Ignorance and Want Flashcards
(8 cards)
Significance of ignorance and want coming with the ghost of christmas present.
They’re here, in this present moment of time. Their appearance can’t be ignored.
They’re described as;
‘wretched, abject…
frightful, hideous, miserable’
Wretched shows how they’re misfortunate.
Abject shows they have no pride or dignity.
Miserable shows their unhappiness.
These are used to shock the reader - Structure accounts for this as the reader had just read about the cheerful christmas festivities at fred’s , followed by scrooges tour around homes ‘always with a happy end’
Jarring change and tone is out of sync with earlier celebrations.
He also uses listing to describe the children as..
‘Yellow, meagre..
ragged, scowling, wolfish.’
Poverty had dehumanized them.
‘Yellow’ connotes illness, possibly caused by jaundice.
‘Meagre’ - lacking in quantity or quality - implying they’re malnourished or undersized as they haven’t had enough food to grow properly.
‘Ragged’ - underdressed in winter.
‘Scowling’ - frowning in an angry, bad tempered way.
‘Wolfish’ - dehumanized- more like predatory animals than human.
How do ignorance and want relate to dickens own experience?
He went to a ‘ragged school’ in london - saw kids who were like how he described ignorance and want - couldn’t gain admission into charity schools and driven from any church.
Mentioned the frightful neglect by the state for these povertal children - and the education system was imperfect.
Ghost of christmas present quote;
‘They are man’s and they cling to me… appealing from their fathers..
This boy is ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware the both, and all of their agree, but most of all beware the both for on his brow I see that written which is doom, unless the writing be erased.’
Howcome the boy was called ignorance?
Due to Dickens own experience when he saw a crowd of boys.
‘varying from mere infant to young men’
They sold lots of things, slept under bridges, stole, begged, lost their youth, nothing pleasant about them, and ‘speeding downward to destruction’ and were ignorant. They don’t know how to behave, like ignorance and want.
Why was the girl called want?
Lack of freedom for women in that era.
Most didn’t get to attend school.
Ignorance leads to want.
What was the children ignorant and want inspired by in Dickens life?
his visit to ‘Ragged schools’ - the only place that would accept these children of poverty.
Education is a tool to break the cycle of ignorance and want.
