Linking the 1834 Poor Law to A Christmas Carol: Key Context and Quotes

after this video you'll have a piece of context that you can adapt to any A Christmas Carol essay and at the end of

this video I'm actually going to give you some grade nine quotes and Analysis that link to this bit of context that

you can put in to boost your essays so make sure you write that down so first of all what was it what was the 1834 PA

so the 1834 Pao introduced the workhouses now the workhouses seemed like a good idea but were horrendous to

the poor the idea behind them it was a place where the poor were sent in exchange for food and shelter and they

just had to work there hence and name the workhouses however they were these

grueling hubs of squala squala is like dirt and they had very dangerous conditions they were also treated in

dehumanizing and exploitative ways dehumanizing they treated like less than a human almost like an animal

exploitative the basically the people who ran the workhouses knew they were vulnerable and exploited them for this

so a fact that you put in your essay that would actually blow your teacher away cuz it shows you've gone that extra

mile 250,000 people died in the workhouses between 1846 and 1851 so that just

emphasizes how grueling and dehumanizing these conditions really were it literally resulted in hundreds of

thousands of deaths now let's think about how it links to the Nolla because for context where a lot of students go

wrong is they'll no context they don't know how it actually links and to get get a top Mark in English Lit you'll be

able to link the context to what's going on and then link it to the writer's message which can seem a bit

overwhelming but I'm going to show you how to do it so Scrooge's ignorance to how dehumanizing and exploitative these

workhouses were meant that he actually advocate for the workhouses as an adequate solution to Poverty so he

believes it's a fair solution to kind of reduce poverty or to basically get the poor of the street is to put them in the

workhouses because he's an ignorant upper class victoriia member a nice high level way we can phrase that is that he

is a microcosm for the Victorian ignorant upper class now remember a microcosm is when something small

represents something larger so Scrooge he is one small character but he represents at large the Victorian upper

class particularly the ignorant upper class and when we're talking about Scrooge and save one being a microcosm

there is some amazing analysis on the light up Hub if you want to check it out I'll even put some free lessons in the

description below for you to watch to get some grade n analysis another way that we can actually link this is Tiny

Tim's innocence and his vulnerability and his premature death so premature like being before his time could be an

illusion it's like hinting to the premature death of children in the workhouses because in the workhouses

children as young as five five could go to be and could be sent to the workhouses separated from their parents

and sent to these grueling hub of schola and then kind of going off that innocent idea with children we can also see that

through the characters of ignorance and want so remember the Ghost of Christmas present he shows Scrooge that the boy is

ignorance the go is want and there of course these like almost animal wolfish like children who represent the

exploitation of children in poverty again the exploitation of children in poverty directly links to the work

houses because the 1834 poor laww literally was a law put in place which enabled this EXP exploitation and this

dehumanizing treatment of the poor now let's actually look at some quotes that could link to the 1834 poor law and the

workhouses are there no prisons and the union workhouses Scrooge save one a lot of people always say isn't it are there

no prisons are are there no Union workhouses it's actually not but the exam won't mind if you write that in

your exam so again this links directly back to what we saying earlier about Scrooge being a microcosm something

small represen something larger of the ignorant Victorian upper classes and how he believed that the workhouses enabled

by the 1834 poor law was an adequate solution to Poverty because he was ignorant to the true exploitation and

the dehumanizing treatment that they would face the common welfare was my business charity Mercy Marley stve one

so Marley is a real point of comparison with Scrooge because of course Marley and Scrooge were business partners so

they had very similar ideas in terms of their attitudes towards the lower classes how they were were very

parsimonious parsimonious meaning stingy so the fact that Marley has come to screw and said the common welfare was my

business and he's linking it to charity that is going against the idea of the 1834 poor law and the workhouses in the

fact that we should take personal responsibility for people in society and not make them subject to such

belligerent so harsh conditions and lastly this boy is ignorant this girl is want Stay Free from the gross of

Christmas present so like I mentioned earlier if they're symbols of the neglected and exploited

children and the poor that directly links to how the children were exploited in the workhouses and remember as young

as the ages of five they could have been subject to those conditions now let's go through a grade nine example a bit of a

grade n paragraph of how we could tie this all together and you can actually use this in your essay as well Dickens

constructs Scrooge's obliviousness to the dehumanizing so treated like animals conditions of the workhouses to be

scathing critical of the indifference lack of care that pervaded spread the Victorian upper class towards laws such

the 1834 poor law the poor law introduced the workhouses where in exchange for food and shelter the poor

had to work in exploitative conditions thus by making scrwen advocate for these laws Dickens illustrates to his readers

how the disregard for the suffering of the poor is perpetuated spread by the upper class's apathetic unconcerned

attitude so you can see there as well I haven't done a massive long explanation about the 1834 paor law but instead I've

just explained it and then linked it to the overall meaning so what dickens's intentions are so think about how I've

linked to dickens's intentions Dickens is actually illustrating that the ignorance of the upper classes

perpetuated by their attitudes directly causes the suffering of the poor and that was my link together then if I was

going to even go further with it and really impress my teacher or examiner you could stick that fact in as well

about the 200 50,000 people between 1846 to 1851 so make sure guys you subscribe to the channel because we've got plenty

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video bye