Ignorance and want

• 'Meagre, yellow, ragged, scowling, wolfish..'


  -use of an asyndetic list vividly depicts the sickly image of these children, contrasting the idea of youth associated with children

  -Dickens wanted to show the upper class the horrors of poverty, using the children to personify the societal neglect of the poor.

  -(link to crit of poor law)
• 'Are there no workhouses?'


  -Repetition of rhetorical question, scrooge asked earlier to the charity collectors. Makes Scrooge reflect on his ignorance, and see his redemption so far.

  -Readers begin to see him change
• 'they are man's'

  -The negligence of man has created ignorance and want, and what they symbolise

  -Possesive 'Man's' shows that they are all of societies problem, and that social responsibility is the only way to fix these problems in victorian society.