poverty

• poor law 1834


  poor people were put in workhouses in return for shelter
• ignorance and want


  represent the neglect of society to the poor and uneducated
• ignorance and want


  "yellow , meagre , ragged , scowling , wolfish"
• "yellow , meagre , ragged , scowling , wolfish"

  dehumanising
• Scrooge did not care for the poor

  • "are there no prisons.. no workhouses?"
  • "they'd better do it and decrease the surplus population!"
  • "i cannot afford to make idle people merry"
• Cratchit family


  poor but content: "they were merry with the goose"
• CONTEXT

  Dickens had to work in a workhouse at the age of 12 because his father was sent to a debtors prison
• Thomas Malthus / Malthusian Economics


  disease and disaster is helpful as it reduces the amount of poor people which take up resources