A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Essay -- Christmas Carol Charles

A Christmas Carol by Charles DickensCharles Dickens wrote his novels during the Victorian times. Britainwas a harsh place at this time with the upper and lower classes beingnessclearly separated. Dickens himself grew up as part of the lowerclasses, and so he knew what it was like. It was truly hard for thepoor to survive, many of them having no alternative only when to go into the completionurehouses. This seemed to be the worst place to end up, as manypeople would rather flummox died than gone into the workhouses. Whenpeople went to the workhouses, they were separated from theirfamilies, forced to work long hours and hardly fed at entirely. Theworkhouse system was the upper classes solution to poverty, but it didnot divine service at all. The lower classes were still living very hard lives.Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843 to try to bring thelower classes hard lives to the attention of people who could dosomething about it the upper classes. He obstinate to write a novelbecause he felt that more people would take an interest in a bookrather than leaflet, because the attitude towards lot the poor wasnot good. In the novel, the main character, Scrooge, is used topersonify the upper classes. The three ghosts are used to show thatthe poor are not all idle and that some are genuinely in need.Before the ghosts came, Scrooge was hard and sharp as flint andsolitary as an oyster. There is a lot of descriptive words usedabout Scrooge (in the 6th - 8th paragraphs) by Dickens, which givesthe impression that Scrooge was bitter, cold and lonely. He believedthat if people were poor, it was not his business and he just wantedto be left alone. He refused to give money to the poor at Christmasand sai... ...f theydo not change their ways, then the poor people who still have somedignity, who were shown by the Ghost of Christmas Present, will alsoeventually become so desperate, that the seedy, dirty London that isshown by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is what the whole citywill end up like.Dickens presents the lower classes realistically he does not try tomake out that all poor people are kind hearted. He tries to make theupper classes realise that the situation of the poor can only getbetter if they do something to help. He also tries to make the reader sense concerned about Tiny Tim and show the upper classes that they canhelp when Tiny Tim is mentioned, it is almost like a personal appealto the reader to help someone in need. Dickens presents the lowerclasses effectively and this is probably why the book is still verypopular today.