GCSE AQA English Literature 'A Christmas Carol': Generosity Essay.
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Vak
English
Instelling
GCSE
How does Dickens present generosity in ‘A Christmas Carol’?
Write about:
How Dickens presents the theme of generosity in this extract.
How Dickens presents the theme of generosity in the novel as a whole.
I scored 27 out of 30 on this essay.
How does Dickens present generosity in ‘A Christmas Carol’?
Write about:
How Dickens presents the theme of generosity in this extract.
How Dickens presents the theme of generosity in the novel as a whole.
Dickens deliberately exemplifies the importance of generosity by using the didactic
novella to further his social agenda. It seemed that Dickens blamed the huge
stratification of Victorian England on the capitalistic and Malthusian views of the rich
Victorian classes. Many middle class people failed to see the poor as their
responsibility and Dickens wanted the rich to share their wealth. Therefore, his
novella is intended to encourage the generosity of the middle class Victorian and he
felt that this would solve the problem of overpopulation. Therefore, in this scene we
see Dickens using the Ghost of Christmas Present to symbolise generosity and
plenty. In the rest of the novella, we see Dickens showing that misanthropic, miserly
behaviour is punished and redemption can be achieved by being generous towards
fellow man.
At the start of the extract we see a vignette that is used to present the idea that there
is enough food for everyone in Victorian England. The vignette uses an asyndetic list
to reinforce the idea of plenty. ‘…turkey, geese, game, poultry, brawn…’ The long list
highlights the idea that all this food is piled high in Scrooge’s room and arranged as
a ‘throne’. Therefore, this shows that Scrooge could choose to live in the light and
share his wealth with extravagance. His income allowed him to enjoy excess and
generosity, yet Scrooge chooses to live in the ‘darkness’ because it was ‘cheap’ and
he eats ‘gruel’. Scrooge’s lifestyle is deliberately contrasted against the scene that is
introduced to him by the Spirit of Christmas present. Therefore, Dickens exploits the
list to show how attractive and alluring this lifestyle is to the middle class readers.
The ghost embodies generosity in an attractive way that shows generosity to be a
positive attribute.
Furthermore, Dickens draws on the presentation of the Ghost of Christmas Present
to emphasise how generous character traits can make people more attractive and
appealing. The Ghost’s description embodies positivity and generosity; it is evidently
reminiscent of the description of Fred at the start of the novella. We see the
adjectives used to highlight the idea of plenty. The Spirit has a ‘capacious breast’.
The choice of the adjective exposes the idea that his chest was large and the
physical description is used to symbolise his large heart, reinforcing his charitable
disposition. Moreover, many Victorians believed in physiognomy that a person’s
physical characteristics could highlight their personality and large people were
deemed to be more trustworthy. Therefore, the readers can elicit that the spirit is
depicted as honest and openly generous. Notably, Dickens uses more adjectives
that capture the spirits generous demeanour. It has a ‘genial face’, ‘sparkling eye’
and ‘open hand’. Together these adjectives imply that the Spirit is friendly; it
embraces the light that symbolises goodness and the ‘open hand’ illustrates that it is
not ‘tight-fisted’. The Spirit is present in direct contrast to the miserly, greedy and
dark character of Scrooge. Therefore, we see that the spirit embodies qualities that
need to be embraced by the protagonist, Scrooge. One of the most importance
aspects of Dickens’ vignette is that the Spirit holds the horn of Plenty to highlight the
importance of being generous at Christmas.
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