Representation of the poor in A Christmas Carol
In A Christmas Carol Dickens put in an element of entertainment for his readers, but he also found it necessary to alert them to the urgent need for social reform in the Britain of 1840s. He achieves this aim by depicting a range of different types of poverty and by inviting both Scrooge and his readers to consider how these might be relieved. In this essay I shall examine Dickens’ various depictions of the poor and their living conditions, paying particular attention to the differences between the ‘virtuous’ working poor and those who are nearly at the point of starvation.
Dickens represents different degrees of poverty in A Christmas Carol. In the first instance he introduces his readers to the ‘acceptable’ face of extreme poverty in the form of Bob Cratchit and his family. Although they occupy only four rooms and have hardly enough food to go around, they work hard to earn a living, keep themselves clean and are honourable and decent. The narrator’s pronouncement that due to Scrooge’s intervention, Tiny Tim ‘did NOT die’ makes it clear that the young boy’s state was the result of a poor diet and difficult living conditions. The fact that the two young Cratchits delight and amuse one another with commentary on the goose and the Christmas pudding also suggests that these children’s stomachs are empty and that they daydream about things that would now all be taken for granted in current society.
Bob and his family, who are clearly portrayed as very poor yet hardworking, are in direct contrast to the terrifying figures of Want and Ignorance, who are introduced by The Ghost of Christmas Present. Almost wild in their appearance, these two children are of a very different type from the patient and dutiful Tiny Tim, with his declaration ‘God bless Us, Every One!’ Described as ‘yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish’, Want and Ignorance are more confronting characters than any of the Cratchit family and they represent the true dangers behind urban poverty. The narrator tells us ‘Where angels might have enthroned, devils lurked; and glared one menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so terrible and dread’. These figures have been robbed of their childhood and due to their deprivation of the most basic items required to survive, they have been turned into vicious predators. Underlying the Ghost’s description is a warning, ‘beware them both’ which seeks to shock both Scrooge and the reader into taking the otherwise jolly ghost, the figures and their plight seriously.
Scrooge, as we learn from his time with the first spirit, is a character who is desperately afraid of poverty. When confronted by Belle about his changed behaviour, instead of denying the accusation he argues that he has become wiser and seeks to explain himself by saying ‘There is nothing on which [the world] is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!’ Here, Scrooge covers his society’s hypocrisy in neglecting those in need, while sneering at those who are gathering money. In fact, this is known as a society in which sufferers were punished through being sent to the workhouse, as many preferred to starve rather than call upon the authorities for aid.
Scrooge may be drawn in by what he observes of the Cratchits’ merry feast and the many other celebrations he witnesses with the second ghost. However, it is not their world he worries about, but rather that of Want and Ignorance. Scrooge’s discomfort when he travels to the ‘infamous resort’ of Old Joe the pawnbroker is obvious. The narrator tells us that Scrooge has never visited this part of town before, but knows its poor reputation and emphasises the fear of any respectable citizen going into the area by commenting that ‘secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags’. This scene is an important one, as it demonstrates not only the degree to which Scrooge is disliked by everyone who knows him, but also the terrible poverty which drives people to rob the dead. The ghastly pestilence of the slums and their ‘half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly’ inhabitants reveals a world in which nobody can be expected to prosper or live a decent life.
Dickens understood that while readers were able to identify with sympathised versions of poverty designed to avoid offence, the divisions within society were simply too great. In moving from the world of the Cratchits to the vicious world of the London slums, Dickens hoped to shock those with power, like his middle-class readers, into understanding that the needs of the underclass on their doorstep had to be addressed as a priority. Continued disregard would result in the type of ‘doom’ prophesied by The Ghost of Christmas Present and a probable uprising against those who ignored the poverty all around them.