the portrayal of children and family relationships in A Christmas Carol by Dickens

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Explore how the portrayal of children and family relationships in A Christmas Carol by Dickens reflects the thoughts and feelings of the author.

A Christmas carol was written by Charles Dickens in 1843 it is a novel about a man called Scrooge journeying through Christmas’s past, present and future, he is ultimately transformed from an arrogant, obstinate and insensitive old man to a generous, warm hearted and caring human being. Dickens uses a wide range of techniques in A Christmas carol to portray his thoughts and feelings; he uses repetition, effective language, powerful verbs, unique imagery and a variety of sentence lengths and punctuation.

        

The first family scene that I felt was important was a family scene at the Cratchits; Dickens describes children in a way that was not always deemed correct in Victorian times. “Every child was conducting itself like forty”, this tells me that Dickens doesn’t want children to experience what he had to in his childhood, Dickens was sent to work in a factory when he was young to support his family, as shown in this quote he wants them enjoy themselves to the full In the first Cratchit scene the younger Cratchits are dancing, “the young cratchets danced around the table”, dickens condones the children’s actions and is happy they are having fun. Dickens uses imagery to involve us in the Christmas meal and make us see what they are eating, Dickens also shows how close families are no matter how troubled, using a Christmas pudding; “nobody said or thought it was at all small pudding for a large pudding”. The size doesn’t cross the family’s mind and as long as they are all together they are happy.

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In the scene, Dickens uses the phrase, “Universal admiration”, to describe how the family feel about the goose. It shows that even though they haven’t got a real turkey they don’t take anything for granted. The phrase implies that the whole universe admires it but in reality it’s just an average goose.

Following on, in the next family scene you see the closeness of the Cratchits on Christmas day. Dickens also uses the idea of their dinner to portray closeness within the family: “at last all the dishes were set on, and grace was said”. This ...

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