'Why is 'Doom' written on the brow of ignorance in A Christmas Carol?'

[saheh]

How would you guys approach this??

Obviously it's because with ignorance eventually comes doom, especially
In the context of the Victorian England Dickens was writing for..but where else would you go from there??

Thanks for any input

[binders]

No idea. but the history of the idea behind writing on someone's forehead is an interesting one.
you might want to look up golems, phylacteries, "forehead" using a bible concordance, brahmin, karma,
phrenology etc, if you're curious.

I think there are eastern folk myths that after your birth, your fate/destiny (or karma-ish) is
written on your forehead, roman slaves would sometimes have been branded on their foreheads,
and sometimes golems have a word written on their forehead.

[saheh]

ahh wow good point. be something interesting to read about in an essay, I'll try weave it in somehow :p


anyway I hope someone reads this
I often get stuck with coming up with ideas for text response...

this is my very rough plan of ideas [in no order as of yet]:

>The children are represented as 'meagre, ragged and scowling', as a result of their neglect, and the ignorance of others in society. Dickens intends to show that with this continued ignorance, doom will result as people grow to be selfish and show no empathy for fellow humans.

>Scrooge symbolises those of Victorian England Society who are perpetuating the lives of Want and Ignorance
 - his selfishness further oppresses the poor

> Characters like Mrs Dilber and the Charwoman represent this future of selfish and careless people (stealing from the dead..no respect)

> Tiny Tim contrasts to Want and Ignorance..And for Dickens he represents the idealised Victorian child, and what he hopes to see of the future...



what do you guys think?
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!!

[dilks]

Maybe bring in some more material relating to the larger context of the prompt with respect to Dickens' writing. Are other texts he has written which reflect this maxim? Or even the fact that most of Dickens writing provide social commentary and were for the most part intended to educate the reading public. As a corollary of this it is not insignificant (with respect to the prompt) that A Christmas Carol is the story of how Scrooge learns the meaning of Christmas. Maybe if you need to extend your essay you could talk about the converse of the prompt too (e.g. the other people around Scrooge are happier because they know the meaning of Christmas and participate in it).

Disclaimer: Only read half of this book in year 8 and don't remember even that segment of it particularly well so don't take any of this as gospel, but hopefully it should give you some rudimentary ideas which you can develop with your knowledge of the text.

[saheh]

Thankyou!
That'll help me add extra breadth/depth to my ideas!
And yes I tend to focus on the prompt and forget the big picture...
So thanks for reminding me :p