Christmas Carol and household words Essay

What view of his own society does dickens show in a Christmas Carol and Household words? In 1845 Dickens wrote a Christmas Carol and Household word in 1856. He wrote them to demonstrate the conditions in which the poor had to have to live with in the Victorian age. Dickens wrote household words to show the well off people what the conditions were really like. He wrote Christmas Carol to entertain but also to show that things could get better. He shows many aspects of his own society in both texts The conditions for the poor were very hard and cruel. The rest of society did not treat them very well and they were ordered about. There was no care for the ill and slightly poor. Only the people that were destitute were given help and a place to stay for the night. In the morning they were given a piece of bread to last for the day. There was not that many that would get in. The destitute were forced to live in the gutters of the streets. â€Å"And if they get in, they would only have a roof for the night and a bit of bread in the morning,† this is a quote from household words spoken by a working class man that Dickens was talking to. The destitute people were the ones who had nothing of their own to live on. There were laws that stated that help must be given to these people. The more well off people were not that charitable towards these laws as shown in Christmas Carol when Scrooge told the two people who were collecting for charity to go away and to leave him alone. The poor were pushed to the side by the better off people. They had no choice but to accept blasi. Which means they had to get used to the conditions that they had to live their lives around. They had no choice. The poor were really miserable and depressed because there was never much room for them to stay. The poor were treated unfairly compared to the well off people. They were not treated like equals. The well off people employed the poorer people as they were cheaper to employ and they were able to boss them around. They had power over the poor because the poor were not in any persition to argue with the well off. If they did they would have lost their job on the spot. The less unfortunate people could not help that they were placed in a poor society, they were just unlucky The well off people were not charitable because they wanted to keep the money for themselves. They did this because if any thing was to happen to them in the future they would still have enough money to live on as nobody wanted to end up in the work houses. People like Timothy Winters were not cared for because he was not considederded to be that poor as he had a roof over his head and his father had a job working for Scrooge. Timothy was disabled. The working class man that Dickens was talking to in household words was one of a few that cared about the lower class but there was nothing that he could do about it. He blamed the society for what the lower class had to put up with. â€Å"This is an awful sight sir, in a Christian country†. In this quote the man was saying that you should treat others as you want to be treated yourself by others. This quote is telling the readers that the society that Dickens lived in is a Christian society. Christians are taught to respect others. The above quote surgest that the people in London were not respecting others. If they did respect others there may not have been so many well off people ignoring the poorer ones. The wells off people were not aware what the life was like for the poor. As they were not aware of how the poor lived they did not respect them. Scrooge was stingy with his money; he tried to save all the money that he could. Scrooge took the saving of money to the extreme. He was very stingy he would not share anything with anyone. He was not happy when his worker Mr Winters (Timothy Winter’s father) asked to have half the day off as it was Christmas day. He said I be paying you a full days pay but you will only be working for half the day. Scrooge does not believe in Christmas and good will, this is why he is not happy about letting his worker go home early. He knows that the work will not get done. This was so that he had money for the future. In the Victorian age there was no such thing as insurance or welfare. This meant that if you lost your business you would lose every thing and you would have nobody to turn to. For example if you had a fire and lost all off the contents of your business you would end up with no money to live on. You would then end up living in the workhouses, which were not very pleasant places to be in. nobody wanted to end up in a workhouse. But if you had saved money over the years you would still be able to live quite a happy life. This is why the richer people never gave much to the less fortunate. Most of the society was like this. You did get a few people that wanted to share what little they had with the ones who had nothing. In Dickens times every body was only thought about themselves. They would put themselves first and other last. Dickens is demonstrating in both texts that family is important In Dickens time there was three different classes of people, the upper, the working and the lower class. In both text dickens only describes the working and the lower. He talks about how the upper class treats the lower and the working classes.