A Christmas carol
Dickens uses the character scrooge to influence his reader’s attitude to the poor of Victorian Britain.
Scrooge is the epitome of middle class attitudes towards poverty in their extreme described as a mollusk, “a tight fisted old sinner as solitary as an oyster” Scrooges only interest at the beginning of the novel is profit at he expense of humanity. This is demonstrated in his treatment of his clerk who works in gloomy conditions with nothing but a candle for warmth. His salary is low, his hours long and scrooge expresses an objection towards time off only one day a year.
Two business men arrived at Scrooge’s office for a collection for charity. Scrooge said “are there no prisons no workhouses” The poor laws provided workhouses and a prison for the poor. There was a wide spread attitude that the poor were lazy and in a situation where they could work. The laws paid little notice or regarded for those individuals who were unable to work and were in a situation of poverty through no fault of their own. Dickens found himself in such a situation when his farther went to debtors’ prison. Scrooge’s attitude towards charity workers is one of concept “if they had rather die they had better do it and decrease the population”
