
Rapidly increasing
Malthus thought that this placed so much pressure on resaurces that the most logical course of action was eliminate the least efficient members of society, the idle poor.
Advancing scientific discovery in the Victorian Era contributed to what?
Victorian Era needs a capital ‘E’ as a widely accepted time period name
‘Victorian Crisis of Faith’
In equating Scrooge’s joy at the end of the novella with his ‘rebirth’, an allusion to the Christian rite of baptism but also salvation through Jesus’ human birth at Christmas, what may Dicken’s have hoped to spark in his readership?
Inspire persistance in Christianity amidst the Victorian Crisis of Faith and maybe even encourage some of his perhaps newly atheist readership to themselves be ‘reborn’ and rekindle their relationship with God.
Who did Malthus believe were the most inefficient members of society?
The idle poor
