A Christmas Carol: Context and Dickens' Message
A Christmas Carol: Context and Dickens' Message
Understanding the historical context of A Christmas Carol is essential for the AQA exam. The mark scheme explicitly rewards responses that show understanding of how context influences the text. This note covers the key contextual factors and how Dickens uses the novella to deliver his social message.
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Why Dickens Wrote the Novella
In 1843, Dickens was already a famous novelist, but he was deeply troubled by the poverty he witnessed in Victorian England. Several events drove him to write A Christmas Carol:
The Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission (1843)
- A government report documenting the appalling conditions of child labour in mines and factories
- Children as young as 5 or 6 worked 12–16 hour days in dangerous conditions
- Dickens was horrified and initially planned to write a political pamphlet, but decided a story would reach more people and have greater emotional impact
Visit to a Ragged School
- Dickens visited a Field Lane Ragged School in London — a free school for destitute children
- He was shocked by the children's poverty, lack of education, and desperate living conditions
- This directly inspired the characters of Ignorance and Want — the allegorical children hidden under the Ghost of Christmas Present's robe
Personal Experience
- Dickens' own father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtors' prison when Charles was 12
- Young Dickens was sent to work in a blacking factory (shoe polish), pasting labels in terrible conditions
- This personal experience of poverty gave Dickens a lifelong empathy for the poor and a fury at the systems that created poverty
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Victorian England: Key Context
The Industrial Revolution
- Britain was transforming from an agricultural to an industrial economy
- Factories and mills created enormous wealth for owners but terrible conditions for workers
- Workers faced long hours, low pay, dangerous machinery, and no legal protections
- Cities grew rapidly, creating overcrowded slums with poor sanitation, disease, and crime
The Wealth Gap
- Victorian society had extreme inequality
- The wealthy lived in comfort while workers and their families lived in squalor
- Many wealthy people believed poverty was deserved — a result of laziness, immorality, or lack of discipline
- This attitude allowed them to ignore the suffering around them — Scrooge embodies this perfectly
The Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)
- This law established the workhouse system as the main form of poor relief
- Workhouses were deliberately made unpleasant to discourage people from seeking help (the principle of "less eligibility" — conditions inside must be worse than the worst conditions outside)
- Families were separated inside workhouses; inmates wore uniforms and did hard, repetitive labour
- The system was based on the belief that poverty was the individual's fault
- Scrooge's reference to "prisons" and "workhouses" echoes this attitude — Dickens presents it as cruel and morally bankrupt
Thomas Malthus and "Surplus Population"
- Thomas Malthus was an economist who argued that the population grew faster than the food supply
- He suggested that poverty, famine, and disease were natural checks on population growth
- He described poor people as "surplus population" — implying they were expendable
- Scrooge parrots this idea: "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population"
- Dickens later turns this phrase against Scrooge when the Ghost of Christmas Present repeats his own words back to him — forcing him (and the reader) to confront the inhumanity of this ideology
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Dickens' Social Message
What Dickens Wanted
Dickens had clear political and moral goals:
1. Challenge the attitudes of the wealthy — force them to see the poor as fellow human beings, not statistics
2. Attack the Poor Law — show that workhouses were not a solution but a cruelty
3. Promote generosity and social responsibility — argue that the wealthy had a moral obligation to help
4. Champion education — Ignorance (not Want) is the greater danger, because education breaks the cycle of poverty
5. Inspire change — not through legislation but through emotional transformation (as modelled by Scrooge)
How the Novella Achieves This
| Technique | How it delivers the message |
|---|---|
| Scrooge as Everyman | He represents the wealthy class; his transformation is a model for their change |
| Pathos | Tiny Tim, the Cratchits, the lonely child Scrooge — emotional appeals that humanise poverty |
| Allegory | Ignorance and Want are not just children but symbols of societal failure |
| The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come | Shows the consequences of inaction — death alone and unmourned |
| Humour and warmth | The novella is entertaining, not preachy — this made it accessible to a wide audience |
| Christmas setting | Associates generosity with a beloved cultural tradition, making charity feel natural and joyful |
The Novella's Form
Dickens chose a novella (a short novel) rather than a pamphlet because:
- It could be read in one sitting — making it accessible
- A story creates empathy in ways that statistics cannot
- It was affordable — published at five shillings, cheap enough for a wide readership
- It was published just before Christmas 1843, making it timely
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Reception and Impact
- The first edition of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve 1843
- The novella was credited with reinvigorating Christmas celebrations in England
- It inspired numerous theatrical adaptations within weeks of publication
- Dickens received letters from readers saying it had changed their attitudes toward the poor
- Some historians credit the novella with helping to shift public opinion on poverty, contributing to later social reforms
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How to Use Context in the Exam
The Right Way
Link context directly to the text and the writer's purpose:
"Dickens presents Scrooge's dismissal of charity — 'Are there no prisons?' — as morally abhorrent. This echoes the attitudes promoted by the 1834 Poor Law, which treated poverty as a personal failing deserving of punishment rather than a social problem requiring compassion. By showing Scrooge's transformation, Dickens challenges his contemporary readers to reject this ideology and recognise their responsibility to the vulnerable."
The Wrong Way
Do not write a paragraph of context with no connection to the text:
"In Victorian times, there were workhouses and child labour. People were very poor. Dickens grew up in poverty." (This is a history essay, not literary analysis.)
Rules for Using Context
1. Always connect context to a specific moment in the text
2. Explain why the context matters — what does it reveal about Dickens' message?
3. Use context to deepen your analysis of characters, themes, or language
4. Keep context brief and integrated — it supports your argument, not replaces it
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Exam Tips
- The examiner rewards context that is woven into analysis, not bolted on as a separate paragraph
- Key contextual terms to use: Poor Law, workhouses, Malthusian, Industrial Revolution, social responsibility, didactic
- Remember that Dickens wrote to change minds — always discuss his purpose and intended effect on the reader
- The novella's five-stave structure mirrors the five acts of a play AND the structure of a moral journey — this is worth noting in structural analysis
- Ignorance and Want are the most important allegorical moment — they connect directly to Dickens' belief that education is the key to ending poverty
- Scrooge is not just a character — he is a representative of his class. His transformation is Dickens' argument that the wealthy CAN and MUST change