Christmas Carol Context (CRIPT)

Question 1

Charles Dickens context

Answer 1

Dickens grew up in poverty and worked in the workhouse.The allegorical Novella was written in response to the report of the Children’s Employment commision which covered the dehumansing and exploitative conditions children were subject to in the Victorian era.

Question 2

Whats the context on religion

Answer 2

Religion was the foundation of morality in the Victorian era the seven deadly sins would lead to your downfall and redemption would happen when sin is confessed.Scrooge embodies the 7 deadly sins.Scrooge was granted redemption from the ghosts.

Question 3

Whats the industrial revolution context

Answer 3

Change from farming to factories,marked as the progressive era due to advancements in technology.Dickens scathes Britain for being at the peak of excellence and it still neglects and exploits the lower classes.

Question 4

Whats the 1834 poor law context.

Answer 4

Introduced the workhouses,the poor where sent there in exchange for food and shelter.Theywere hubs of squalor which expoited the poor.10% admitted to them would die.People like Scrooge enforced these laws which dehumanised them but also killed them.
The cratchits provide a small insight to how the poor were exploited by dehumanising laws like the poor law.

Question 5

What’s the context on Thomas Malthus

Answer 5

British economist who believed poverty was inevitable due to population increasing.Dickens makes Scrooge embody Malthusian views and ridicules this.