english literature

• Victorian Christmas


  Celebrations in Britain date back to the 1840s when Prince Albert married Queen Victoria
• Decorated Christmas tree


  • Brought to Britain from Germany by Albert in 1841
  • Soon adopted by most homes who wanted to join in the festivities
• Christmas card


  • Dates back to 1843 when Henry Cole asked an artist to design one
  • Were expensive at 1 shilling each
  • Many children began making their own and sending those
  • Idea of sending cards grew
  • Many still send Christmas cards today
• Serving turkey as main Christmas meal

  Comes from the Victorians
• Singing carols


  First collection being published in 1833
• Dickens enjoyed spending Christmas with his family
• Dickens believed Christmas should be a time of peace and goodwill to everyone no matter their social status
• Christmas spirit is still spread by many today with some people choosing to spend some of their holidays helping others and assuring they're supported and cared for
• Some adopt a more 'bah humbug' approach to festivities
• Dickens was acutely aware of the poverty evident in Victorian Britain
• Poverty in Victorian Britain

  • Lots of people living in cramped conditions as cities became overpopulated due to the Industrial Revolution
  • Crime was rife in the cities and difficult to control
  • Disease was overcoming many people due to unsanitary living conditions
  • Sewers struggling to cope with increased demand from people moving into cities
  • Many worked long hours in factories, whereas prior to Industrial Revolution more worked as farmers
  • Rich businessmen and factory owners exploited their workers expecting long hours for little pay
• Dickens experienced poverty when his family went into debt
• Dickens' works include references to poverty, including Little Dorrit, Hard Times and A Christmas Carol
• New Poor Law (1834)


  • Required anyone without a job to enter a workhouse to receive any financial assistance
  • Workhouses were deliberately very difficult places to discourage people from wanting to go there
  • Dickens was against this law and criticised it in some of his other writings
• In A Christmas Carol, the men collecting money at the start make the situation of poverty clear, saying many thousands are in want of common necessities
• Dickens presents education as a way out of poverty through his use of the two children 'Ignorance' and 'Want'
• Context


  The background information about a literary text that can provide important clues about the meaning of the text
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was written

  1843
• Victorian era


  • Time of transformation in Britain, industrial revolution had forced many to move to cities for employment causing overcrowding, disease and crime
• Dickens wrote about the theme of family and how families often let children down in the Victorian era in novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Great Expectations
• New Poor Law (1834)

  Ensured poor were housed in workhouses, clothed and fed, but conditions were deliberately harsh so only desperate would ask for help, families split up, poor made to wear uniforms and do unpleasant jobs
• About 25% of England's population was living in poverty at the time of A Christmas Carol's publication
• Malthusian trap


  Economist Thomas Malthus observed that increases in food production led to population growth and more poverty
• Scrooge was a Malthusian, turning away charity and saying the poor should "decrease the surplus population"
• In contrast to the poor, the rich lived grand lives in the Victorian era
• Scrooge lived frugally, eating gruel on Christmas Eve, despite being able to afford servants
• In 1843, Christmas was transitioning from a quiet religious holiday to one enjoyed by an entire community, with the first Christmas cards, crackers and decorated trees appearing
• Dickens celebrated Christmas lavishly, putting on elaborate 12th night performances
• Ghost stories on Christmas Eve

  Tradition dating back to pagan times when spirits were believed to return to earth during the winter solstice
• Marley's ghost


  Trapped in purgatory, an intermediate state of punishment after death, unable to find rest or peace
• Dickens is trying to hold a light up to Victorian behaviour and culture, instilling a more humane way forward
• Themes of the novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens


  • Family and isolation
  • Poverty, charity and greed
  • Redemption
  • Time
  • Christmas
  • Supernatural
• Theme 1: Family and isolation

  Dickens valued family, but the character of Scrooge has chosen isolation over family in order to make more money, leaving him lonely, mean-spirited and disliked by others
• Scrooge visits the Cratchits with the Ghost of Christmas Present


  He sees a family without wealth but filled with love and joy
• Theme 2: Poverty, charity and greed

  The poverty of the working class is contrasted with Scrooge's greed, but there are many references to charity in the story
• Scrooge dismisses the men asking for charity donations for the poor and destitute with a cruelty created by greed
• By the end of the novella


  Scrooge has become charitable and acknowledges the needs of the poor
• Theme 3: Redemption


  Scrooge's transformation from sinner to benefactor completes his redemption, as Dickens suggests those who see the error of their ways should be forgiven as long as their change is genuine
• Theme 4: Time


  Time is running out for Scrooge and Tiny Tim, and the past can influence our behavior, so we should live our lives to the full in the present
• Theme 5: Christmas


  The idea of Christmas as something to lift the spirits once a year, especially for those in poverty, was a relatively new concept when the story was first written