How Can You Eat at A Time Like This?: An Analysis of Poverty and Charity in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol

Abstract

While poverty does not discriminate against race, age, gender, or religion; it does play a role in the separation of classes. In this paper, I will examine at length how Dickens takes his London reality of impoverishment and shapes it into a context for all to digest as a serious issue. I depict the importance of charity via characters in A Christmas Carol and expose the weaknesses of the social hierarchy that exists in this society. Impoverished people not only need the State’s help to improve their unfortunate positions, but they also rely on the generosity of their fellow citizens, which, sadly, does not always happen. This novella, as a ghost story, illustrates the true horrors of classism, penury, and the social justification of immoral behaviors.