This essay focuses on the theme of sickness and greed in A Christmas Carol, including context and detailed analysis of quotes. This essay was marked as grade 9 and written for the Eduqas exam board, but can be adapted for any!
Introduction:
In his novella, A Christmas Carol, Dickens presents the ...
Write about how Dickens presents loneliness and isolation in his novella.
In your response you should:
• Refer to the extract and the novel as a whole
• Show your understanding of characters and events in the novel
• Refer to the contexts of the novel (40 marks)
In his novella, A Christmas Carol, Dickens presents the correlation between
sickness and greed; greed causing sickness in society – used to exhibit the infant
mortality and the prevalence of poverty and disease in the Victorian Era due to
the avarice of the upper class such as Scrooge. Dickens uses several of his
characters: Tiny Tim, Ignorance and Want, the Cratchits and also Scrooge
himself to reflect the sickness that greed causes within.
At the beginning of the novella, Dickens successfully presents greed
causing sickness within the character of an individual through the description of
Scrooge. He states: ‘covetous old sinner…stiffened his gait, made his eyes red
and his thin lips blue.’ The adjective ‘covetous’ demonstrates Scrooge’s greed,
wishing to keep his money, to himself and refusing to support those lower than
him, portraying the imbalance of wealth distribution of the Era. Dickens shows
how this avarice is the reason of Scrooge’s sickness of character within, but
impacting society to show how this sickness is mirrored in the mortality rates
and the poverty which was rife in the Victorian Era. The noun ‘sinner’ illustrates
how greed leads to lack of faith and sickness in religion – incriminating it further
by horrifying the reader as Christianity and religion was dominant in Victorian
society. The verb phrase ‘stiffened his gait’ highlights the sickness and obduracy
that greed causes, proven further by the verb ‘stiffened’. The use of the
adjective ‘red’ gives Scrooge almost vampiric qualities, further presenting his
greed and its wickedness, and the way he ruthlessly covets every coin that he is
able to. The adjective ‘blue’ further conveys Scrooge’s lack of affection and
empathy due to avarice – sickness in character as he is unable to feel human
empathy to those suffering in society. Dickens successfully presents how greed
perpetuates sickness both in character and society.
As Stave One continues, Dickens effectively uses the interactions between
Scrooge and his nephew, and the charity workers to presents how greed causes
societal sickness, due to the oppression of lower classes. Fred comments: ‘What
reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.’ This reveals how it is not
wealth that causes sickness, specifically greed; as Scrooge is only ‘morose’ due
to his lack of sharing his wealth with those less fortunate in society. Dickens
explicitly associates greed with sickness to criticise the avarice of business men
like Scrooge and those more affluent in society, who did not support or care to
do so for the underprivileged in society. These were the common held attitudes
towards them with the Victorian Era, as the poor were seen as responsible for
their own situations. This is disproved throughout A Christmas Carol through the
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