Explore how Dickens presents the two children, Ignorance and Want, in this extract.
Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.
In this extract Dickens uses animal imagery to describe the appearance and behaviour of the
children. The list of adjectives to describe the children are ‘Yellow, meagre, ragged,
scowling, wolfish.’ As this description would be mostly common to describe ‘frightful’
creatures, it elucidates the contrast of regular, angelic, happy, playful, innocent looked after
children, compared to these abandoned animals who suffer from the hardships of poverty.
Furthermore the adjective ‘meagre’ symbolises a thin creature, struggling to survive with
what they have; displaying to the audience the vulnerability and starvation of these two poor
children as they have no one to provide them with the care and essentials they need. This
analysis helps present poor children of the Victorian time as being needy and ‘Ignorant’ as a
cause to their animal characteristics.
Another demonstration of the children's presentation in this extract is the comparison of
normal children as a pose to the malnourished children of ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’. ‘Where
graceful youth should have filled their features out…,a stale and shrivelled hand…,pulled
them into shreds.’ As this juxtaposition implies that the children have been neglected with
nothing to help them; it also makes clear how usually children are immature and
inexperienced- however, it is clear that the effects and misfortune of poverty in this society
ages the children to the point where they are ‘shriveled’. Moreover, ‘Stale’ is used to
describe the children which has negative connotations of being left and abandoned, this
states that the childrens ‘menacing’ appearance is due to their unwanted, rejected selves
making the audience feel frightful of how forgotten poverty can cause people to become.
This links back to the idea of how people didn’t know how hard life was for these children as
they just assume that every child is treated like the wealthier children and provided with the
things they need, poor or not.
In addition to these, Dickens also presents the children like creatures because humankind
have manipulated their vulnerability. The repetition ‘No change, no degradation, no
perversion of humanity’ conveys how society has helped these children so little; that their
human qualities can’t be seen as they are overpowered by their animal characteristics,
caused by the struggle to survive on a daily basis. Additionally, the word ‘degradation’
implies that humans and society have turned their own mankind into beats as these two
children are slowly dying because everyone's lack of care is resulting in them growing
weaker. Whilst putting a picture in the audiences head about how crippled, small, starved
and ill Ignorance and Want look; it also creates shame for Scrooge and society as they are
the ones to blame for these children's unfortunate appearances.
In this extract one other way the children are presented, are by being so hideous it caused
Scrooge to lose his words. ‘Scrooge started back, appalled...the words choked themselves.’
By Dickens stating the horror of Scrooge at the sight of the children; it shows how
monsterous and repulsive Ignorance and Want are. As Scrooge is a wealthy businessman
we can presume that most selfish businessman of the time have not seen the effects of their
words and actions: for example how they have impacted and changed children so much that
their appearance is shocking. The metaphor ‘the words choked themselves’ suggests that
these poverty affected children are so gruesome and abominable that Scrooge doesn’t even
want to think about how he has assisted the sickening neglect of these children and can’t
even put into words the guilt and regret of what he is feeling about the presentation of these
animal like beasts. The audience can now start to put a picture together of the sight of the
Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.
In this extract Dickens uses animal imagery to describe the appearance and behaviour of the
children. The list of adjectives to describe the children are ‘Yellow, meagre, ragged,
scowling, wolfish.’ As this description would be mostly common to describe ‘frightful’
creatures, it elucidates the contrast of regular, angelic, happy, playful, innocent looked after
children, compared to these abandoned animals who suffer from the hardships of poverty.
Furthermore the adjective ‘meagre’ symbolises a thin creature, struggling to survive with
what they have; displaying to the audience the vulnerability and starvation of these two poor
children as they have no one to provide them with the care and essentials they need. This
analysis helps present poor children of the Victorian time as being needy and ‘Ignorant’ as a
cause to their animal characteristics.
Another demonstration of the children's presentation in this extract is the comparison of
normal children as a pose to the malnourished children of ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’. ‘Where
graceful youth should have filled their features out…,a stale and shrivelled hand…,pulled
them into shreds.’ As this juxtaposition implies that the children have been neglected with
nothing to help them; it also makes clear how usually children are immature and
inexperienced- however, it is clear that the effects and misfortune of poverty in this society
ages the children to the point where they are ‘shriveled’. Moreover, ‘Stale’ is used to
describe the children which has negative connotations of being left and abandoned, this
states that the childrens ‘menacing’ appearance is due to their unwanted, rejected selves
making the audience feel frightful of how forgotten poverty can cause people to become.
This links back to the idea of how people didn’t know how hard life was for these children as
they just assume that every child is treated like the wealthier children and provided with the
things they need, poor or not.
In addition to these, Dickens also presents the children like creatures because humankind
have manipulated their vulnerability. The repetition ‘No change, no degradation, no
perversion of humanity’ conveys how society has helped these children so little; that their
human qualities can’t be seen as they are overpowered by their animal characteristics,
caused by the struggle to survive on a daily basis. Additionally, the word ‘degradation’
implies that humans and society have turned their own mankind into beats as these two
children are slowly dying because everyone's lack of care is resulting in them growing
weaker. Whilst putting a picture in the audiences head about how crippled, small, starved
and ill Ignorance and Want look; it also creates shame for Scrooge and society as they are
the ones to blame for these children's unfortunate appearances.
In this extract one other way the children are presented, are by being so hideous it caused
Scrooge to lose his words. ‘Scrooge started back, appalled...the words choked themselves.’
By Dickens stating the horror of Scrooge at the sight of the children; it shows how
monsterous and repulsive Ignorance and Want are. As Scrooge is a wealthy businessman
we can presume that most selfish businessman of the time have not seen the effects of their
words and actions: for example how they have impacted and changed children so much that
their appearance is shocking. The metaphor ‘the words choked themselves’ suggests that
these poverty affected children are so gruesome and abominable that Scrooge doesn’t even
want to think about how he has assisted the sickening neglect of these children and can’t
even put into words the guilt and regret of what he is feeling about the presentation of these
animal like beasts. The audience can now start to put a picture together of the sight of the
