bob key themes

• dickens intents

  • His scathing critique of systemic injustices in society, personified through blind gratitude the working classes, like Bob, feel toward their exploiter.
  • In this allegorical novella, he dispels the idea that wealth is synonymous with superiority. Thus, he constructs Bob and the Cratchits to symbolise morality and communal values it possesses moral superiority.
  • Bob is a microcosm of exploited poor. His character is crafted as inherently benevolent, yet subjected to immense unjust suffering to humanise the struggles of the working classes and prompt the reader to reconsider social misconceptions regarding poverty.
• “clerk“ stave 1

  • selfishness and social injustice
  • Lack of identity: Bob being referred to simply as the “clerk” → symbolic of dehumanisation and marginalisation experienced by poor in Victorian England.
  • Reiterates omission of his name and shows the social attitude that stripped poor of individuality, reducing them to minor cogs into machinery of an industrialising society.
  • Bob’s anonymity is symbolic of the motif of social inequality and the power dynamic between the upper and lower classes — he is under the oppressive thumb of Scrooge, a ruthless embodiment of capitalist greed.
  • Perceived as a faceless member of the exploited poor, who unfairly faced prejudices due to stereotypes of laziness and being viewed as a social burden.
• “i give you mr scrooge, the founder of the feast” 


  • ”founder” connotes creatorship reflecting how big perceived scrooge with quasi-divine reverence, granting and blessing him with the ability to afford ’luxeries’
  • reinforces with gratitude towards “goose”; using superlative “rarest” despite the irony this was a cheap bird in victorian england
  • explorers disheartening reality where the destitute like bob feel indebted and blindly grateful to their exploiters, highlighting dickens scathing critique of systemic injustice
  • exclamative sentence; bob epitomises the power of true wealth
  • despite meagre materialistic possessions their reverent gratitude is emphasised
  • thus big and the cratchits symbolise morality and communal values challenging the ideas that the material wealth equates to moral superiority
  • minimal yet virtuous lifestyle serves as start contrast to avariciousness and callousness embodied by scrooge
• “my little little child! cried bob my little child!”

  • selfishness poverty and kindness
  • recurring adjectives “little” evokes imagery of fragility and innocence
  • vulnerable children often fall victim to relentless cycle of poverty
  • allows dickens to emphasise harsh realities and repeated exploitation have bt most defenceless members of society
  • a desperation for social reform
  • provides a solution to perpetual cycle of poverty
  • development of social conscience in “second father”
  • portrayal of tiny tim as “angelic” coupled with bobs kindness exacerbates the damaging effects of malthusian ideology
  • despite morality they are deemed economic burdens and dismissed as ”surplus population“
  • subjected to unjust hardship