KEY POINTS
·Ignorance and Want are allegoricalcharacters that lack a personality and purely symboliseScrooge’s ignorance and want.
·They make an appearance on page 75&76 inStave Three.
KEY WORDS
Allegorical- they are just the words ‘ignorance’ and ‘want’and are not real life children with real personalities.
Symbolise- they represent all of Scrooge’s ignorance andwant.
QUOTES DESCRIBINGTHEM
Scrooge speaking toSpirit: “Something strange, not belonging to yourself, protruding from yourskirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”
Narrator: “Twochildren wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable.”
Narrator: “A boyand girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged,scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.”
Narrator: “Astale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, andpulled them into shreds.”
VERBS DESCRIBING THEM
‘They knelt’
‘They clung’
‘Devils lurked’
‘Pinched and twisted’
‘Stale and shrivelled’
‘Glared outmenacing’
Consider why Dickens chose these quotes and verbs
HOW IGNORANCE LINKS TO SCROOGE
Scrooge hasIgnorance:
Ø Of the world: mentioned by Jacob Marleyas the came to tell Scrooge that every man and “the spirit within him should walk abroad among hisfellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth inlife, it is condemned to do so after death”.
ØOf society:- Scrooge is shocked by all the poverty shown by the spirits from the Cratchit’shouse to the poor peoplestealing his bed curtains.
-Religioussociety: Christmas was a large 19th century Christian event and forScrooge to “bah humbug” it was disrespectful
ØOf love: Asshown by the spirit of Christmas Past, Scrooge lost the love of his life,Belle, through his ignorance. Heexpresses no love to his Nephew or family either.
It’simportant to realise that Ignorance is the boy and question why Dickens might havechosen this gender? Remember many elements in the book link to religion andoccurrences of the Bible.
HOW WANT LINKS TO SCROOGE
Scrooge has wantbefore his encounters:
ØOf money:Scrooge was always tight with money and couldn’t spare a coal to warm hisown office.
ØOfworkhouses and prisons: As questioned to the portly gentlemen, and laterquoted by the Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge asks if there are workhousesas he doesn’t want the poor on the street or receiving funds.
ØOfnormality: Scrooge enjoyed working every day and refused to believe theprospect of ghosts.
Scrooge also has wantafter his encounters:
Ø Of forgiveness and life: "Spirit!" he cried, tightclutching at its robe, "hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be theman I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am pastall hope?"
Noticehow Scrooge simply wants a second chance at life after his encounters and haslost all want of the cruel things.
IMPORTANT NOTE/LINK TO DICKENS
·Dickens was a strong proponent of takingcare of poor people in society, and this is why he chose to represent them aspoor children. Most people will have more sympathy for children thanadults too.
This boy isIgnorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree; butmost of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom,unless the writing be erased. (Stave 3)
Dickens is attempting to express that poorchildren’s futures are literally written on their foreheads and they are doomedas adults just because they were born into poverty. This then links to thescene in Stave Two when Scrooge is an abandoned boy in school at Christmastime; Dickens is saying implying that Scrooge is a horrible man now because hewasn’t loved as a child.
Article by Leah Christmas
