A Christmas Carol
By
Charles Dickens
This foreshadows
Scrooge’s own
fate if he remains
a miser and hardnosed
businessman, like
Marley. This
business quality of
Scrooge’s name is
then equated with
his signature on
the register of
burial. Implying
the burial was like
a business and
that Scrooge – as
a hard-headed
business man –
would not sign
anything unless he
was sure.
The adverb shows
Scrooge has not
changed the sign
for one of two
reasons: 1) deep
down, he valued
Marley as a
friend, or 2) he
did not want to
spend money on
painting over the
sign. Perhaps it
was a mixture of
the two.
Adverb ‘all’
adjective ‘same’
highlight his
callous behavior
presented at the
beginning is
building on the
idea that Marley
and Scrooge
didn’t care about
anyone. Allowing
the idea of the
capitalist
mistreatment in
society.
Simile is being repeated twice here to indicate there’s no reference to him as a
person with emotions- the reference to cold and being distanced from society is a
reference to his funeral day. Lack of personal qualities and the lack of legacy
reminds the reader that life is short and precious- causing them to reflect on their
own life/actions (semantic field of death)
Stave 1: Marley’s Ghost
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about
that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk,
the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and
Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put
his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what
there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been
inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of
ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the
simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's
done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be
otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many
years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner.
And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but
that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral,
and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started
from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be
distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am
going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's
Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more
remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his
own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot - say Saint
Paul's Churchyard for instance - literally to astonish his son's weak
mind.
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years
afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm
was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the
business called Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to
both names: it was all the same to him.
Dickens Intentions: Dickens sets up a clear link between the two - so much so that
Scrooge is willing to answer to either name. This then ensures that the reader
understands that Marley's fate will certainly also befall Scrooge if he does not change.
The repetition
shows how
Isolated/lonely
they both were
(no friends- only
associates). The
order of the
nouns ‘executor’
and ‘friend’
emphasizes that
money made
them greedy and
they prioritized
worldly matters
before their
relationship with
people.
Dickens
Intentions: This
idea of Scrooge
not going to
Marley’s funeral
so he could
perform
(‘solemnized’verb) his work
duties and make
more money
shows how
heartless and
uncaring he can
be. Anyone
reading this
would most likely
feel some
antipathy to
Dickens’s
character because
of his greed and
love for money at
a time to show
some respect.
Link: Later in Stave 5 Scrooge is described to be ‘as good a friend, as good a master’- showing that the
Spirits have had an influence on him through teasing him by repeating his own words ‘are there no
workhouses?’ Through the spirits Scrooge has been taught salvation which is an important theme
throughout the novella as this was an era of social and political turmoil. The motivation for Dickens to
write this story is to encourage employers to handle workers well and he uses Christmas carols to draw
the news.
The exclamation
suggests that
even the narrator
is overwhelmed
by how
outrageously
unpleasant
Scrooge is and is
not surprised/
shocked by the
way he is.
The Adjective ‘tight’ shows how harsh he is- makes people
work hard as he’s a mean and an unhappy character.
Doesn’t like to extend his hand towards friendship/ charity
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old
sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck
out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an
oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed
nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin
lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was
on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He
The fact that Dickens used verbs as adjectives tells
us that Scrooge really isn’t a pleasant character to
others in the story.






The adjectives elongates mirroring
how Scrooge continues to stay on the
path of destruction. All adjectives are
connected with hands to show how
‘tightly’ he holds on to everything that
belongs to him
The adjectives are synonyms of each
other further emphasizing the
extremity of Scrooge’s selfish
demeanor
Cacophony (a harsh discordant
mixture of sounds). –‘squeezing’ ‘
grasping’ ‘clutching’ ‘covetous’ ‘old’
The harsh consonants reflects on
Scrooge’s unpleasant and immoral
actions towards humanity (scene with
the 2 gentlemen- Scrooge refused to
give donations to the poor)
Cacophony- also sounds quite firm
thus symbolizing the severity of
Scrooge’s mean-spirited nature as
continues to worsen and does not
halt or come to an end
However, the term ‘old’ may hint that
Scrooge’s inconsiderate ways will
come to an end and start anew?
Flint is a naturally occurring
stone. Scrooge was therefore
being compared to this material
(Simile) - firstly in the hardness
of his heart towards the
suffering of others and secondly
in his miserly sharpness =
quickness to be aware of every
coin spent or money “wasted”.
Likes to cause discomfort/
inflict pain to other people and
seems arrogant in his ways.
Links Quotations and Dickens Intentions: Scrooge refuses to give
charity to the ‘portly’ gentleman as he wants to grasp hold of
everything. Instead he is completely blunt and is disconnected
from the lifestyle of the poor ‘If they would rather die… they had
better do it and decrease the surplus population’. Dickens wants
to reach out to the wealthy people and teach them to accept
their responsibility.
Simile/Foreshadowing highlights
his loneliness and strange qualities.
Oyster indicates that Scrooge is
hard in his exterior/ tough to open
up. There is perhaps inner
goodness in him and after some
lessons he will come to his true
potential (Oysters contain pearls)
Links and Dickens intentions:
Dickens wants the audience to
identify with some of Scrooge’s
characters and make necessary
changes
Because Scrooge has a solitary
lifestyle he wants others to have
the same ‘Every idiot who goes
around with ‘”Merry Christmas”
on his lips should be boiled with
his own pudding and buried’ 
Emphasizes his negative outlook on
life.
Scrooge is too engraved in
his own life to notice or
take the responsibility of
another individual.
Metaphorically—he has a
cold heart. Scrooge made
the decision, over a
lifetime, not to allow
external forces to
influence his feelings or
behavior. If atmospheric
conditions don’t alter him,
mere people certainly
won’t influence him. His
coldness rebuffs people,
which suits him fine.
Links Quotation:



‘It’s not business’
‘No warmth could
warm nor wintry
weather chill him’ 
Immune to his
surroundings.
Because he is ‘always’
carrying this negative
outlook ‘no beggars
implored him to
bestow trifle’
Adjective/
Metaphorically
Scrooge is dead
inside- no
emotions
(heartless.
‘External heat’
metaphorically
represents love,
family and
festive spirit.
‘Heat’ 
AdjectiveScrooge is
choosing to
segregate
himself. Numb
towards
everything
Misanthropist
Scrooge is someone
who does not need
anyone else.
Scrooge is a very
solitary/
domineering - likes
it when other
people are scared of
him because he
feels in control.
Opposites who
directly contrast
each other/
Adjectives that his
cruel employer
allows him burns,
he is still grateful
and thankful for
allowing him one
day off and in high
spirits as he returns
home. This
“gratitude” over
such as simple,
almost necessary,
act of decency from
Scrooge shows his
“meagre”
conditions. Bob is
able to rejoice in the
spirit of Christmas
far more openly
than Scrooge.
This and the next paragraph, contains multiple examples of the anaphora of ‘no’.
This hyperbolizes just how isolated and unapproachable Scrooge is.
carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced
his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at
Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth
could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was
bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no
pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to
have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could
boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often ‘came
down’ handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, ‘My
dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?’ No beggars
implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was
o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to
such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared
to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their
owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails
as though they said, ‘No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark
master!’
But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge
his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy
to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call ‘nuts’ to Scrooge.
Once upon a time - of all the good days in the year, on Christmas
Eve - old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak,
biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court
outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their
breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm
them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark
already - it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the
windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the
palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and
keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the
narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy
cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have
thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his
eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank,
was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire
was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't
replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so
surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that
it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his
white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which
effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
Verb ‘implored’
Scrooge doesn’t
seem
approachablehas a reputation
of a selfish man
who is cruel.
They choose to
not seek any
financial help
from him
because of his
heartless nature.
Highlights the
depth of his
arrogance/
ignorance
Superlative
/Pathetic Fallacy
Worst kind of a
person/vindictive
Likes to inflict
pain/torture that
he likes to cause.
Noun Dogs are typically
affectionate even they
sense his aggressioninstinct is to
protect/shield their
owners
Fairy Tale Starting
is to indicate to
the reader to
suspend their
disbelief as to the
fantastical
elements of the
story, in order
that they benefit
from the story’s
moral message –
like all fairy tales
have.
Pathetic Fallacy
Christmas Eve is
supposed to be a
joyful and loving
time yet Scrooge
treats it as any
other day of the
year.
Foreshadows
dark events may
take place.
Alternatively,
Scrooge is
blocking light
Contrast (for the above quotations): with Scrooge’s flippant, dismissive attitude towards the struggles of the poor, as when
approached by some charity collectors if he would consider placing a small donation, he replies with the predictably cold, callous
questions, “are there no prisons?” and “union workhouses?” These rhetorical questions could either signify his ignorance to the
issue at hand, or simply his refusal to engage in helping. Either way, Scrooge demonstrates a distinct lack of empathy towards the
poor and instead returns to his “comfortable” “set of rooms” where he goes about his daily routine – not thinking about those who
are less fortunate than him.
There is a sudden
change of mood/
tone in the text.
Before it was
depressing and
sullen but then
there is a burst of
delight and
Christmas spirit as
soon as Fred arrives
Contrast: Unlike
the semantic field
surrounding
Scrooge of cold
and misery Fred
brings joy and
enthusiasm along
with him that acts
as a foil towards
his Uncle, painting
Scrooge in a more
Morose light than
he actually is to
emphasize his
avaricious
qualities.
Rhetorical Question
He’s been
angry/annoyed/
mean for so long it’s
the only ‘emotion’
he knows how to
do. It’s been so long
since he’s been
happy since he’s
stuck in that
mindset that
everything’s
corrupt.
‘A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!’ cried a cheerful voice.
It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly
that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
‘Bah!’ said Scrooge, ‘Humbug!’
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this
nephew of Scrooge's,that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and
handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
‘Christmas a humbug, uncle!’ said Scrooge's nephew. ‘You don't mean
that, I am sure.’
‘I do,’ said Scrooge. ‘Merry Christmas! What right have you to be
merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.’
‘Come, then,’ returned the nephew gaily. ‘What right have you to
be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich
enough.’
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment,
said ‘Bah!’ again; and followed it up with ‘Humbug.’
‘Don't be cross, uncle!’ said the nephew.
‘What else can I be,’ returned the uncle, ‘when I live in such a world of
fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's
Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money;
a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time
for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a
round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work
my will,’ said Scrooge indignantly, ‘every idiot who goes about with
'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own
pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!’
‘Uncle!’ pleaded the nephew.
Exclamation
Scrooge seems to
use the term to
describe anything
that he thinks of
as nonsense. It's
his way of
expressing his
disdain for
whatever is being
discussed. This
could indicate
that, for Scrooge,
it isn't possible to
be rich enough or
too rich. He just
wants to acquire
and gain more.
This cynical tone
separates him from
other people as
well as his miserly
attitude which
makes everything
about money. He is
indignant in his
views on Christmas
and mocking those
who disagree
however he is the
foolish one in this
situation as he is
among the
minority who
believe such things
‘Nephew!’ returned the uncle, sternly, ‘keep Christmas in your own
way, and let me keep it in mine.’
‘Keep it!’ repeated Scrooge's nephew. ‘But you don't keep it.’
‘Let me leave it alone, then,’ said Scrooge. ‘Much good may it do you!
Much good it has ever done you!’
‘There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which
I have not profited, I dare say,’ returned the nephew. ‘Christmas among
the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when
it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name
and origin, if anything belonging to it can be
Personal
Pronoun/isolation
Scrooge has
adapted to his life
of solitude and
therefore refuses
the chance to be
social. This is just
another attribute of
Scrooge’s character
and a side effect of
losing everyone he
has loved.
The nephew attacks
the overly classconscious society
through listing,
fixing our eyes on
Scrooge’s biggest
negative setback,
his inability to
recognize people
around him as
human beings. Fred
is trying to convince
his Uncle to get in
the Christmas Spirit
and to
acknowledge the
poor (Cratchit
family)
Despite being
insulted by his
uncle he embodies
Christmas Spirit and
how we should
forgive each other
and still chooses to
invite Scrooge in a
cheery manner.
apart from that - as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable,
pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the
year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shutup hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really
were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures
bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put
a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good,
and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!’
The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately
sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the
last frail spark forever.
‘Let me hear another sound from you,’ said Scrooge, ‘and you'll keep
your Christmas by losing your situation. You're quite a powerful
speaker, sir,’ he added, turning to his nephew. ‘I wonder you don't go
into Parliament.’
‘Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.’
Scrooge said that he would see him - yes, indeed he did. He went the
whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that
extremity first.
‘But why?’ cried Scrooge's nephew. ‘Why?’
‘Why did you get married?’ said Scrooge.
‘Because I fell in love.’
Animalistic Imagery reflects how
violent scrooge’s nature is. Fred has
prioritized love over money- something
Scrooge never did and that resulted in
Belle leaving because of his greed.
‘Because you fell in love!’ growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one
thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. ‘Good
afternoon!’
Repetition Clearly
shows that he is
unwelcoming and
the fact that this
short sentence is
repeated shows
how rude Scrooge
is to his own
family and not
just the poor.
Conscious of how
bad it looks to
applaud a speech
against his boss.
By clapping,
Cratchit shows a
brief moment of
spirited resistance
before falling
silent again,
probably fearing
for his job. The
“frail spark” of fire
he accidentally
extinguishes is like
his own frail spark
of courage dying
out. Through this
we see that
Dickens is trying to
highlight how the
poor were easily
suppressed.
‘Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why
give it as a reason for not coming now?’
‘Good afternoon,’ said Scrooge.
‘I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be
friends?’
‘Good afternoon,’ said Scrooge.
‘I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never
had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the
trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to
the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!’
‘Good afternoon,’ said Scrooge.
‘And A Happy New Year!’
‘Good afternoon!’ said Scrooge.
Irony exemplifies
how cut off
Scrooge is from
society, as it shows
that he cannot
even understand
the feelings of his
Clerk, Bob Cratchit,
who enjoys the
merry spirit of
Christmas. It also
may show how
little Scrooge
believes in
Christmas to
foreshadow his
miraculous
transformation at
the end of the
novella.
Rhetorical
Questions
highlights his
ignorance and
refusal to give
charity and is
hinting that the
poor are always
guilty of doing
something- hence,
suggesting a very
cold and an
uncomfortable
place for their stay.
Showing a lack of
responsibility and
empathy
His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He
stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the
clerk, who cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned
them cordially.
‘There's another fellow,’ muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: ‘my
clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about
a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.’
This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people
in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood,
with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in
their hands, and bowed to him.
‘Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,’ said one of the gentlemen, referring
to his list. ‘Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr.
Marley?’
‘Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,’ Scrooge replied. ‘He
died seven years ago, this very night.’
Vivid Imagery
‘festive season’
reminds reader it’s
Christmas, time of
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous charity, the
word ‘liberality,’ Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the gentleman’s
credentials back.
starting line of
persuading scrooge
‘At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,’ said the gentleman, to give at a time of
taking up a pen, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should giving. The charity
make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer workers realize the
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common harsh realities of
necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, society.
sir.’
‘We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving
partner,’ said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.
‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Scrooge.
‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
‘And the Union workhouses?’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in
operation?’
Context: Here, Scrooge comes close to directly quoting Thomas
Carlyle’s (aristocrat): “‘Do we not pass what Acts of Parliament
are needful […]? Are there not treadmills, gibbets; even
hospitals, poor-rates, New-Poor Laws?’
Context Link
Malthus Law The
poor law was
changed for the
better in 1834 to
reduce the cost of
helping the poor,
Scrooge’s refusal to
help represents the
selfishness /
apathetic behavior
of the upper and
middle classes who
gained their ideals
from people like
Thomas Malthus.
‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman, ‘I wish I could say they were
not.’
‘The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?’ said
Scrooge.
‘Both very busy, sir.’
‘Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had
occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Scrooge. ‘I'm very
glad to hear it.’
‘Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of
mind or body to the multitude,’ returned the gentleman, ‘a few of us
are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all
others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall
I put you down for?’
‘Nothing!’ Scrooge replied.
Personal Pronoun
The fact that
Scrooge is
constantly thinking
about himself
shows he’s a
narcissist and
wants to keep his
wealth to himself.
Link:

‘Solitary
as an
Oyster’.
Pathetic Fallacy
Arrival of the first
ghost indicates a
gloomy weather.
‘You wish to be anonymous?’
‘I wish to be left alone,’ said Scrooge. ‘Since you ask me what I wish,
gentlemen that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas
and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the Adjective shows
establishments I have mentioned - they cost enough; and those who that Scrooge finds
the poor to be
are badly off must go there.’
excess and there is
no place in society
‘Many can't go there; and many would rather die.’
for them- finds
‘If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and them to be
decrease the surplus population. Besides - excuse me - I don't know worthless.
Borrowing his cold
that.’
hearted ideas from
Thomas Malthus
‘But you might know it,’ observed the gentleman.
who gave warnings
on the growth of
‘It's not my business,’ Scrooge returned. ‘It's enough for a man to
population.
understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's.
Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!’
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the
gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge returned his labours with an improved
opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with
him.
Contrast:
Juxtaposes stave
5 when there is
‘no fog, no mist’
and is ‘clear,
bright’ and
‘jovial’
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about
with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in
carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a
This atmospheric
description is
interesting as
Dickens presents
the great divide
between rich and
poor. Dickens
quietly reminds us
that only the very
wealthy are
comfortable here.
This links to the
theme of poverty
and also to the
importance of
charity and caring
for others
church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge
out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the
hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations
afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.
The cold became intense. In the main street at the corner of the court,
some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great
fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were
gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze
in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly
congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops
where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the
windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and
grocers' trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant, with which
it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as
bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the
stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks
and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should;
and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the
previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets,
stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and
the baby sallied out to buy the beef.
Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good
Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of
such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then
indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one
scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones
are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him
with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of ‘God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!’
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer
fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial
frost.
At length the hour of shutting up the counting house arrived. With an
ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact
to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle
out, and put on his hat.
‘You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?’ said Scrooge.
‘If quite convenient, sir.’
‘It's not convenient,’ said Scrooge, ‘and it's not fair. If I was to stop
half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?’
The clerk smiled faintly.
Adjective
Scrooge is a tightfisted, uncaring
employer. He
doesn’t like Cratchit
having even one day
off, even if it’s a
family holiday. He
doesn’t get along
with or feel
compassion for his
employees.
Verb ‘ran’
Adjective ‘hard’
There is a difference
with what Scrooge
does when work has
finished and what
Bob Cratchit does.
He is shown as
merry, having fun
with the children.
While Scrooge is
shown as
“melancholy”
showing that he is
sad and alone.
Adjectives
Shows that Marley
is not there to
hurt Scrooge, but
instead teach and
guide him.
‘And yet,’ said Scrooge, ‘you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a
day's wages for no work.’
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
‘A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of
December!’ said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. ‘But I
suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next
morning.’
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a
growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long
ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no
great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys,
twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran
home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at
blindman's-buff.
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern;
and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the
evening with his banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in
chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They
were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard,
where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help
fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at
hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. It
was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but
Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so
dark that even Scrooge, who knew it’s every stone, was fain to grope
with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old
gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather
sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the
knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that
Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence
in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about
him as any man in the city of London, even including - which is a bold
word - the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in
mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his
last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then
let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge,
having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its
undergoing any intermediate process of change - not a knocker, but
Marley's face.
Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects
in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in
a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as
Metaphor Scrooge
metaphorically
sees it as the poor
stealing from his
‘hard’ earned
income. He
doesn’t value
Christmas and
begrudgingly gives
Bob a day off, but
asks him to make
up the hoursharsh employer.
Link: He sees
stealing as a crime
and wants the
poor to be
punished because
according to
Scrooge they have
put themselves in
those conditions
and should suffer
the consequences
‘are there no
prisons’?
The fact that
Marley’s face
appears on the
knocker is
important to his
role in the story;
he is there to
warn Scrooge of
his avarice
(greedy)
behaviour and to
only help him, so
he does this by
appearing on an
expensive feature
of his fancy house.
Simile
At unease and
filled with tension
because Scrooge
doesn’t know
how to protect
himself (never
been put in this
situation beforestartled).
Thunder and
storms cause
mass destructionechoing the
destruction
Scrooge has
caused to other
people’s lives. It
also suggest that
the events to
come will
destruct
Scrooge’s current
life and beliefs,
forcing him to
build a better one
and change as a
person.
Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly
forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;
and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless.
That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be
in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part or its
own expression.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of
a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy,
would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had
relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door;
and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected to be
terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But
there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts
that held the knocker on, so he said ‘Pooh, pooh!’ and closed it with a
bang.
The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room
above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared
to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to
be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the
hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight
of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say
you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise,
with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the
balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and
room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he
saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half a dozen
gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so
you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and
Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked
through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough
recollection of the face to desire to do that.
Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody
under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate;
spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a
cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the
closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a
suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-
The adjective
‘cheap’
Reflects
Scrooge’s cold
and misery
personality. It
could also imply
that Scrooge
enjoys to be
alone, without
happiness-this
being suggested
by the lack of
light. Scrooge is
very money
centered and
looks for his
profit wherever
possible.
Despite his steely
outer shell, we
see Scrooge is
scared through
the use of the
verbs- he doesn’t
quite know how
to react so tries
to protect himself
by isolation and
ignorance. The
reader can relate
to this fear –
shows he is
human. Helps us
to believe that
Scrooge is
capable of
change later on.
guards, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and
a poker.
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; doublelocked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against
surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers,
and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was
obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the
least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace
was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all
round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.
There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters; Queens of Sheba,
Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like featherbeds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butterboats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts - and yet that face
of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and
swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,
with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed
fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old
Marley's head on every one.
‘Humbug!’ said Scrooge; and walked across the room.
After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in
the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that
hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten
with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great
astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he
looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset
that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did
every bell in the house.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an
hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were
succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person
were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's
cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted
houses were described as dragging chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard
the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs;
then coming straight towards his door.
‘It's humbug still!’ said Scrooge. ‘I won't believe it.’
Scrooge’s miserly
nature extends
even to himself;
Dickens also uses
fire imagery
throughout the
novella to
symbolize true
Christian spirit
and goodwill.
Scrooge’s fire is
‘very low’
because he lacks
fundamental
qualities of
peace, charity
and goodwill
towards others.
Religious Imagery
This phrase holds
heavy Christian
symbolism, as
Scrooge is
chained to his
way of life, the
chains represent
how heavy
Marley’s sins are,
and they are a
burden he must
carry. This could
also possibly
symbolize that as
Marley is
currently in
Purgatory, the
chains (his sins)
are dragging him
down towards
hell.
His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through
the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its
coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, ‘I know him;
Marley's Ghost!’ and fell again.
The compound
adjective ‘deathcold eyes’
represents just
how lifeless
Marley is, he
does not feel
happiness as if he
were in heaven
as suggested by
‘cold’. He does
not feel pain as if
he were in hell,
as suggested by
‘hell’ but rather
he feels nothing
as he is in
Purgatory.
The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat,
tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and
his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was
clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a
tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes,
keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His
body was transparent, so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking
through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had
never believed it until now.
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom
through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt
the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very
texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which
wrapper he had not observed before: he was still incredulous, and
fought against his senses.
‘How now!’ said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. ‘What do you want
with me?’
‘Much!’ - Marley's voice, no doubt about it.
‘Who are you?’
Rhetorical
Question
Scrooge doesn’t
understand the
gravity of the
situation. He is
trying to exert
control over the
situation and
over Marley. This
gives him feeling
of authority that
he was previously
lacking.
‘Ask me who I was.’
‘Who were you then?’ said Scrooge, raising his voice. ‘You're particular,
for a shade.’ He was going to say ‘to a shade,’ but substituted this, as
more appropriate.
‘In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.’
‘Can you - can you sit down?’ asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully
at him.
‘I can.’
‘Do it then.’
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost
so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and
felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the
Nouns
All of those
belongings are
metaphorical for
his bad choices in
life- punishment
in the afterlife for
the way he
treated peoplepoor people lived
miserably before,
so now he does.
Used to keep
money to himself
and everything
was kept safe.
Now he’s
‘padlocked’ to
pain- unable to
escape.
‘Steel’- heavy and
his wrongdoings
have made this
even more
painful.
necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on
the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.
‘You don't believe in me,’ observed the Ghost.
‘I don't.’ said Scrooge.
‘What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your
senses?’
‘I don't know,’ said Scrooge.
‘Why do you doubt your senses?’
‘Because,’ said Scrooge, ‘a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of
the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of
beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an
underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you,
whatever you are!’
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel,
in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to
be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping
down his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in
his bones.
Deceptive or false
talk or behaviour.
Scrooge thinks
that Marley does
not speak the
truth and, initially
refuses to believe
that Marley is
real, and
therefore cannot
believe what he
says.
Link: Says this to
Fred after he
invites him over
for Christmas
dinner to which
Scrooge bluntly
refuses.
To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would
play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very
awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere
of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the
case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.
‘You see this toothpick?’ said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge,
for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a
second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.
‘I do,’ replied the Ghost.
‘You are not looking at it,’ said Scrooge.
‘But I see it,’ said the Ghost, ‘notwithstanding.’
‘Well!’ returned Scrooge, ‘I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest
of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation.
Humbug, I tell you! humbug!’
These verbs show
how terrified
Scrooge truly is
despite his
attempts to deny
the existence of
the ghost.
Covering his faceashamed?
Shows the extent
of his fear as
being so immense
he physically
can’t stand
straight.
He created his
own punishment
with every bad
deed he
committed- he is
responsible. The
verb ‘forged’
suggests that
they were all
purposeful
choices/actionsdidn’t happen by
chance. Perhaps
Marley is trying to
suggest that
Scrooge too is
very similar as
they were
business
associatesMarley is prewarning Scrooge
by inflicting a
sense of fear in
him (as shown by
the verb
trembled) to
make
amendments and
reform his
character.
The adjective ‘tight’ shows Scrooge’s fear as it suggests that he is holding on
for his life. Scrooge has not yet been portrayed in this sort of light before- all
knew for him- unable to let go of his past self over this experience.
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such
a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair,
to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his
horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if
it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its
breast!
Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
‘Mercy!’ he said. ‘Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?’
‘Man of the worldly mind!’ replied the Ghost, ‘do you believe in me or
not?’
‘I do,’ said Scrooge. ‘I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and
why do they come to me?’
‘It is required of every man,’ the Ghost returned, ‘that the spirit within
him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and
wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so
after death. It is doomed to wander through the world - oh, woe is me!
- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth,
and turned to happiness!’
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its
shadowy hands.
‘You are fettered,’ said Scrooge, trembling. ‘Tell me why?’
‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’ replied the Ghost. ‘I made it link by
link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my
own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?’
Scrooge trembled more and more.
‘Or would you know,’ pursued the Ghost, ‘the weight and length of the
strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this,
seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a
ponderous chain!’
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding
himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he
could see nothing.
‘Jacob,’ he said, imploringly. ‘Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak
comfort to me, Jacob!’
‘I have none to give,’ the Ghost replied. ‘It comes from other regions,
Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds
This could be
seen as the
turning point of
where Scrooge
begins to
abandon his
skepticism of the
supernatural
world.
Attempting to refind his religion in
his moment of
need- position of
prayer. Link- We
begin to see
Scrooge
‘trembling’ and
‘falling’ many
times
of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all
permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.
My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house - mark me! - in life
my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing
hole; and weary journeys lie before me!’
It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put
his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had
said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his
knees.
‘You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,’ Scrooge observed, in a
business-like manner, though with humility and deference.
‘Slow!’ the Ghost repeated.
‘Seven years dead,’ mused Scrooge. ‘And travelling all the time!’
‘The whole time,’ said the Ghost. ‘No rest, no peace. Incessant
torture of remorse.’
‘You travel fast?’ said Scrooge.
‘On the wings of the wind,’ replied the Ghost.
‘You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,’
said Scrooge.
Marley had a
responsibility to
take care of
others as
suggested by the
repetition of
‘mankind
business’ and
now he’s
desperately filled
with
remorse/regret as
shown by the
verb ‘cried’.
Deeply concerned
with his friends
fate and doesn’t
want him to wear
the same ‘chains
that he forged’ in
his life.
The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain
so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have
been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
‘Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,’ cried the phantom, ‘not to
know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this
earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible
is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly
in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short
for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret
can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I!
Oh! such was I!’
‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered
Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was
my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy,
forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of
my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my
business!’
Abstract Nouns
Due to his sinful
life this is what he
will go through in
the after life
This is what the
poor live like
every day
because of the
rich- so he’s being
punished in the
same way by not
having these
luxuries which are
the basic
necessities of life
that Scrooge took
advantage of.
Marley is trying to
teach Scrooge
that the divide
between rich and
poor is irrelevant
to death. He can’t
seem to fathom
his own
behaviour or
ignorance
towards the poor.
Disappointed
with his previous
mindset.
Mimics the types
of questions
Scrooge askedbut with the aim
to become better
to help people 
Light- goodness,
God, love and
hope.
Last chancewould be
dangerous for
him if he doesn’t
redeem.
Ultimately, the
decision is
Scrooge’s and he
must be able to
differentiate
between right
and wrong. This
could be the
voice of Dickens
warning them to
reflect on their
past, present and
future.
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its
unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
‘At this time of the rolling year,’ the spectre said ‘I suffer most. Why
did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned
down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise
Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light
would have conducted me!’
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this
rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
‘Hear me!’ cried the Ghost. ‘My time is nearly gone.’
‘I will,’ said Scrooge. ‘But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery,
Jacob! Pray!’
‘How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may
not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.’
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the
perspiration from his brow.
‘That is no light part of my penance,’ pursued the Ghost. ‘I am here
to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping
my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.’
‘You were always a good friend to me,’ said Scrooge. ‘Thank ee!’
‘You will be haunted,’ resumed the Ghost, ‘by Three Spirits.’
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.
‘Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?’ he demanded, in
a faltering voice.
‘It is.’
‘I - I think I'd rather not,’ said Scrooge.
‘Without their visits,’ said the Ghost, ‘you cannot hope to shun the
path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one.’
Link to the
transformed
Scrooge
Altered his life and
learnt the lessons
taught ‘I hope to
become another
man’
‘Couldn't I take em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?’ hinted
Scrooge.
‘Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third
upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to
Pauses/stuttering
Seems to act
uninterested/
impatient and
doesn’t seem to
take on Marley’s
message
seriously.
Dismissive
attitude towards
the lesson and
feels as though it
is an
inconvenience
and a burden for
him to look out
for the poorLink- This could
be the reason for
why ‘no beggars
implored him’
vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake,
you remember what has passed between us!’
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the
table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by
the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together
by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his
supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its
chain wound over and about its arm.
The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took,
the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it
was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.
When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held
up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.
Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising
of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air;
incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly
sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a
moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak,
dark night.
Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked
out.
Abstract Noun
and Verb
Emphasizing that
in like they only
cared for money.
They now feel like
the poor- no
power or controlseem to regret
their life choices
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in
restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore
chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty
governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been
personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar
with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe
attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a
wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to
interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he
could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the
night became as it had been when he walked home.
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost
had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own
hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say ‘Humbug!’ but
stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had
undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible
World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the
hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without
undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
Alternative
interpretations
1) The whole
proceeding does
not seem to
bother him and
he instantly falls
asleep, not
bothering to
undress.
2) He is so
bothered by it
that he cannot
perform the
necessary daily
tasks like
undressing and
the supernatural
occurrence has
mentally drained
him to the point
of exhaustion.
Imagery
This imagery used not only sets the tone for the second Stave, but also is used on an associative metaphorical notion; before
the visits of the three ghosts Scrooge cannot distinguish between the good and the bad; the opaque and the transparent. He
does not understand what he is doing is wrong.
Stave 2: The First Of The Three Spirits
When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could
scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls
of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his
ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four
quarters. So he listened for the hour.
To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven,
and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped.
Twelve. It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An
icicle must have got into the works. Twelve.
He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.
‘Why, it isn't possible,’ said Scrooge, ‘that I can have slept through a
whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything
has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon.’
The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped
his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the
sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could
see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very
foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people
running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably
would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken
possession of the world. This was a great relief, because ‘three days
after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his
order,’ and so forth, would have become a mere United States' security
if there were no days to count by.
Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it
over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he
thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavored not
to think, the more he thought. Marley's Ghost bothered him
exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature
inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong
spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem
to be worked all through, ‘Was it a dream or not?’
Scrooge lay in this state until the chimes had gone three quarters
more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned
him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake
until the hour was past; and, considering that he could no more go to
sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his
power.
Time Reference
Dickens uses
this counting
down of the bells
to create tension
and to signify
that time is
running out for
Scrooge. How
little time he has
to change his
ways.
The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he
must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At
length it broke upon his listening ear.
‘Ding, dong!’
‘A quarter past,’ said Scrooge,
counting. ‘Ding dong!’
‘Half past!’ said Scrooge.
‘Ding dong!’
‘A quarter to it,’ said Scrooge.
‘Ding dong!’
‘The hour itself,’ said Scrooge, triumphantly,
‘and nothing else!’
Juxtaposes
Old and Young
Noun &
Adjective
The child
represents purity
and innocence
while the old
man represents
wisdom. These
qualities show
that the ghost is
powerful and is
here to shed
light on Scrooge
and try to make
him change his
ways.
He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep,
dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the
instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not
the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to
which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn
aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found
himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close
to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.
It was a strange figure - like a child: yet not so like a child as like an
old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him
the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished
to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down
its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle
in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very
long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of
uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were,
like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white,
and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was
beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in
singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed
with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from
the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which
all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using,
Context Link: The Victorians often used
flowers to convey meaning. A Victorian reader
would have understood that Holly refers to
forgetting the past as well as being a symbol of
winter.
Superlative
Adjective Angel
like image- Childfree from
sin/crime- similar
to Scrooge’s
childhood.
Adjective Symbolizing the truth that can be found in memories- Scrooge tries
to extinguish this light by using the cap- perhaps too much for him to deal with?
Shocked? The light is acting as a metaphor for the right way of life- Scrooge
has lived a life full of darkness and won’t accept the truth (light).
in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now
held under its arm.
Control
The spirit lets
Scrooge speak
first, as if wanting
him to feel in
control of the
situation and
more at comfort
even though he is
in an
uncomfortable
position.
Verb
The fact that
Scrooge is begging
shows that
perhaps he’s
slowly becoming
humbled.
However, the fact
that he wants to
extinguish the
candle by putting
the cap on, he is
denying his chance
to reform and this
in turn shows his
stubborn nature.
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and
glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one
instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its
distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now
with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head
without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder
of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
‘Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?’ asked
Scrooge.
‘I am.’
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so
close beside him, it were at a distance.
Verb
Suggests authority, therefore highlights
‘Who, and what are you?’ Scrooge
Scrooge’s discomfort in a foreign situation and
attempt to regain some control
demanded. ‘I am the Ghost of Christmas
Past.’
‘Long Past?’ inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
‘No. Your past.’
Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could
have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his
cap; and begged him to be covered.
‘What!’ exclaimed the Ghost, ‘Would you so soon put out, with worldly
hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those
whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of
years to wear it low upon my brow!’
Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge
of having willfully bonneted the Spirit at any period of his life. He then
made bold to inquire what business brought him there.
‘Your welfare,’ said the Ghost.
Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking
that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that
end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:
‘Your reclamation, then. Take heed.’
Imperatives
The imperatives
‘rise’ and ‘walk’
show that the
ghost is to be
obeyed, and has
control here.
Verb
Scrooge is
touched and
moved by
witnessing his
childhood home.
These intense
emotions shatter
Scrooge's wall
practicality and
lack of sensitivity.
Scrooge feels the
pangs (sudden
sharp painresults in him
crying) of his
childhood and is
forced to reflect
on who he used
to be.
Scrooge is losing
his power
‘muttering’arrogance is
slowly ‘tearing’/
shedding away.
It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the
arm.
‘Rise. And walk with me.’
It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and
the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was
warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was
clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that
he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a
woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the
Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.
‘I am mortal,’ Scrooge remonstrated, ‘and liable to fall.’
‘Bear but a touch of my hand there,’ said the Spirit, laying it upon his
heart, ‘and you shall be upheld in more than this.’
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood
upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had
entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and
the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with
snow upon the ground.
‘Good Heaven!’ said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked
about him. ‘I was bred in this place. I was a boy here.’
The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been
light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense
of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air,
each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys,
and cares long, long, forgotten.
‘Your lip is trembling,’ said the Ghost. ‘And what is that upon your
cheek?’
Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a
pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.
‘You recollect the way?’ inquired the Spirit.
‘Remember it!’ cried Scrooge with fervour - ‘I could walk it blindfold.’
Stave 1 Contrast:
‘External heat and
cold had little
influence’.
‘Strange to have forgotten it for so many years,’ observed the
Ghost. ‘Let us go on.’
They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post,
and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its
bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were
Stave 1 Contrast
Marley’s
Ghost: The past
can’t be changed
no matter how
much someone
may want to. This
links to how
Marley’s ghost was
saying about how
he wanted to go
back and correct
his mistakes from
in life but he just
can’t and how he
wants to help the
poor people who
he would’ve taken
advantage of in life
but it is his
punishment to just
sit and watch how
the things people
like him do affect
the poor.
List of Adjectives
The Dilapidated
(result of
age/neglect)
schoolhouse,
where they see
the young
Scrooge reading
alone by a small
fire shows that
Scrooge lived
here as a child
and this may
have shaped him
into the miserly
old man he is as
an adult.
Ignored by
others-remains in
school alone
(unwelcoming
setting).
seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to
other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields
were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.
‘These are but shadows of the things that have been,’ said the Ghost.
‘They have no consciousness of us.’
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and
named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see
them. Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went
past? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each
other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and-bye ways,
for their several homes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out
upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?
‘The school is not quite deserted,’ said the Ghost. ‘A solitary child,
neglected by his friends, is left there still.’
Adjectives
Scrooge is the
way he is now
because of his
past- he was
deserted and
abandoned by
society as a child
so feels he can’t
join society now,
as he’s afraid of
rejection. He
cries when seeing
this showing the
feelings are still
very raw to him.
Stave 1 Link:
‘Solitary as an
Oyster’- Adult
Scrooge.
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.
They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon
approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercocksurmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large
house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little
used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and
their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the
coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more
retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and
glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly
furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a
chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with
too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.
They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the
back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,
melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and
Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self
as he used to be.
Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice
behind the paneling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in
the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one
despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house
door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge
with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.
Dickens
Intentions and
Links
The reader might
be surprised to
see some
emotion coming
out of what
before appeared
to be an
unfeeling
Scrooge.
The shell that
Scrooge was
around him is
beginning to
soften- The
reader learns
what made him
the lonely
curmudgeon
(bad tempered)that he is.
‘Solitary Oyster’
is being brokenthrough the use
of the verb
‘wept’
The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self,
intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments:
wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with
an ax stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with
wood.
Verbs
The fact that
Scrooge can’t
seem to decide
on his emotions
is truly showing
us his vulnerable
side- rather
childlike (Old and
Young).
His business
friends would be
flabbergasted
(surprised) at
Scrooge showing
signs of emotions
and being full of
life- Showing
gradual signs of
transformation.
‘Why, it's Ali Baba!’ Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. ‘It's dear old honest
Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas time, when yonder solitary
child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like
that. Poor boy. And Valentine,’ said Scrooge, ‘and his wild brother,
Orson; there they go. And what's his name, who was put down in his
drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him? And the
Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his
head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. What business had he to be
married to the Princess.’
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such
subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and
crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been
a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.
‘There's the Parrot.’ cried Scrooge. ‘Green body and yellow tail, with a
thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor
Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing
round the island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin
Crusoe?’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the
Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little
creek! Halloa! Hoop! Hallo!’
Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character,
he said, in pity for his former self, ‘Poor boy!’ and cried again.
Verbs
Regretting his
ignorance and
way of life.
‘I wish,’ Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and
looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: ‘but it's too
late now.’
‘What is the matter?’ asked the Spirit.
‘Nothing,’ said Scrooge. ‘Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas
Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something:
that's all.’
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did
so, ‘Let us see another Christmas!’
Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a
little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked;
fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were
shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no
more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that
everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all
Link to Stave 1
‘Tight-fisted…
wrenching’
Rather immoral
and aggressive at
the beginning.
Link Not the first
time Scrooge has
said something in
a barely audible
voice- perhaps
ashamed of his
ways and doesn’t
anyone else to
see his weak and
vulnerable side.
‘Scrooge
muttered, with
an unusual
catching in his
voice’
Scrooge's
strained
relationship with
his father is,
arguably, a
contributing
factor to how the
boy has turned
out. Rejected and
isolated, when
Scrooge grows
up, he spurns the
surviving
members of his
family, like Fred,
and prefers to
spend his time
alone. He does
not marry and
have children of
his own and
instead focuses
on the pursuit of
wealth and
success in
business.
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.
He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.
Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his
head, glanced anxiously towards the door.
It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting
in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him,
addressed him as her ‘Dear, dear brother.’
‘I have come to bring you home, dear brother!’ said the child, clapping
her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. ‘To bring you home,
home, home!’
‘Home, little Fan?’ returned the boy.
‘Yes!’ said the child, brimful of glee. ‘Home, for good and all. Home, for
ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that
home's like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I
was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you
might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a
coach to bring you. And you're to be a man!’ said the child, opening
her eyes, ‘and are never to come back here; but first, we're to be
together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the
world.’
‘You are quite a woman, little Fan!’ Exclaimed the boy.
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but
being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him.
Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the
door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.
A terrible voice in the hall cried. ‘Bring down Master Scrooge's box,
there!’ And in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared
on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into
a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then
conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering
best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and
the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.
Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of
curiously heavy cake, and administered installments of those dainties
to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to
offer a glass of ‘something’ to the postboy, who answered that he
thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted
before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time
tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the
schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily
Dickens
Intentions/
Context
Dickens makes an
important point
about family:
that children who
are loved and
cherished grow
up to become
caring and
productive
members of
society.
Adverb ‘gently’
Repetition
‘home’
Fan's words
illuminate her
excitement and
close relationship
with Scrooge.
However, this
happy memory is
cut short by the
spirit's statement
that "She died a
woman." One of
the most loving
relationship that
Scrooge
experienced
ended in a
heartbreaking
loss, which could
explain why he
has distanced
himself from
Fred.
down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and
snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.
‘Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,’ said
the Ghost. ‘But she had a large heart!’
‘So she had,’ cried Scrooge. ‘You're right. I'll not gainsay it, Spirit. God
forbid!’
‘She died a woman,’ said the Ghost, ‘and had, as I think, children.’
‘One child,’ Scrooge returned.
‘True,’ said the Ghost. ‘Your nephew!’
Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, ‘Yes.’
Link
Fezziwig is filled
with love and
care unlike
Scrooge ‘External
heat and cold
had little
influence on
Scrooge’.
Verb
Friendly time to
spread joy and
abundance of
warmth. No
immorality from
Fezziwig- wants
to bring out
goodness in all.
Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they
were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy
passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches
battle for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It
was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it
was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were
lighted up.
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if
he knew it.
‘Know it!’ said Scrooge. ‘Was I apprenticed here?’
They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting
behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must
have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great
excitement:
‘Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig alive again!’
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which
pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his
capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shows to his
organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich,
fat, jovial voice:
‘Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!’
Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in,
accompanied by his fellow-prentice.
Semantic Field of
wealth
Despite Fezziwig
having wealth
and luxury he still
celebrates
Christmas- knows
the true meaning
of it- to share,
unite and
welcome all.
Contrast
Even though
Scrooge was
Fezziwig’s
apprentice he
seem to have
absorbed no
Christmas spirit
from Fezziwig.
Scrooge is
trapped by
wealth instead of
embracing and
using the wealth
to give charity.
Possessive
Pronoun Sense of
belonging and
unity- treats
them all like
familyownership and
sense of
protection, love
& care. He wants
them all to be
involvedequality amongst
all.
The use of the
exclamation
mark shows
Fezziwig’s
jolliness and his
welcoming
nature.
List of Adjectives
Fezziwig has
those things in
excess- generous
and wants to
provide charity
for others.
Warmth is
symbolic of love,
care and of
celebration
amongst all- he
wants his
employee’s to
feel at home and
cozy because he
understands the
difficulties
people face and
wants to provide
something
positive at this
time- protective
family element.
Contrast.
This is a complete contrast to the description of his school at Christmas to show how
Scrooge has experienced both types of Christmas and only remembered one of them.
‘Dick Wilkins, to be sure,’ said Scrooge to the Ghost. ‘Bless me, yes.
There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick.
Dear, dear.’
‘Yo ho, my boys!’ said Fezziwig. ‘No more work to-night. Christmas
Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let's have the shutters up,’ cried old
Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, ‘before a man can say Jack
Robinson.’
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it. They charged
into the street with the shutters - one, two, three - had them up in
their places - four, five, six - barred them and pinned then - seven,
eight, nine - and came back before you could have got to twelve,
panting like race-horses.
‘Hilli-ho!’ cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with
wonderful agility. ‘Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here.
Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer.’
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or
couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done
in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from
public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps
were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was
as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would
desire to see upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk,
and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In
came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss
Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers
whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women
employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin,
the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the
milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of
not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself
behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had
her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another;
some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some
pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and every how. Away
they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again
the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in
various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning
up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as
they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help
them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his
hands to stop the dance, cried out, ‘Well done!’ and the fiddler
plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that
purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly
Contrast- Malthus Law
‘Are there no workhouses?’- Scrooge- Divide and segregation. He disregarded people & Christmas. Doesn’t
embrace the same spirit as Fezziwig and doesn’t regard Christmas as a joyful time- abrupt and immoral
attitude. Avoids any form of charity work- emphasizes his cold heartedness nature/behaviour.
Verbs High
energy and
excitement. He
seem to be very
enthusiastic and
keen to
celebrate- unable
to control his
emotions- tries
to spread that
energy on to
others.
Simile Keen to be
a part- in a rush
to be a part of it.
Wants to help
and provide
support because
it’s very
important to
them.
Contrast. Fire
Motif
Scrooge kept this
physically
warmth locked
away. He doesn’t
want to give
away his coal
even as a charity.
‘Kept the
coalbox’ &
‘didn’t thaw it
one degree at
Christmas’.
Connotations of
‘Warehouse’
Industrial and
cold- Fezziwig
provides a rather
contrasting
environment to
his workers.
Shows not all rich
people have cold
hearts- money
hasn’t killed of
everyone’s
humanity.
began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler
had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a brannew man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances,
and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece
of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there
were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening
came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind!
The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have
told it him!) struck up ‘Sir Roger de Coverley.’ Then old Fezziwig stood
out to dance with Mrs Fezziwig. Top couple too; with a good stiff piece
of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners;
people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and
had no notion of walking.
Scrooge was out
of his wits
because he was
enjoying himself.
Every part of him
was sucked into
the party, into
the enjoyment
and never has he
been like that
before. It’s so
unnatural to
everyone to see
him be happy
and it shows how
Scrooge has
changed, or
begins to show
change
But if they had been twice as many - ah, four times - old Fezziwig
would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs Fezziwig. As to
her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If
that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light
appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of
the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time,
what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and
Mrs Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both
hands to your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-theneedle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig cut - cut so deftly, that
he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without
a stagger.
When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr and Mrs
Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking
hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished
him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two
prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died
away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter
in the back-shop.
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of
his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former
self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed
everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until
now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned
from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that
it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very
clear.
‘A small matter,’ said the Ghost, ‘to make these silly folks so full of
gratitude.’
Light Imagery
This light imagery
describes the
goodness in
Fezziwig and how
he is a true
Christiansending a
message out to
Scrooge and
others like him –
to be a true
Christian, loving,
kind and
forgiving.
Contrast Scrooge
has preferred
isolation and
refuses to go to
any occasion e.g.
Going to Fred’s
Christmas Party
‘Bah Humbug!’
Adjective Gives
the men a rather
childlike quality Leaps to
Fezziwig’s
defense and goes
against all he said
to the visitors at
his office,
defending
‘gratitude’ and
explains that
happiness
doesn’t have a
monetary value –
Change in
Scrooge.
Rhetorical
Question
The Ghost
realizes that
there is
something
different in
Scrooge and
wants him to
know his deeper
thoughts and
feelings.
Theme: RegretScrooge has
reflected &
realized how
poorly he has
treated his Clerk
and is ready to
make amendsbecoming wise
‘Small!’ echoed Scrooge.
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were
pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done
so, said,
‘Why! Is it not! He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money:
three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?’
‘It isn't that,’ said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking
unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. ‘It isn't that, Spirit.
He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service
light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in
words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is
impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness he
gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.’
He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.
Adjective Seeing
Fezziwig’s joyful
Christmas
celebration
reminds Scrooge
that spreading
happiness
doesn’t have to
cost a fortune.
It’s possible to
partake in
holiday cheer
cheaply—it’s
more important
to act generously
and show
appreciation than
to spend a
fortune.
‘What is the matter?’ asked the Ghost.
‘Nothing in particular,’ said Scrooge.
‘Something, I think?’ the Ghost insisted.
‘No,’ said Scrooge, ‘No. I should like to be able to say a word or two
to my clerk just now! That's all.’
His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the
wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open
air.
‘My time grows short,’ observed the Spirit. ‘Quick!’
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see,
but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself.
He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the
harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs
of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the
eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the
shadow of the growing tree would fall.
He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourningdress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that
shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.
‘It matters little,’ she said, softly. ‘To you, very little. Another idol has
displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I
would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.’
Noun ‘idol’
suggests that
Scrooge thinks of
wealth not only
as of material
importance, but
much more than
that. This makes
Belle question his
love for her and
so she feels
replaced because
of Scrooge’s
growing love for
money ‘idol’.
Abstract Noun
Scrooge has
become
obsessed with
money. His greed
and selfish
nature has
consumed (Verb‘engrossed’) him.
Adjective
The reader sees
another side of
Scrooge. The old
miser seemed
dedicated to a
life of loneliness,
but as a young
man, Scrooge
was deeply
loved. This is the
first sign of his
personality
changing and his
love of money
driving goodness
away.
Link This links
back to Stave 1
when Scrooge
got angry when
Fred mentioned
his wife and how
Scrooge seemed
to disagree with
the idea of
marriage
altogether.
‘Because you fell
in love!’ growled
Scrooge.
This view is from
his buried
regrets about his
fiancée and the
happiness they
could have
enjoyed.
‘What Idol has displaced you?’ he rejoined.
‘A golden one.’
‘This is the even-handed dealing of the world!’ he said. ‘There is nothing
on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to
condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!’
‘You fear the world too much,’ she answered, gently. ‘All your other
hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its
sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by
one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?’
‘What then?’ he retorted. ‘Even if I have grown so much wiser, what
then? I am not changed towards you.’
She shook her head.
‘Am I?’
‘Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and
content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly
fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made,
you were another man.’
‘I was a boy,’ he said impatiently.
‘Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,’ she
returned. ‘I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in
heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how
keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have
thought of it, and can release you.’
‘Have I ever sought release?’
‘In words? No. Never.’
‘In what, then?’
‘In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life;
another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any
worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,’ said
the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; ‘tell me, would
you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!’
He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of
himself. But he said with a struggle,’ You think not?’
Adjective
Scrooge used to
be honorable,
respectful,
selfless, warm
and caring.
Overtime these
‘aspirations’
(abstract noun) or dreams have
disappeared. The
man that Belle
used to love once
does not exist
anymore.
Context This was unusual of Victorian England. Women in the Victorian society had one main
role in life, which was to marry and take part in their husbands' interests and business. Belle,
however, doesn’t conform to the stereotypical gender roles/divide.
Verb
Belle has made
the decision of
letting him goshows she’s in
control of him
and their
relationship.
Money has
consumed their
relationship.
‘I would gladly think otherwise if I could,’ she answered, ‘Heaven
knows. When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and
irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow,
yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain:
or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one
guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and
regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart,
for the love of him you once were.’
Adverb
Belle is still
considerate of
him- doesn’t
hate/despise him
for what he has
done- shows that
she has a good
heart and has
thought her
decision throughnot bitter or
angry- accepted
the reality.
‘You may - the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will
- have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the
recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it
happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have
chosen.’
Verb
She knows it’s
the wrong
decision, but still
sending him good
well wisheshinting that she
doesn’t have
100%
confidence/faith
that he will be
happy.
She still has some
hope for his
redemption and
happiness and
has sympathy
that he couldn’t
see the right
priorities in life.
He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she
resumed.
She left him, and they parted.
‘Spirit!’ said Scrooge, ‘show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do
you delight to torture me?’
‘One shadow more!’ exclaimed the Ghost.
‘No more!’ cried Scrooge! ‘No more, I don't wish to see it! Show me no
more!’
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced
him to observe what happened next.
They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or
handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful
young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same,
until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter.
The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more
children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;
and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty
children conducting themselves like one, but every child was
conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond
belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and
daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter,
soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young
brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of them.
Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the
wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it
down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off,
God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport,
There was more than one option for Scrooge- this didn’t have to be his
reality- conscious choice/ decision which could have been very different.
Abstract Noun
He doesn’t
embody the
same excitement
as Fezziwig or the
Cratchit familyinstead he
prioritize wealth
and this greed
has taken over all
aspects of his life.
This has caused
him to become
arrogant & selfcentered- doesn’t
care about
anything/other
unless it directly.
benefits him.
Adjective
She’s going to
leave with no
regrets, but
instead will
concentrate on
the good
memories that
they once had
with each other
where Scrooge
was not solely
money driven.
It’s almost as if
she is guilt
tripping him.
as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have
expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never
come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have
touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened
them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never
raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would
be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess,
to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man
enough to know its value.
But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush
immediately ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress
was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just
in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden
with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the
struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless
porter. The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his
cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs
in irrepressible affection. The shouts of wonder and delight with which
the development of every package was received. The terrible
announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a
doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of
having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter. The
immense relief of finding this a false alarm. The joy, and gratitude,
and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by
degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and by
one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed,
and so subsided.
And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the
master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat
down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought
that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise,
might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard
winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.
‘Belle,’ said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, ‘I saw an
old friend of yours this afternoon.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Guess!’
‘How can I? Tut, don't I know,’ she added in the same breath,
laughing as he laughed. ‘Mr. Scrooge.’
‘Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut
up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His
Verbs
This is the
complete
opposite to what
Scrooge has, he
feels torture
when he sees
this. It reflects
the happiness
people can still
have even
without money
however Scrooge
was just too blind
to see this.
partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone.
Quite alone in the world, I do believe.’
‘Spirit!’ said Scrooge in a broken voice, ‘remove me from this place.’
‘I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,’ said the
Ghost. ‘That they are what they are, do not blame me!’
‘Remove me!’ Scrooge exclaimed, ‘I cannot bear it!’
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a
face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the
faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.
Verb
Scrooge’s ‘force’authority doesn’t
seem to be
working on the
Ghost- he simply
cannot bear the
torture, suffering
and agony; is
begging the
Ghost to have
mercy on himshown through
the imperatives
‘leave me! Take
me back’.
However, he
can’t seem to
hide or suppress
the light which is
metaphorical for
his past and his
wrong doings.
‘Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!’
In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with
no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of
its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and
bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized
the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its
head.
The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its
whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he
could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken
flood upon the ground.
He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible
drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the
cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time
to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.
Stave 3: The Second Of The Three Spirits
Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in
bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told
that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was
restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial
purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger
dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding
that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of
his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one
aside with his own hands, and lying down again, established a sharp
look-out all round the bed. For, he wished to challenge the Spirit on
the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by
surprise, and made nervous.
Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being
acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the timeofday, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing
that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter;
between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide
and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge
quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he
was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that
nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him
very much.
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means
prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One,
and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling.
Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing
came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a
blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock
proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming
than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant,
or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at
that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion,
without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he
began to think - as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always
the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been
done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too - at last, I say,
he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might
be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed
to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly
and shuffled in his slippers to the door.
The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called
him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.
Verb
Through the use
of the verb
obeyed we can
recognize
Scrooge’s power
slowly crumbling
and he is moving
towards his path
of salvation. The
power dynamic is
being reversed.
Adjective
The adjectives that
Dickens uses are
positive and
present a solid big
and 'joyful’ spirit, in
contrast to the
indistinct spirit of
Christmas Past/Yet
to come. This ghost
is generous and
welcoming- there
to show Scrooge
the real meaning
behind Christmas
and wants Scrooge
to experience and
remember this type
of Christmas where
everything is filled
with delight as
opposed to the
isolated Christmas
he has spent when
refusing Fred’s
invitations (Link).
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had
undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so
hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part
of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly,
mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors
had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up
the chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in
Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season
gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys,
geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long
wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters,
red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious
pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that
made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon
this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see:, who bore a glowing
torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to
shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.
Adjectives
Ghost of
Christmas
Present
represents
generosity- not
only large in size,
but large in heart
and empathy.
‘Come in!’ exclaimed the Ghost. ‘Come in, and know me better, man.’ The ‘white fur’
represents
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was wealth, but the
not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were fact that it’s
hanging so
clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.
‘loosely’ implies
‘I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,’ said the Spirit. ‘Look upon me.’ that Christmas is
about spreading
Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or wealth and not
mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the being ‘tightfigure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be fisted’ and
warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ‘squeezing’ it
ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no (Link). It’s a time
other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining to be giving to
icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, the ‘portly
its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained gentleman’ and
demeanor, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique speaking in a
scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten ‘jovial’ manner
(Link- Fezziwig
up with rust.
and how he
‘You have never seen the like of me before!’ exclaimed the Spirit.
treats his
employees)
‘Never,’ Scrooge made answer to it.
‘Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family;
meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later
years?’ pursued the Phantom.
‘I don't think I have,’ said Scrooge. ‘I am afraid I have not. Have you
had many brothers, Spirit?’
‘More than eighteen hundred,’ said the Ghost.
‘A tremendous family to provide for,’ muttered Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.
‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge submissively, ‘conduct me where you will. I went
forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working
now. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.’
‘Touch my robe.’
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
Adjectives
We learn that the
cheer is due to the
presence of the
Ghost. The Ghost
sprinkles
passersby and
their dinners with
his torch, which
has the effect of
ending quarrels.
The positivity of
the people could
not be tainted by
the surrounding
gloom and ‘black’
corruption.
Dickens
Intentions:
Dickens wants the
audience to realize
the true meaning
behind life and
Christmas- it’s a
time to spread
happiness and give
charity- something
which people like
Scrooge did not do
as they thought
the poor were
being ‘idle’ and
treated Christmas
as an ‘excuse to
pick pockets’
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,
meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all
vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour
of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning,
where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk
and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their
houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come
plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little
snow-storms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker,
contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and
with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been
ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons;
furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times
where the great streets branched off, and made intricate channels,
hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was
gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower
of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one
consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’
content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town,
and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest
summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavored to
diffuse in vain.
For, the people who were shoveling away on the housetops were jovial
and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now
and then exchanging a facetious snowball - better-natured missile
far than many a wordy jest - laughing heartily if it went right and not
less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half
open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great,
round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of
jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the
Verb
Previously
Scrooge would
have been
dismissal of any
events however
he seems to be
obedient and
compliant. We see
him acknowledge
that there are
lessons to be
learned and has
already started to
understand the
spirits messages.
Alternatively, it is
still ironic that
Scrooge uses
business related
lexis ‘profit’ which
could show that
he’s only thinking
about his gain and
not the others
necessarily.
The lengthy
description of the
types of food
available to buy
and the bustling
atmosphere
highlights Dickens
viewpoint that
there was plenty
of food, but it
wasn’t shared
with the poor.
Contrast: The
Cratchit family
during their
Christmas dinnerMrs Cratchit was
worried that there
wasn’t enough
food for the
family, however
they were all
supportive of each
other.
street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced,
broad-girthed Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in
wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at
the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in
blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the
shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that
people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of
filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks
among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through
withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting
off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.
The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a
bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared
to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went
gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless
excitement.
The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! Nearly closed, with perhaps two
shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses. It was
not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry
sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that
the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even
that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose,
or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the
other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with
molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and
subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or
that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highlydecorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its
Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager
in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each
other at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their
purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them,
and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour
possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that
the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind
might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and
for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel,
and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes,
and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from
scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable
people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these
poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood
with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners
from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or
twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who
had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it,
and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a
shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it
was.
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there
was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of
their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven;
where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.
‘Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?’
asked Scrooge.
‘There is. My own.’
‘Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?’ asked Scrooge.
‘To any kindly given. To a poor one most.’
‘Why to a poor one most?’ asked Scrooge.
‘Because it needs it most.’
‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, ‘I wonder you, of all
the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these
people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.’
‘I!’ cried the Spirit.
‘You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day,
often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,’ said
Scrooge. ‘Wouldn't you?’
‘I!’ cried the Spirit.
‘You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,’ said Scrooge.
‘And it comes to the same thing.’
‘I seek!’ exclaimed the Spirit.
‘Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least
in that of your family,’ said Scrooge.
‘There are some upon this earth of yours,’ returned the Spirit, ‘who lay
claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will,
hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange
to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember
that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.’
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they
had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable
quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that
notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to
any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could
have done in any lofty hall.
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off
this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature,
and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's
clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his
robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think
of that. Bob had but fifteen bob a-week himself; he pocketed on
Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost
of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house.
Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a
twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a
goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda
Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master
Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into
his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to
show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller
Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the
baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and
basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young
Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to
the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him)
blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at
the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.
‘What has ever got your precious father then?’ said Mrs Cratchit. ‘And
your brother, Tiny Tim; And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day
by half-an-hour.’
‘Here's Martha, mother,’ said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
‘Here's Martha, mother!’ cried the two young Cratchits. ‘Hurrah!
There's such a goose, Martha!’
‘Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!’ said Mrs
Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and
bonnet for her with officious zeal.
The use of ‘had
hugged his’
‘We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,’ replied the girl, ‘and had
emphasizes the
to clear away this morning, mother.’
word hugged as
the alliteration
‘Well. Never mind so long as you are come,’ said Mrs Cratchit. ‘Sit ye
surrounds it,
down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye.’
causing it to have
a bigger impact
‘No, no. There's father coming,’ cried the two young Cratchits, who
and be more
were everywhere at once. ‘Hide, Martha, hide!’
valuable/
important and
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least
highlighting the
three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before
love between
him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look
family. ‘his
seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he
heart’s’ suggests
bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.
that a heart is one
of the most
‘Why, where's our Martha?’ cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
important parts of
the body so this
‘Not coming,’ said Mrs Cratchit.
highlights the idea
‘Not coming!’ said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; that love is
for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had valuable.
come home rampant. ‘Not coming upon Christmas Day?’
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so
she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into
his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore
him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing
in the copper.
‘And how did little Tim behave?’ asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had
rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his
heart's content.
‘As good as gold,’ said Bob, ‘and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful
sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever
heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in
the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to
them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars
walk, and blind men see.’
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more
when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny
Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and
Context: This
would affect the
Victorian society
as it would cause
everyone to aspire
to have a
harmonious family
like the Cratchit’
and especially
around Christmas
time. It would
make people
understand that
they need to
appreciate and
value love and
kindness and see
how important it is
to not take
everything for
granted.
sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and
stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master
Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose,
with which they soon returned in high procession.
Noun
Crowding
indicates the
excitement
towards food
Christmas spirit.
They are all united
and taking part
Verbs
All family members take part in all rolesfood, cleaning and care of people. To show
they are united and have family values they
help mum prepare food- Constantly
supporting each other as best as they can.
Superlative ‘rarest’ and Exaggeration
Appreciating things others take for granted- common for
others is splendid to them. They are content and amazed
by it and shows they are used to very little, but are
making the most out of this year by celebrating it as best
as they can.
Adjective
Completely
astounded by
what is on offer
(food) and is lost
for words- needs
a moment to
accept all of this
because it is not a
normality for
them. They are
used to the bare
minimum. For a
brief moment
they don’t have
to be ‘poor’escape for them.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest
of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a
matter of course - and in truth it was something very like it in that
house. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little
saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with
incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha
dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner
at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not
forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts,
crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose
before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on,
and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge
it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of
stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board,
and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the
table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!
Abstract Noun and Verb
Verb indicates that they don’t have
Noun Religion is important. They are thanking and
Brings them joy- they all feel
much, but are trying to completely fill
being grateful to God for what they have been
the same way. They aren’t
themselves up positivity and the food
blessed with by offering prayers. Despite poverty
overtly loud in expressing
they have Christian values- respect and faith.
they are eating- over indulging.
how they feel because they
aren’t use to this and don’t
Contrast: Scrooge is uncharacteristically moved by the scene of real family life at the Cratchits,
know how to react. Humbled
and is especially concerned about the fate of Tiny Tim. He asks the Spirit, "with an interest he
by what they have. Tiny Tim
had never felt before", to tell him if Tiny Tim will live. When the Spirit tells him that if conditions
is desperate to eat- has little
do not change for the family he will indeed die, Scrooge is truly saddened, begging the Spirit, "Oh,
energy (crippled) and he uses
no, kind Spirit, say he will be spared!"
what he has to express his
sheer excitement.
Contrast/ Dickens Intentions: Uses the plight and poverty of the Cratchit family to attempt to
shed light on the lives of the poor, in contrast to the lives of the rich aristocrats in Victorian
society, like Scrooge.
Noun ‘vigour’
Despite the
Cratchit family
having very little
they are over
excited and
complete their
tasks with full
effort, energy
enthusiasm.
Highlighting the
importance of
family and the
strong bond they
share.
Noun Moral message- We should be content
and pleased with what we have regardless of
how big or small- we shouldn’t be greedy and
need to value things that affect everybody’s life.
They want to utilize what they have without
being selfish and needy. Pleased with their
simplistic life and food
Subordinate
Clause Wants to
impress them and
doesn’t want to
let them downlove and affectwants to make
everyone happybut is aware of
their social
situation and how
they don’t have a
lot- Still wants it
to be perfect.
Link: Links to their poverty- the fact that something is cheap is actually
worthy of pride and respect to them. A complete opposite to Scrooge who
continues to enjoy the luxurious things in life whilst the Cratchit family just
about have ‘sufficient’ dinner to feed the entire family through only Bob’s
salary.
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.
Suppose it should not be done enough? Suppose it should break in
turning out? Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the
back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose - a
supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid? All sorts
of horrors were supposed.
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A
smell like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eatinghouse and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's
next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit
entered - flushed, but smiling proudly - with the pudding, like a
speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-
Exclamatory
sentence and
adverb implies
that they are
easily pleased and
are grateful
despite it being a
small pudding.
(See it as a
success). The
adverb creates an
aura of
excitement in the
atmosphereimplies there is an
apprehensive glee
about the family.
Adjectives
Appreciate their
quality time and
not focus on
what they don’t
have- limited.
Personal
pronouns and
terms of
endearment
Cratchit family
are united by
force that stands
up and rejoices in
joy, despite facing
the shame of
poverty that flood
though Victorian
London. Tiny Tim
also remains high
in his spirit,
regardless of the
unfortunate
circumstances.
Metaphor worried that she won’t meet their need- aware that
they have very little. Relieved that it all turned out okay and they
are able to eat at Christmas time.
quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck
into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he
regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since
their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her
mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity
of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or
thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at
such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept,
and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and
considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a
shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew
round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a
one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two
tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.
Adjectives Not
ashamed or
embarrassed
about their
lifestyle- they
present their
belongings with
pride. Have to
share their
utensils- limited
material.
Everything is
falling apart
except their love
Juxtaposition
emphasizes the
Cratchits’ lack of
wealth and this
widens the gap
between
societies’ rich and
poor- common
during the
Victorian Era.
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden
goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks,
while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then
Bob proposed:
Verb All in unison/same values and
‘A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless
morals. Want to support father’s idea
us.’ Which all the family re-echoed.
‘God bless us every one!’ said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his
withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep
him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.
‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, ’tell me
if Tiny Tim will live.’
‘I see a vacant seat,’ replied the Ghost, ‘in the poor chimney-corner,
and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows
remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.’
‘No, no,’ said Scrooge. ‘Oh, no, kind Spirit. Say he will be spared.’
‘If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my
race,’ returned the Ghost, ‘will find him here. What then? If he be like
to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’
Link: It was this attitude that Dickens was trying to expose. It is speculated that this was written in
staves, like a Christian Carol, and published as a book cheaply, rather than advertised as a play
because in this form it would reach more people. Dickens probably assumed that a short witty story
would last longer as a Christmas Tale, than a play would- and he was correct.
Verbs They were
hopeful and
positive and
expected their
lives to improve
but also dreaded
the future as they
recognized that if
the rich were
unwilling to help
then they would
suffer- Tiny Tim
will be ‘taken’ by
death.
Link: Privileged
businessmen like
Scrooge refused
to give charity
because he
assumed that
they were ‘idle’
and they were
poor from their
own laziness and
lack of ambition.
The verbs show how shameful and embarrassed Scrooge is of his actions and attitudes that he can’t seem to face the reality. The
ghost repeating Scrooge’s own words back to him forces him to change. We can see Dickens anger against the Malthusian beliefs
when the ghost asks Scrooge why he believes what he does.
Dickens Criticism:
Dickens greatly
opposed Malthus,
and believed that
there were plenty
of resources to go
around, like how
the Ghost of
Christmas Present
has the “throne”
of food and drink,
and that the rich
were being cruel
and avarice
towards the
suffering poor.
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit,
and was overcome with penitence and grief.
Context: Scrooge
shares many of
these ideals with
‘Man,’ said the Ghost, ‘if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear Thomas Malthus
that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and who believed that
Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? that we would run
It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less out of food and
fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! To hear the resources. To stop
Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry this from
brothers in the dust.’
occurring, they
posed the idea to
Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes eradicate the poor
upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own so that resources
were not
name.
“wasted” on them
and so the higher
‘Mr Scrooge!’ said Bob; ‘I'll give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the
classes would
Feast!’
benefit and live
‘The Founder of the Feast indeed!’ cried Mrs Cratchit, reddening. ‘I from the food and
wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and resources instead.
The ghost uses
I hope he'd have a good appetite for it.’
the Rhetorical
Question to make
‘My dear,’ said Bob, ‘the children. Christmas Day.’
Scrooge realize
‘It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,’ said she, ‘on which one drinks that the ignorance
the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr and parsimonious
Scrooge. You know he is, Robert. Nobody knows it better than you do, behaviour that he
previously held
poor fellow.’
was wrong.
‘My dear,’ was Bob's mild answer, ‘Christmas Day.’
‘I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,’ said Mrs Cratchit,
‘not for his. Long life to him. A merry Christmas and a happy new year!
- he'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!’
The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their
proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but
he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The
mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not
dispelled for full five minutes.
After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from
the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit
told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which
would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two
young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a
man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from
between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular
investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that
The noun ‘Ogre’
shows how
Scrooge always
casts a gloomy
shadow over
everyone’s life. By
eating away their
rights and
happiness.
However, when
the charitable Mr.
Cratchit urges his
wife to be kind;
Mrs. Cratchit
relinquishes,
agreeing to toast
him.
bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's,
then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours
she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow
morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at
home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before,
and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter; at which Peter pulled
up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had
been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and
round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling
in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang
it very well indeed.
There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome
family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being
water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known,
and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy,
grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and
when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of
the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and
especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.
By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as
Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the
roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was
wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a
cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the
fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and
darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into
the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles,
aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on
the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of
handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once,
tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon
the single man who saw them enter - artful witches, well they knew
it - in a glow.
But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to
friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home
to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house
expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high.
Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted. How it bared its breadth of
breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring,
with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything
within its reach. The very lamplighter, who ran on before dotting the
dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the
evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though
little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas.
The use of the
adjectives ‘scanty’
and ‘handsome’
suggest that they
live in poverty
because they
cannot afford the
basic necessities in
life. This is directly
juxtaposed with
the list of
description of their
happiness,
revealing that
wealth is not a
necessity, but
family is.
Dickens Criticism:
The middle-class
Victorian readers
are encouraged to
look beyond their
poverty and to
sympathize with
the Cratchit. The
family unit was
under threat in
the 19th century,
particularly
Working-class
families. Those in
need of help at
the workhouse
were split apart
from their
families. Dickens
is perhaps, not
too subtly,
suggesting that
families are better
off together than
apart.
And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon
a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were
cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water
spread itself wheresoever it listed - or would have done so, but for the
frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and
coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak
of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a
sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick
gloom of darkest night.
‘What place is this?’ asked Scrooge.
‘A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,’
returned the Spirit. ‘But they know me. See.’
A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced
towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a
cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and
woman, with their children and their children's children, and another
generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The
old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind
upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song
- it had been a very old song when he was a boy - and from time to
time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their
voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they
stopped, his vigour sank again.
The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and
passing on above the moor, sped - whither. Not to sea? To sea. To
Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful
range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the
thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the
dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the
earth.
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore,
on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there
stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base,
and storm-birds - born of the wind one might suppose, as sea- weed
of the water - rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.
But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that
through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of
brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough
table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in
their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all
damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old
ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.
The Ghost shows
him that such
people
nevertheless
celebrate the
Yuletide
(Christmas) season
with joy; they
dress in their
finery and sing
around the fire.
The Ghost makes a
point by using a
short and simple
sentence to show
that even these
people whose lives
are harsh can "see
him"-- they know
how to find the joy
in their lives every
day, and savor the
moments of
happiness when
they come. This is
something Scrooge
has not done in
many years, and
this Ghost's lesson
for him is to "seize
the day" and enjoy
every moment for
what it is, not
worrying about
money or focusing
on small
unpleasant tasks
or annoyances.
Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea - on, on until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted
on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out
in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in
their several stations; but every man among them hummed a
Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his
breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with
homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day
than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its
festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and
had known that they delighted to remember him.
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of
the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through
the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were
secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while
thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise
to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a
bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side,
and looking at that same nephew with approving affability.
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Scrooge's nephew. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more
blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like
to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his
acquaintance.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there
is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so
irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's
nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and
twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's
niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled
friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.
‘Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!’
‘He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!’ cried Scrooge's
nephew. ‘He believed it too.’
‘More shame for him, Fred.’ said Scrooge's niece, indignantly. Bless
those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in
earnest.
She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprisedlooking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed
- as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her
chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest
pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she
was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory,
too. Oh perfectly satisfactory!
‘He's a comical old fellow,’ said Scrooge's nephew, ‘that's the truth: and
not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offenses carry their own
punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.’
‘I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,’ hinted Scrooge's niece. ‘At least you
always tell me so.’
‘What of that, my dear?’ said Scrooge's nephew. ‘His wealth is of no
use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself
comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking - ha, ha, ha!
- that he is ever going to benefit us with it.’
‘I have no patience with him,’ observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's
niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.
‘Oh, I have,’ said Scrooge's nephew. ‘I am sorry for him; I couldn't be
angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always.
Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and
dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner.’
‘Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,’ interrupted Scrooge's
niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have
been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with
the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by
lamplight.
‘Well. I'm very glad to hear it,’ said Scrooge's nephew, ‘because I haven't
great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?’
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for
he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right
to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister
- the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses blushed.
‘Do go on, Fred,’ said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. ‘He never
finishes what he begins to say. He is such a ridiculous fellow.’
Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible
to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it
with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed.
Fred is opposite to
Scrooge: he is
charitable and
accepts social
responsibility. He
is Dickens version
of the ideal middle
class man (like
Fezziwig) Fred
believes that the
middle class
should support the
poor, working
class. He is
mocking and
being cynical of
how his Uncle
goes about his life.
Fred and Scrooge’s
niece pity him. He
makes the case
that Scrooge’s
stinginess harms
Scrooge almost as
much as anyone
else. Scrooge
could use his
resources to make
himself and others
happy, but since
he doesn’t, he
misses out on
those joys. Fred’s
generosity of spirit
stands in contrast
to Scrooge’s lack
of humanity.
‘I was only going to say,’ said Scrooge's nephew,’ that the consequence
of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I
think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no
harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in
his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty
chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but
he can't help thinking better of it - I defy him - if he finds me going
there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how
are you. If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty
pounds, that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.’
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge.
But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they
laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in
their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously.
After tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and
knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can
assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a
good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in
the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played
among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn
to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who
fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded
by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded,
all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he
softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to
it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for
his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the
sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they
played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never
better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child
himself. Stop. There was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of course
there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe
he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing
between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas
Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace
tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking
down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the
piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,
there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. He
wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some
of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring
to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding,
and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.
She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really
was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her
silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a
corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most
execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it
was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself
of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain
chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her
opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so
very confidential together, behind the curtains.
Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party, but was
made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner,
where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in
the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the
alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was
very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters
hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as could have told you.
There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they
all played, and so did Scrooge, for, wholly forgetting the interest he
had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears,
he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often
guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel,
warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt
as he took it in his head to be.
The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked
upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to
stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be
done.
‘Here's a new game,’ said Scrooge. ‘One half hour, Spirit, only one.’
It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to
think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only
answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire
of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was
thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a
savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and
talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets,
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live
in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a
horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a
cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this
nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly
tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last
the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:
‘I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!’
‘What is it?’ cried Fred.
‘It's your Uncle Scrooge!’
Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment,
though some objected that the reply to ‘Is it a bear?’ ought to have
been ‘Yes,’ inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to
have diverted their thoughts from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever
had any tendency that way.
‘He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,’ said Fred, ‘and it
would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled
wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, ‘'Uncle Scrooge!' ‘
‘Well! Uncle Scrooge!’ they cried.
‘A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever
he is,’ said Scrooge's nephew. ‘He wouldn't take it from me, but may
he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!’
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that
he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and
thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time.
But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken
by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but
always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they
were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by
struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by
poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's
every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made
fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught
Scrooge his precepts.
It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts
of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into
the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while
Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew
older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke
of it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at
the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its
hair was grey.
‘Are spirits' lives so short?’ asked Scrooge.
‘My life upon this globe, is very brief,’ replied the Ghost. ‘It ends tonight.’
The verb ‘clung’
shows how
desperate the
children are for
help and
protection, but no
one is shielding
them from their
ongoing pain and
misery- they are
left abandoned
and defenseless.
They know they
have to fend for
themselves so
they grasp onto
even the tiniest bit
of support they
have left. This is
metaphorical of all
the poor peopleabandoned by the
government and
society.
The verbs highlight
how torturous,
painful and
physically
damaging life is
like for them. They
barely resemble
people; physically
and emotionally.
Their lives are
falling apart
because people
and society are
actively trying to
hurt them by
mistreating them
and getting them
to work long
hours.
Link: Ignorance
relates to Scrooge:
- Ghost of Marley
- Ignorant towards
the Cratchit Family,
Fred and Belle
-Ignorant towards
himself- no
courage to stand
up for what’s right
when Belle leaves.
‘To-night!’ cried Scrooge.
‘To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.’
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that
moment.
‘Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,’ said Scrooge, looking
intently at the Spirit's robe, ‘but I see something strange, and not
belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a
claw?’
‘It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,’ was the Spirit's
sorrowful reply. ‘Look here.’
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched,
abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and
clung upon the outside of its garment.
‘Oh, Man, look here! Look, look, down here!’ exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,
wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth
should have filled their features out, and touched them with its
freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had
pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where
angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out
menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in
any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has
monsters half so horrible and dread.
The religious contrast of angels and devils indicates how sinful they have been
forced to become through their desperation. Shows how evil and cruel society has
become towards them- they make sure to make their life on Earth is like living in
hell. Highlights the corrupt nature of society due to poverty and ignorance- It’s
eradicating all elements of goodness from life and London.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way,
he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked
themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous
magnitude.
‘Spirit, are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more.
‘They are Man's,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they
cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This
girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all
beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom,
unless the writing be erased. Deny it!’ cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for
your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.’
‘Have they no refuge or resource?’ cried Scrooge.
The list of
adjectives
highlight how
much it’s affected
them- children are
no longer
beautiful. They are
monsters and their
humanity as well
as their innocence
has been ripped
from them- they
don’t resemble
people anymorethey appear bitter
and angry. This
description
emphasizes how
shocking their
conditions are and
their
suffering/pain is
explicit on their
faces.
The list of
adjectives show
the physical
appearance and
emotions that the
children feel when
affected by
poverty- weak, ill
and malnourished.
Their innocence of
childhood is taken
away by people
like Scrooge. The
children have now
become
animalistic- could
reflect the
scavenging they
have to do to
survive- the
desperate plight to
get anything for
themselves (like
wolves in the
wild). The children
appear to have
given up because
their struggle is
too much.
The names of the children are metaphorical for society. Dickens is trying to highlight that the main factor of poverty
that if people drive towards greed because of their selfish and self-centered nature. ‘Doom’ connotes darkness and
shows that if Scrooge carries on in the same manner his future will have no success and he will suffer the same fate
as Marley and wear the ‘chains’ that he has ‘forged’ in his life.
Dickens message: Dickens message lies more closely with ‘ignorance’ because that is the bigger problem in our society
due to people not acknowledging the hardships of others and instead they would rather turn a blind eye (not to see it as
part of their social responsibility). Dickens wants society to change and uses these children as a means of sending this
warning.
‘Are there no prisons?’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last
time with his own words. ‘Are there no workhouses?’
The bell struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last
stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob
Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and
hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.
The Ghost repeats these questions in a malicious tone to give Scrooge a flashback of how he treated the poor
in Stave 1. Dickens uses this repetition to highlight the stereotypical views that the upper class held towards
the poor working class people. They were disregarded and seen as worthless, immoral and sinful people who
were ‘idle’. The rich didn’t want to be associated with them and thought that they were better off in prison
where they were hidden because they were the ‘vermin’s’ of society- their happiness or well-being didn’t
matter.
Dickens suffered from poverty when his parents were sent to prison. Dickens believed that a
country’s moral wealth could be shown through the treatment of children. Children in 1840’s were
not valued or protected because of mankind’s own ‘want’ and ‘ignorance’.
The spirits have so
far been quite
benevolent –
glowing, ruddy,
childlike and
gentle, they have
guided Scrooge
through their
visions firmly but
somewhat
sympathetically.
But this last spirit
brings the moral
lesson homethreat of time and
death (Phantomnoun).
Reminiscent of the
Grim Reaper, he
shows Scrooge
that the unknown,
unseen fate that
he is heading for is
really something
to fear deeply.
The list of adverbs used to describe the Ghost reflect the slow and painful
demise of the poor- social ignorance. The ghost wants Scrooge to suffer the
same horror he’s created for others and understand the suffering of hell after
death (should he not reflect on his lessons).
Stave 4: The Last Of The Spirits
The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came,
Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which
this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
The verb ‘bent’ indicates that Scrooge is becoming subservient and submissive by surrendering
to the ghost. Perhaps Scrooge has realized that he has no power after all. By him kneeling down
we can see that he’s realized equality between the rich and poor- humbled- he’s pleading/
desperate for help- mirrors what he did to the poor. This is further emphasized through the
abstract nouns ‘gloom’ and ‘mystery’- there is misery everywhere & it cannot be avoided.
‘Mystery’ is a point for Scrooge to reflect and change- accept uncertainty and the lack of control
that people may have.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its
head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one
outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach
its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which
it was surrounded.
The adjectives used to describe the ghost
are reflective of Scrooge to show how he
Personal pronoun ‘it’ conveys it’s not from this world because it
lived his life in isolation, made immoral
describes objects, links to having no dialogue creating eerie atmosphere
decisions and chose darkness because he felt
or Scrooge didn't want to think of it as human because this would have
that was the right thing to do- now it’s
made the supernatural seem real.
‘difficult’ to break free from it- he’s trapped
‘Shrouded’ (verb) symbolizes being covered up, Ghost has no identity
in social expectations and has no escape.
and is hiding wealth- hidden social issues. Furthermore, ‘black’ has
connotations of darkness, corruption and evil actions that have been
Link: ‘Solitary as an oyster’ / ‘nobler aspirations
deep rotted in society for a long time. The fact that everything is
have dropped off one by one’.
‘concealed’ indicates the lack of empathy, sympathy and responsibility
towards the poor.
‘Shadows’ is
hinting something
sinister, dark and
deadly- Scrooge
may already be
aware of what is
to come next (his
eagerness to ask
the ghost
questions or to
gain certainty)
which has resulted
in him becoming
more openminded and
accepted that he
can change his
destiny.
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that
its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no
more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.
‘I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?’ said
Scrooge.
The Spirit answered not, but pointed downward with its hand.
‘You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not
happened, but will happen in the time before us,’ Scrooge pursued. ‘Is
that so, Spirit?’
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its
folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer
he received.
This is the first
Ghost that doesn’t
directly speak to
Scrooge and this
causes Scrooge a
lot of confusion
which results in
fear. He begins to
acknowledge the
ghost himself and
is forced to change
himself and think
about the legacy
he will leave
behind. People
won’t remember
or talk positively
about the
‘covetous old
sinner’ because of
how he treated
the poor. They will
instead stay
‘silent’ and this is
what causes
Scrooge to ask
questions to gain
some certainty.
The fact that Scrooge is shaky- ‘trembling’ (Verb) and uses Personal pronouns shows that he has
no stability, control and has become powerless. Due to his ignorance he used to rely on his wealth
and was certain that he will not become poor, however all of that is now gone; he can no longer
stand tall- he has been defeated by the powerful spirits.
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared
the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and
he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The
Spirit pauses a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him
time to recover.
But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague
uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud there were
ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched
his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one
great heap of black.
‘Ghost of the Future!’ he exclaimed, ‘I fear you more than any spectre I
have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I
hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to
bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak
to me?’
Despite Scrooge’s
unjust and
corruptive nature
the spirit shows
him compassion
even in death
Perhaps Dickens
is trying to
highlight that
regardless of
your past
everyone should
be given a chance
to redeem.
It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.
The fact that Scrooge is hoping to restart his life again shows he has a lack of power and
he is perhaps considering that he has lost the chance for change. Because of shadows he
has seen including Tiny Tim dying he is willing to bear the spirits existence and accept
the lessons- ultimately he wants to be noticed and is desperate for a better future and
destiny. Scrooge now sees this change/transformation as a possession and wants it to
be personal growth experience- he craves human interaction and approval.
Link: ‘he became a good friend, as good a master’.
Reasons for him wanting to redeem himself stem from his fear of the following:










Fear of death
Fears no ability of redemption
Fears uncertainty
Fears being forgotten
Fears poverty
Fears lack of control
Fear of losing people
Fear of ghost
Fear of future
Fear of acceptance and truth
‘Lead on,’ said Scrooge. ‘Lead on. The night is waning fast, and it
is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit.’
A business man, Scrooge
Scrooge is letting the Spirit have power and control over him as he knows the Spirit can
at the beginning, would
influence the changing of Scrooge. The repetition also shows how willingly Scrooge is need to
see ‘precious time’ as
change and he can only do that by taking in/ learning the lesson of what this Spirit is going to
time not wasted to make
show/teach him.
money/ to stay in his
own company. However
Link: This contrasts with Stave 2, where the first spirit has that authority and power over
now his ‘precious time’ is
Scrooge – “rise and walk with me”. However Scrooge also forcefully ‘seized the extinguisherto take in and use the
cap and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head’.
lessons in which he has
Here Scrooge doesn’t want to see any more of his past but now, Scrooge is telling the ghost to
learnt from the Spirits to
carry on as he is eager to see what the Spirit is going to show him.
make himself a better
man.
Link: ‘Bah Humbug!’- When Fred invites him for dinner.
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge
followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought,
and carried him along.
The fact that they
are yawning shows
that the other
business men don’t
care that Scrooge
has died and hold
no sympathy
towards him, but
that they care
more about
Scrooge’s money
and where it is
(This is all Scrooge
ever did too).
Perhaps Dickens is
trying to
emphasize that if
people don’t look
after each other’s
welfare then it
ultimately makes
them cold-hearted,
as they have never
benefited from you
in their time of
need.
They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to
spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there
they were, in the heart of it; on Change, amongst the merchants; who
hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and
conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled
thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had
seen them often.
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing
that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their
talk.
‘No,’ said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,’ I don't know much
about it, either way. I only know he's dead.’
‘When did he die?’ inquired another.
‘Last night, I believe.’
‘Why, what was the matter with him?’ asked a third, taking a vast
quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. ‘I thought he'd never
die.’
‘God knows,’ said the first, with a yawn.
‘What has he done with his money?’ asked a red-faced gentleman
with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose that shook like
the gills of a turkey-cock.
‘I haven't heard,’ said the man with the large chin, yawning again. ‘Left
it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know.’
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.
‘It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,’ said the same speaker; ‘for
upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up
a party and volunteer?’
‘I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,’ observed the gentleman
with the excrescence on his nose. ‘But I must be fed, if I make one.’
This mirrors Marley’s funeral, when Scrooge was only thinking about their business and making
money, showing he’s avaricious. Scrooges funeral being ‘cheap’ is expected to the readers as
he’s very tight with his money which can be seen when he doesn’t even spend money on the
basic things like, keeping warm (‘it looked like one coal.’) and food (‘melancholy dinner’)
Scrooge has been in such a small, selfish world that he doesn’t even realize that these
businessmen are talking about him. He is disturbed by their callous lack of care for the dead
man, but doesn’t realize that they are echoing his own cruel phrases and opinions.
Another laugh.
‘Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,’ said the first
speaker,’ for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll
offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at
all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop
and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye.’
Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups.
Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an
explanation.
The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons
meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might
lie here.
He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye business:
very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of
standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is;
strictly in a business point of view.
‘How are you?’ said one.
‘How are you?’ returned the other.
‘Well!’ said the first. ‘Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey.’
‘So I am told,’ returned the second. ‘Cold, isn't it.’
‘Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I suppose?’
‘No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning.’
Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and
their parting.
Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should
attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling
assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to
consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to
have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was
Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of
any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply
them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had
some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure
up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to
observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an
expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue
he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.
He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man
stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his
usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among
the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little
surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of
life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried
out in this.
Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched
hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied
from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself,
that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder,
and feel very cold.
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town,
where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its
situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the
shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken,
slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged
their offenses of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets;
and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling
shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones,
and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up
heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and
refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were
bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted
fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in,
by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal,
nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the cold
air without, by a frowsy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon
a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as
a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had
scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too;
and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less
startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition
of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the
old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a
laugh.
‘Let the charwoman alone to be the first!’ cried she who had entered
first. ‘Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's
man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance. If we
haven't all three met here without meaning it!’
‘You couldn't have met in a better place,’ said old Joe, removing his
pipe from his mouth. ‘Come into the parlour. You were made free of it
long ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut
the door of the shop. Ah. How it skreeks. There an't such a rusty bit of
metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no
such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable to our calling,
we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.’
The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man
raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his
smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his
mouth again.
While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her
bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool;
crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at
the other two.
‘What odds then. What odds, Mrs Dilber.’ said the woman. ‘Every
person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did.’
‘That's true, indeed,’ said the laundress. ‘No man more so.’
‘Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who's the
wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Mrs Dilber and the man together. ‘We should hope
not.’
‘Very well, then!’ cried the woman. ‘That's enough. Who's the worse for
the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.’
‘No, indeed,’ said Mrs Dilber, laughing.
‘If he wanted to keep them after he was dead, a wicked old screw,’
pursued the woman, ‘why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had
been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck
with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by
himself.’
‘It's the truest word that ever was spoke,’ said Mrs Dilber. ‘It's a
judgment on him.’
‘I wish it was a little heavier judgment,’ replied the woman; ‘and it
should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my
hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know
the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid
for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.’
But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man
in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It
was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleevebuttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally
examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was
disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a
total when he found there was nothing more to come.
‘That's your account,’ said Joe, ‘and I wouldn't give another sixpence,
if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?’
Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two
old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots.
Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.
‘I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's
the way I ruin myself,’ said old Joe. ‘That's your account. If you asked
me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of
being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.’
It’s clear that
people do not hold
any respect or
regard for Scrooge
even when they
know he’s dead.
They are trying to
steal anything and
everything possible
because Scrooge
never gave charity
with his own
hands. He always
held on to his
wealth because of
his fear of
becoming pooralthough he was
using his ignorance
to protect himself
then it has now
reversed and this
ignorance is being
used against him.
When he didn’t
show concern
towards the poor
they aren’t
showing it now
that he’s deadThey would rather
benefit from his
belonging now.
‘And now undo my bundle, Joe,’ said the first woman.
Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it,
and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and
heavy roll of some dark stuff.
‘What do you call this?’ said Joe. ‘Bed-curtains?’
‘Ah!’ returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her
crossed arms. ‘Bed-curtains.’
‘You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and all, with him
lying there?’ said Joe.
‘Yes I do,’ replied the woman. ‘Why not?’
‘You were born to make your fortune,’ said Joe,’ and you'll certainly do
it.’
‘I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by
reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you,
Joe,’ returned the woman coolly. ‘Don't drop that oil upon the blankets,
now.’
‘His blankets?’ asked Joe.
‘Whose else's do you think?’ replied the woman. ‘He isn't likely to take
cold without them, I dare say.’
‘I hope he didn't die of anything catching. Eh?’ said old Joe, stopping
in his work, and looking up.
‘Don't you be afraid of that,’ returned the woman. ‘I an't so fond of his
company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah. you
may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a
hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one
too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.’
‘What do you call wasting of it?’ asked old Joe.
‘Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,’ replied the woman with
a laugh. ‘Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If
calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for
anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than
he did in that one.’
Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about
their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he
viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have
been greater, though they demons, marketing the corpse itself.
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel
bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground.
‘This is the end of it, you see. He frightened every one away from him
when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha!’
‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. ‘I see, I see. The
case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way,
now. Merciful Heaven, what is this?’
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost
touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged
sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb,
announced itself in awful language.
The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy,
though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse,
anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the
outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft,
unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.
Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to
the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest
raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have
disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do,
and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than
to dismiss the spectre at his side.
Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress
it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy
dominion. But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst
not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious.
It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is
not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open,
generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse
a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike. And see his good deeds springing
from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!
No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard
them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be
raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts. Avarice, harddealing, griping cares. They have brought him to a rich end, truly.
He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child,
to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of
one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and
there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What
they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and
disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.
‘Spirit,.’ he said, ‘this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave
its lesson, trust me. Let us go.’
Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.
‘I understand you,’ Scrooge returned, ‘and I would do it, if I could. But
I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.’
Again it seemed to look upon him.
‘If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this
man's death,’ said Scrooge quite agonised, ‘show that person to me,
Spirit, I beseech you.’
The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing;
and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and
her children were.
She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she
walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from
the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her
needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play.
At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door,
and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and
depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression
in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and
which he struggled to repress.
He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for him by the fire;
and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after
a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.
‘Is it good.’ she said, ‘or bad?’ - to help him.
‘Bad,’ he answered.
‘We are quite ruined.’
‘No. There is hope yet, Caroline.’
‘If he relents,’ she said, amazed, ‘there is. Nothing is past hope, if such
a miracle has happened.’
‘He is past relenting,’ said her husband. ‘He is dead.’
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she
was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped
hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but
the first was the emotion of her heart.
‘What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to
me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay; and what I
thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite
true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.’
‘To whom will our debt be transferred?’
‘I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money;
and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find
so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with
light hearts, Caroline.’
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's
faces hushed, and clustered round to hear what they so little
understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's
death. The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the
event, was one of pleasure.
‘Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,’ said Scrooge; ‘or
that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever
present to me.’
The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet;
and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself,
but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's
house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and
the children seated round the fire.
Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in
one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him.
The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely
they were very quiet.
‘And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.’
Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The
boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the
threshold. Why did he not go on?
The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her
face.
‘The colour hurts my eyes,’ she said.
The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim.
‘They're better now again,’ said Cratchit's wife. ‘It makes them weak by
candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he
comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.’
‘Past it rather,’ Peter answered, shutting up his book. ‘But I think he's
walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.’
They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful
voice, that only faltered once:
‘I have known him walk with - I have known him walk with Tiny Tim
upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.’
‘And so have I,’ cried Peter. ‘Often.’
‘And so have I,’ exclaimed another. So had all.
‘But he was very light to carry,’ she resumed, intent upon her work,
‘and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble - no trouble. And
there is your father at the door!’
She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter - he had
need of it, poor fellow - came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob,
and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young
Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against
his face, as if they said, ‘Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved.’
The repetition of
‘little’ portrays
how Tiny Tim had
many years ahead
of him, but the
ignorance of the
higher class
disallowed him to
live a healthier and
longer life. Dickens
wants to make his
audience realize
that looking after
the children is our
responsibility
otherwise they will
lose their
innocence very
early on and will be
forced to become
adults soon.
Link: This message
is reiterated by the
Phantom
(Ignorance and
Want) in Stave 4
through the
‘meagre and yellow
children’
Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the
family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry
and speed of Mrs Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long
before Sunday, he said.
‘Sunday. You went to-day, then, Robert?’ said his wife.
‘Yes, my dear,’ returned Bob. ‘I wish you could have gone. It would
have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it
often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little,
little child!’ cried Bob. ‘My little child!’
He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped
it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they
were.
He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, which was
lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set
close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been
there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little
and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to
what had happened, and went down again quite happy.
They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working
still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr Scrooge's
nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him
in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little - just a little
down you know,’ said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress
him. ‘On which,’ said Bob, ‘for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman
you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr Cratchit,' he
said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.' By the bye, how he ever
knew that, I don't know.’
‘Knew what, my dear?’
‘Why, that you were a good wife,’ replied Bob.
‘Everybody knows that,’ said Peter.
‘Very well observed, my boy!’ cried Bob. ‘I hope they do. 'Heartily
sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any
way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.'
Now, it wasn't,’ cried Bob,’ for the sake of anything he might be able to
do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful.
It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.’
‘I'm sure he's a good soul,’ said Mrs Cratchit.
‘You would be surer of it, my dear,’ returned Bob, ‘if you saw and spoke
to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised mark what I say, if he got Peter
a better situation.’
‘Only hear that, Peter,’ said Mrs Cratchit.
‘And then,’ cried one of the girls, ‘Peter will be keeping company with
some one, and setting up for himself.’
‘Get along with you!’ retorted Peter, grinning.
‘It's just as likely as not,’ said Bob, ‘one of these days; though there's
plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and when ever we part
from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim
- shall we - or this first parting that there was among us.’
‘Never, father!’ cried they all.
‘And I know,’ said Bob, ‘I know, my dears, that when we recollect how
patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we
shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in
doing it.’
‘No, never, father!’ they all cried again.
‘I am very happy,’ said little Bob, ‘I am very happy!’
Mrs Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young
Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny
Tim, thy childish essence was from God.
‘Spectre,’ said Scrooge, ‘something informs me that our parting
moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man
that was whom we saw lying dead.’
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before - though
at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these
latter visions, save that they were in the Future - into the resorts of
business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not
stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired,
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.
‘This courts,’ said Scrooge, ‘through which we hurry now, is where my
place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the
house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come.’
The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.
‘The house is yonder,’ Scrooge exclaimed. ‘Why do you point away?’
The inexorable finger underwent no change.
Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an
office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure
in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone,
accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look
round before entering.
A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now
to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in
by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's
death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted
appetite. A worthy place!
The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He
advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had
been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.
‘Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,’ said Scrooge,
‘answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will
be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?’
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
‘Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered
in, they must lead,’ said Scrooge. ‘But if the courses be departed from,
the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.’
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the
finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name,
EBENEZER SCROOGE.
‘Am I that man who lay upon the bed?’ he cried, upon his knees.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
‘No, Spirit! Oh no, no!’
The finger still was there.
‘Spirit!’ he cried, tight clutching at its robe, ‘hear me. I am not the man
I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse.
Why show me this, if I am past all hope?’
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
This could suggest
that the ghost
pities Scrooge,
reminding the
reader that the
ghosts are there to
help.
The adjective
‘kind’ suggests that
this ghost really
does care about
Scrooge and his
future, and wants
to help him
redeem himself.
Scrooge is the most
frightened of this
ghost, however it is
the kindest one. It
shows pity for
Scrooge and cares
about him. It is also
the only ghost that
can really help and
show Scrooge that
nothing is certain
and he can change.
‘Good Spirit,’ he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it:
‘Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet
may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life.’
The kind hand trembled.
‘I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I
will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all
Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they
teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!’
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but
he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet,
repulsed him.
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye reversed, he
saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk,
collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.
‘Sponge’ is acting
as a metaphor for
absorption- he
has taken on
board all of the
lessons. He is in
extreme urgency
and desperation
to wipe his name
off the
gravestone as he
begins to fall in
despair in front of
the phantom.
Scrooge is no
longer
frugal/insular
(narrowminded/ignorant/
uninterested)
who is obsessed
with wealth and
fear of losing it
all. Scrooge's
transformation
proves that
destinies can be
changed so long
as you rectify
your mistakes.
Once he takes an
honest, more
complete look at
the past, present,
and future,
Scrooge’s
decisions begin to
bring him
fulfillment—and
even joy.
Stave 5: The End of It
Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was
his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to
make amends in!
‘I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!’ Scrooge
repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. ‘The Spirits of all Three shall
strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas
Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my
knees!’
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions that his
broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing
violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with
tears.
‘They are not torn down!’ cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains
in his arms, ‘they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here - I
am here - the shadows of the things that would have been, may be
dispelled. They will be! I know they will.’
His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them
inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying
them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
‘I don't know what to do!’ cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the
same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his
stockings. ‘I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I
am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A
merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!
Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!’
He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there:
perfectly winded.
‘There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!’ cried Scrooge, starting off
again, and frisking round the fireplace. ‘There's the door, by which
the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered. There's the corner where the Ghost
of Christmas Present, sat. There's the window where I saw the wandering
Spirits. It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!’
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it
was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long,
long line of brilliant laughs.
‘I don't know what day of the month it is,’ said Scrooge. ‘I don't know
how long I've been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm
Scrooge’s
awakening from
this deep, strange
sleep is a moment
of enlightenment,
a complete
transformation, a
bit like a baptism
or birth itself.
Scrooge cries like
a baby as shown
through the
adverb ‘violently’
and verb
‘sobbing’purified like a
newly baptized
disciple through
his tears.
The simile of
‘school boy’
suggests scrooge
is redeeming
what he lost as a
‘solitary’ child.
And has an
element of
excitement in his
changed
personality. The
noun ‘schoolboy’
implies a naive
happiness
without any
worries or
restrictions (light
as a featherprevious weight
on his shoulders
has been lifted
off). It also links
highly to the fact
that, like a school
boy, he has
learned from the
spirits teachings.
Link: Contrasts with the start of the novel when Scrooge was constantly repeating “Bah!”. This time
he repeats “Whoop. Hallo!”- Shows of his willingness and eagerness to celebrate Christmas.
quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo!
Whoop! Hallo here!’
He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the
lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong,
bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!
Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog,
no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to
dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry
bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!
‘What's to-day?’ cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday
clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.
‘Eh?’ returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.
‘What's to-day, my fine fellow?’ said Scrooge.
‘To-day?’ replied the boy. ‘Why, Christmas Day.’
‘It's Christmas Day!’ said Scrooge to himself. ‘I haven't missed it. The
Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like.
Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!’
‘Hallo!’ returned the boy.
‘Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the
corner?’ Scrooge inquired.
‘I should hope I did,’ replied the lad.
‘An intelligent boy!’ said Scrooge. ‘A remarkable boy! Do you know
whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there - Not
the little prize Turkey: the big one?’
‘What, the one as big as me?’ returned the boy.
‘What a delightful boy!’ said Scrooge. ‘It's a pleasure to talk to him.
Yes, my buck.’
‘It's hanging there now,’ replied the boy.
‘Is it?’ said Scrooge. ‘Go and buy it.’
‘Walk-er!’ exclaimed the boy.
‘No, no,’ said Scrooge, ‘I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell them
to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it.
Link: In stave
one, the weather
in London has
been used to
reflect Scrooge; a
form of pathetic
fallacy. In stave
one the weather
was gloomy,
grey, miserable,
polluted- exactly
like scrooge.
However, now
that scrooge is a
changed man,
the weather has
changed with
him. It reflects
the positive
mood in him and
the true
Christmas spirit.
Come back with the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with
him in less than five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown.’
The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a
trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.
‘I'll send it to Bon Cratchit's!’ whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands,
and splitting with a laugh. ‘He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the
size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to
Bob's will be!’
The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but
write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to open the street
door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there,
waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.
‘I shall love it, as long as I live!’ cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand.
‘I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has
in its face. It's a wonderful knocker. - Here's the Turkey. Hallo!
Whoop! How are you? Merry Christmas!’
It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird.
He would have snapped them short off in a minute, like sticks of
sealing-wax.
‘Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,’ said Scrooge. ‘You
must have a cab.’
Link: This is a
complete
contrast to how
he was at the
beginning of the
novel. People
used to avoid
him because he
gave off such a
negative aura. He
is also showing
Christmas spirit
as he promised in
stave 4- truly
living up to the
promises he
made.
The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he
paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab,
and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be
exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair
again, and chuckled till he cried.
Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very
much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance
while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would
have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.
He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out into the streets.
The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with
the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind
him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so
irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured
fellows said, ‘Good morning, sir. A merry Christmas to you.’ And
Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever
heard, those were the blithest in his ears.
Contrast & Link:
Previously
children would
stop singing
hymns as Scrooge
walked past. ‘no
children asked
him what it was
o'clock’ – Because
of his hard
exterior.
He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the
portly gentleman, who had walked into his counting-house the day
before, and said, ‘Scrooge and Marley's, I believe.’ It sent a pang
across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him
when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he
took it.
‘My dear sir,’ said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old
gentleman by both his hands. ‘How do you do. I hope you succeeded
yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!’
‘Mr Scrooge?’
The verb ‘patted’
shows that
Scrooge has
finally come out
of his shell
(‘Solitary as an
Oyster’) and we
are now seeing
the true goodness
of his heart
(Pear). The
lessons he’s
learnt are now
providing Scrooge
with not only
physical comfort
but mentally too.
Moreover, the
fact that he’s
‘questioning’
(verb) the poor
highlights how
he’s curious and
cares about their
wellbeing- he’s
now more aware
of their
situations/
hardships- sees
them as people
and not things.
‘Yes,’ said Scrooge. ‘That is my name, and I fear it may not be
pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have
the goodness’ - here Scrooge whispered in his ear.
‘Lord bless me!’ cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken
away. ‘My dear Mr Scrooge, are you serious?’
‘If you please,’ said Scrooge. ‘Not a farthing less. A great many backpayments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that
favour?’
Now that Scrooge truly understands the value of charity he is willing
to donate money.
Contrast and Link: We can thank the ghost of Christmas present for this as his
earlier words about ‘Prisons’ ‘workhouses’ and ‘decreasing the surplus population’
come back to haunt him as the ghost shows him ‘Ignorance’ and ‘want’.
‘My dear sir,’ said the other, shaking hands with him. ‘I don't know
what to say to such munificence.’
‘Don't say anything please,’ retorted Scrooge. ‘Come and see me. Will
you come and see me?’
‘I will!’ cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.
‘Thank you,’ said Scrooge. ‘I am much obliged to you. I thank you
fifty times. Bless you!’
He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the
people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and
questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and
up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him
pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk - that anything - could
give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps
towards his nephew's house.
He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up
and knock. But he made a dash, and did it:
‘Is your master at home, my dear?’ said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl.
Very.
It is evident that
the ghosts have
had a strong
impact on himhe’s come to a
self-realization
and is
acknowledging
that is treatment
of the poor was
cruel and unjust;
he’s also aware
that people will
not want to be
near him,
however he begs
for forgiveness
and is no longer
afraid of openly
saying his name.
Contrast: Scrooge
now takes every
opportunity to
interact with
people- no longer
an outsider,
selfish or
insensitive as he
previously was in
stave 1
Links:
‘Decrease the
surplus of
population’
‘I wish to be left
alone’
‘Are there no
prisons?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Where is he, my love?’ said Scrooge.
‘He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you upstairs, if you please.’
‘Thank you. He knows me,’ said Scrooge, with his hand already on
the dining-room lock. ‘I'll go in here, my dear.’
He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were
looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these
young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to
see that everything is right.
‘Fred!’ said Scrooge.
Scrooge has
previously seen
this moment
before- where
the guests were
mocking Scrooge.
However, he’s
now come to
apologize for his
rude behaviour
and his
mistreatment
towards his
nephew Fred‘Will you let me
in’ is
metaphorical for
Scrooge asking to
be let back in the
family.
Question – shows
his uncertainty
about his position
with his nephew
Fred due to the
way he has
always behaved
in the past.
Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started. Scrooge had
forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the
footstool, or he wouldn't have done it, on any account.
‘Why bless my soul!’ cried Fred,’ who's that?’
‘It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let
me in, Fred?’
Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home
in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the
same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she
came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful
games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!
But he was early at the office next morning. Oh he was early there. If
he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That
was the thing he had set his heart upon.
And he did it; yes, he did. The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter
past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time.
Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into
the Tank.
His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was
on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to
overtake nine o'clock.
‘Hallo,’ growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could
feign it. ‘What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?’
‘I'm very sorry, sir,’ said Bob. ‘I am behind my time.’
Contrast & Link:
Scrooge never
had a close
relationship with
his family and
always refused his
nephew Fred’s
Christmas Dinner
invites- he wished
to be left alone as
he much rather
preferred his own
company.
‘Keep Christmas
in your own way,
and let me keep
it in mine.’
‘Let me leave it
alone, then,’
‘Humbug’
Scrooge has now
become very
sensitive and
considerate of his
employee’s- has
recognized Mr.
Cratchits hard
work and when in
difficult times he
has also
witnessed Bob’s
positive attitude
towards his
family.
Since he doesn’t
have much of a
family, Scrooge
adopts the
Cratchits as his
surrogate family.
He becomes a
good friend to
Bob and a kindly
uncle to Tiny Tim.
He will make sure
that the Cratchits
never again know
hunger, and Tiny
Tim will not only
live but thrive. To
Scrooge, this is
the true meaning
of Christmas. He
has come to
realize that there
is no ‘surplus
population’.
Every life is
precious.
‘You are?’ repeated Scrooge. ‘Yes. I think you are. Step this way, if
you please.’
‘It's only once a year, sir,’ pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. ‘It
shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.’
‘Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,’ said Scrooge, ‘I am not going to
stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,’ he continued,
leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that
he staggered back into the Tank again; ‘and therefore I am about to
raise your salary.’
Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary
idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the
people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.
‘A merry Christmas, Bob,’ said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could
not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. ‘A merrier Christmas,
Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year. I'll raise
your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we
will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of
smoking Bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle
before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!’
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more;
and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He
became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the
good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the
good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but
he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to
know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which
some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and
knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite
as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the
malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was
quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total
Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him,
that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed
the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as
Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!
The End
Contrast and
Link: Scrooge no
longer growls at
Scrooge for
coming in late as
he previously
would have done
(or did do when
Scrooge was
hesitant in giving
Cratchit some
time off to spend
with his family on
Christmas Eve.
However, now he
‘states that he
will ‘endeavour to
assist [his]
struggling family’.