Atkins By Charles Dickens Annotations

1)
My interpretation of the poem doesn’t exactly fit the ones that we discussed in class. I interpreted the poem as simple as a story about sisterhood. Because of the rhyming, it could even be similar to a nursery or children's poem. The poem began with the goblins advertising the fruit that they were selling. The fruit was described to the best ability and honestly sounded very tasty. “Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the south, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy” (4) Laura was curious and wanted to give in, while her sister Lizzie was not amused and wanted them to stay away from those goblins. Eventually, Laura did give in and since she didn’t have any coins, she traded a piece of her golden locs for the fruit. After

Here’s one example that was said by Scrooge, “Are there no prisons and Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?”. Scrooge shows his carelessness by prompting that poor people should go to prison instead of being on the streets. “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population” is another example that was said by Scrooge. This quote can be portrayed as Scrooge disregarding the importance of the poor which is what Dickens wanted the viewers to recognize. Scrooge is portrayed as part of the upper class in this story and you can see that through his selfish, unsharing ways. The last example is this quote, “reeked with crime, filth, and misery”. This is describing how the streets looked and emphasis on misery. Dickens wanted to point out that the streets were “reeked”, meaning crowded with poor and miserable

This story could seem like it was about an old man named Scrooge who doesn’t like Christmas. The ghost takes him back to his happy old memories, which boosted his mood and changed his spirit about Christmas. This indeed did happen, but that is not what the story was about. Dickens wanted the viewers to take a deeper look and see how the upper class treated the poor and the major issues of poverty. Also, Scrooge was an individual who struggled with his identity inside, as Matthew Arnold explained. Fred (Scrooge’s nephew) said, “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it”. Fred notices that Scrooge doesn't give to the world, and that makes his riches useless. If the upper class has so much money to give but chooses to disregard the poor, nothing in this world will change. That is why poverty was such a big deal to Dickens because it is a worldly problem that could be better if people who can give, weren’t so selfish. “To any kindly given. To a poor one most” was a quote said by a spirit. He said that to let Scrooge know that for his family to enjoy his company and to be a better person, you have to give. Poverty was buried beneath the surface of this story but was shown throughout it if you just take a deeper