Context

Charles dickens grew up in a poor conditions and worked in work houses , which influenced his portrayal of social issues in his works, particularly in his allegorical novella 'A Christmas Carol'. E: Empathy - A central theme in Dickens' works, emphasizing the importance of understanding and sharing the feelings of others. Charles dickens novella was also written in response to the report of the report of children’s employment commission which covered the dehumanising and exploitive condition children were subject to in the Victorian era.

The 1834 poor law introduced the workhouses, the poor was sent there to work in exchange for food and shelter. They were hubs of squalor (filth) which exploited the poor. 10 per cent of people that would work there would die. Dickens shows ignorance of those who enforced laws like this for example scrooge in stave 1 which would dehumanise and kill the working class. The cratchits are always an important tool dickens uses in his written to show that even though they have little they are grateful but still dehumanised

Thomas Malthus - A British economist who believed poverty was inevitable ( always going to happen) due to population increase) Dickens makes scrooge to embody Malthusian view and ridicules this . Trying to his make his reader ship be anti Malthusian through scrooge at the beginning of how unsympathetic he is . ‘ prison … and the union workhouses’- scrooge