What was the use of workhouses in the Christmas Carol?

Answer 1

Dickens worked in Warren's Blacking Company, applying labels to bottles, for about eight months when he 12 years old. His earnings were necessary to the family income, since his father was then in Marshalsea Debtor's Prison, where eventually the rest of the family joined him. This experience had a profound effect on the rest of Dickens' life, although he managed to keep it a dark secret, even from his wife Catherine and their children, and his best friend and publisher and biographer, John Forster. They only learned of it after his death.

Answer 2

Workhouses of the 19th century must have been dreadful places. In Our Mutual Friend, Betty Higdon prefers to die alone in the open country than enter one. Wardens of the workhouses, in concert with parish officials, deliberately made life miserable for the inmates, so they would be a very last resort for the poor. Food was barely at subsistence level and of very poor quality; men and women were separated, so families were split up; the houses themselves were dirty and louse-ridden; many workhouses forced their inmates to either pick the threads of hemp apart for rope making or walk the treadmill, a sort of round, ever-revolving staircase that inmates were compelled to climb hour after hour. Both were monotonous and difficult, but the hemp picking at least had the advantage of usefulness; the treadmill was pointless and punitive. Many of the poor preferred to accept "outdoor relief" instead, a small sum they could ony receive if they did not enter the workhouse.

Answer 3

A place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation, food and some health care in return for doing monotonous work. They were cruel and poorly run and only the very desperate would go there

Answer 4

The history of the work houses in Britain at the time of the book was one of Horror. people would be taken in because they were so poor or ill that they would die unless they could get food and shelter. The work houses where not a compassionate place but were some of the most horrible one could be hosed in. Many would be given jobs of wok like making new ropes from old . The jobs were 18 hours a day with very basic food as payment. Some would be crushing stones all day others et to walk on a treadmill for 18 hours. The treadmill did nothing except go around with no purpose except to punish people for being poor. This is why the term "they would rather die than enter the work house" is used in the story by the businesses men who approach Scrooge for a donation

Answer 5

In "A Christmas Carol," workhouses were used as a place where the poor and destitute were sent to live and work in harsh conditions. Ebenezer Scrooge denounces workhouses as a means of providing for the poor, instead suggesting that they should seek assistance through prisons or charity organizations. The workhouse serves as a reflection of the societal indifference and lack of compassion towards the less fortunate.