How successful is Dickens in A Christmas Carol at revealing social conditions in Victorian London?

Dickens then moves on to give his first, albeit brief, description of the life of the poor in Victorian London. A man arrives at scrooge's office collecting money for charity. Scrooge is surprised and asks the man if there are any prisons. The man replies that there are. Scrooge then asks if there are any Union Workhouses. The man replies that there are. Scrooge asks finally if there are the treadmill and Poor Law in full vigour. The man replies that they are very busy. In Victorian times there were very few places the poor could go to get help. They would steal or get involved with other crime or go to a workhouse where they would labour for gruel (a kind of porridge) and a space on the floor to sleep. Families were split up and children sent away. Scrooge is happy with these solutions and does not care if they are inhuman or not. Scrooge then sums up the attitude at the time by saying, 'but besides - I don't know that'. Just because scrooge does not know acknowledge the dreadful conditions he feels that he has no need to want to change them and rejects basic provisions for the poor. However at the time his was not an extreme view, especially in the middle classes. They had mostly worked their way up the social ladder and feel that if they did it then others can do it -why should they have to pay through higher taxes and charity. The basic message is that the middle class doesn't want to pay, mainly because they think that the existing system is fine. Another view of scrooge's is represented in the quote 'if they had better die...they had better do it quickly and decrease the surplus population.' Scrooge clearly thinks that these poor people are a waste and it is their fault for having too many children, a system is in place and if they don't like it then tough.

Dickens wants his readership's attitude to change and he has decided to do it through four ghosts, and four lessons. This is because he cannot tell them himself or he would never have got the book published as it would have been too risky, and so he got around this by using a third party - the ghosts. The ghost of Marley appears and confronts scrooge. Scrooge's way of judging people is by how good a businessman they are, just as Marley had done. In death Marley realises this is wrong, the first lesson. In order to change he has to receive three ghosts otherwise he 'cannot hope to shed the path I [Marley] tread.' Not only is dickens telling his character to listen to the ghosts and learn the lessons, he is saying it to the readers as well.

The first ghost, the ghost of Christmas past, visits Scrooge and shows him up to a point where he could have chosen to go down a different path. Immediately after seeing how a simple act can make people happy Scrooge changes and wishes to say a word to Bob Cratchit and apologise. Scrooge is then shown what he has lost. He sees Bell who had left him because he spent too much time at work. Bell is married with children and he sees what he could have had and then what he has been missing out on - Christmas celebrations.

Scrooge is then met by the ghost of Christmas Present. At first Dickens describe the houses as 'black enough, and the windows blacker', showing the poorest part of London for what it really is. But then he changes showing the shops in London full of food, as if the poor have no problem getting all this food in a happy congruously festive atmosphere. The sentence, 'steeples called good people all, to church and chapel'. Dickens even throws in the idea of going to church to appease his readership and make them feel more charitable if the poor were seen as good Christians like they believed themselves to be they would feel more charitable towards the poor. He even talks about the baker's ovens cooking geese, almost saying they aren't that poor because they can afford geese and implies that everyone is the same and generalises the poor. This is before we consider the poor' living conditions. Dickens then further identifies the poor with the Cratchits by establishing the identity off Tiny Tim. Scrooge is the introduced to his nephew's party and scrooge enjoys being there so much he doesn't want to leave. This is the first real clue as to how much scrooge has changed. The ghost then produces the hideous figures of want and ignorance. To make the blow hit harder they are depicted as children. They are Dickens's way of telling his readers what actually goes on in the perversion of humanity. They are not actually real, rather symbolic representations like cartoon characters and they are different from what scrooge is being told about them. Dickens tells his readers through the ghost to look out for them, particularly ignorance but at the same time he cannot tell his readers the truth.

The last ghost appears and shows scrooge his own funeral, but scrooge fail to appreciate the meaning of it. Then the ghost shows scrooge his own grave. Scrooge then tells the ghost that he is a changed man, but is uncertain if the future can be changed. We are also shown the picture of Bob Cratchit weeping over the loss of his son Tiny Tim. Even in death we are not shown a picture of Tiny Tim suffering, there is no illness. Dickens uses this sentimental effect to show how he will be missed.

When scrooge wakes up the change is immediately noticeable. He visits his nephew to reunite the family; again this is something his readers will approve of, and makes the Cratchits lives happier.

The main message of the book is be charitable and give money to the poor. Dickens is so aware of his readership, however, that he has to insert the mechanical point telling his readers that Tiny Tim did not die.

In conclusion Dickens does not describe the social conditions of the poor in London adequately. The proof of this is in Mayhew, who described the social and other appalling conditions in London for the poor. It shows that dickens is not being truthful. He shows the poor homogenously, grouping them together but there is a substantial between dickens version of Victorian London and reality. Dickens needs to get his point across about changing but he can only do so if he provides a sanitised version for his readers. In reality the Cratchits are very well off for people of their class, they have a respectable home and Bob Cratchit has a good job that pays fifteen shillings a week, which is a huge amount for a poor family. I think that dickens wanted to show London as it truly was for the poor but he couldn't do that because people were too sensitive about their own position and standing and felt vulnerable so he inserts pictures such as going to church and no suffering whilst alerting his readers to the problems. To a certain extent he is successful as he shows that there are problems in London but he does not go far enough to show the reality and alienate his readers.