People often ask me why we still teach Dickens. There are a number of excellent reasons. For one, it’s still culturally and politically relevant to the world we live in today, but more importantly the writing is exquisite.
At a time when we’re talking about making sure that children don’t go hungry, it seems apt to take a look at the Christmas dinner that Scrooge sees the Cratchits enjoy.
Okay, take a read of the following section:
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to bear witnesses—to take the pudding up and bring it in.
We have two things going on in tandem throughout the piece. We have language used to suggest the extravagance of the meal, but hidden within that we have all of these indicators of how lacking the meal is, suggesting the poverty the Cratchits live in.
We’re now going to focus on a few lines here:
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration.
Dickens commences his description of the feast with Bob’s hyperbole. One could suggest that Bob is exaggerating the qualities of the goose in order to enthuse the less imaginative members of his family about what really is an unimpressive bird. Note the list of qualities that are admired. The first three are positive qualities, but hidden at the end of that list is cheapness. Why would this word be needed if finances were not on the minds of the family? But also, as result of its positioning within the sentence, it becomes a qualifier for the other qualities. It’s tender, flavoursome and large for the price.
Dickens continues to reveal what’s really going on with this meal at the start of the next sentence:
Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes…
To eke out is to make up for the deficiencies of something. There simply isn’t enough goose there, so the significantly cheaper potatoes and apple sauce are plentifully supplied instead. And note, there’s not a sign of another root vegetable on the plate here either, which would be typical in the Victorian era.
We’ll continue with this sentence now:
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family
Were we to place the word ‘sufficient’ on a scale, with ‘not enough’ on one side, and ‘an abundance’ on the other, sufficient would he closer to the ‘not enough’ end. Remember, this is supposed to be the greatest feast of their entire year. ‘Sufficient’ does not suggest this. Even in a hyperbolic mood they cannot suggest that there was plenty. And yet, the way the sentence reads suggests that this meal is a success.
The next line I find particularly heart-breaking:
indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last!
What I see here is absolute desperation on the part of Mrs. Cratchit to prove to herself that what they have provided for their family is good enough. That it is said in ‘great delight’ indicates this. Again though, it is not wholly honest. All she spies is ‘one small atom of a bone’, the tiniest amount there could possibly be. If there are no bones left to serve, one could suggest that these are on the plates of the family having been decimated for every morsel of nutrition, including sucking the marrow from the bones.
Next, we see another strategy to make the goose go further at play:
Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows!
The younger Cratchits are steeped in sage and onion. This suggests that, knowing that they wouldn’t complain, their plates have been overloaded with one of the cheaper aspects of the meal, the stuffing. Filling them up on that means they would have been given less goose.
Also notable in this section is the word ‘enough’. Again, a synonym for ‘sufficient’ is used to describe how much they’ve eaten. Christmas dinners are usually the meals of trouser-busting legend. Not so for the Cratchits. But you know what, they just about have enough, so they’re happy with it.
This section, in which Dickens shows us their self-deception is an absolute masterclass.
But wait, they still have the pudding to come, where yet again Dickens makes us aware of potential problems.
Mrs. Cratchit is apprehensive about this pudding: Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to bear witnesses— She knows that she couldn’t afford what she needed to make this pudding, so there’s every change that it won’t have turned out successfully, which would be a disaster on Christmas Day. Not that any of the Cratchits would admit that. They’d claim they had had enough anyway, and make out everything was okay.
Throughout this part you can see the overwhelming positivity of the parents, which Dickens conveys through his use of hyperbole, but his other language choices show us the true picture here, and if you don’t feel for the Cratchits after this, if you don’t feel that they deserve more, than you’re colder and more unfeeling that Mr. Scrooge himself.
Now Mr. Scrooge is a wealthy man. He can afford to pay Bob a decent wage. In fact, Bob, working as a clerk, must be literate and numerate. He should be earning more than unskilled workers doing manual labour. Despite this, he only just has enough to get by, and this proves to be insufficient to ensure the survival of Tiny Tim.
The message (or one of) of A Christmas Carol is one of charity because support is insuffient: “Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. … “And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
Given the current debate about free school meals and the increased need for food banks, it seems we’ve not come far from Dickens time, and that’s why the text remains important.
Oh, and if you’re in any doubt about what a Christmas dinner should be like, take a look at the feast they have at the end. There’s plenty.
In summary, read Dickens, watch Muppets, feed kids.