A Christmas Carol
- a didactic text
What is Dickens trying to teach the
audience in A Christmas Carol?
What are the values (what is
shown to be important)?
• People / Relationships – this is
what is important in life
• Money – danger of being obsessed with
it and being tight-fisted, not generous to
those in need (although it is good to use
money to help others and to celebrate)
• Celebration – seize the opportunity to
have fun, enjoy celebrating with others,
making those times special
People / Relationships
Scrooge had isolated himself from people
• Ate and lived alone – ‘dreary enough, for
nobody lived in it but Scrooge’ (p. 41)
• Lost his fiancée
• Rejects nephew’s invitation
Contrast with Cratchit family
‘They were not a handsome family; they were not well
dressed…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.’ (p. 84)
Scrooge, at the end, joins his nephew’s family
and friends to celebrate Christmas and
becomes Tiny Tim’s ‘second father’ (p. 116)
Consequences of being obsessed with
money and being tight fisted:
• Can destroy Scrooge’s own life
- Loneliness
- Will die with no-one grieving him
- Eternal torment (like Marley)
‘I wear the chain I
forged in life.’
(p. 47)
• Can destroy relationships
- Example: Scrooge’s fiancé breaks off their
engagement
‘Another Idol has displaced me…a golden one.’
• Oppression of others
- Examples:
 Treatment of Bob Cratchit
(limited coal, low wage)
 Refuses to give money to the portly
gentlemen to help the poor
Portly gentlemen:
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge…
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded
Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”…
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full
vigour, then?” said Scrooge…
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge,
“they had better do it, and decrease the
surplus population.” (p. 38 – 39)
• Destruction of society
- As illustrated in ‘Ignorance and Want’
‘They are Man’s…This boy is Ignorance. This girl
is Want. Beware them both…but most of all
beware this boy, for on his brow I see that
written which is Doom…’ (p. 94)
Money can be used to make a difference:
• Scrooge gives generously to the portly
gentlemen
• He transforms the fortunes of the Cratchit
family by financially helping them.
While others are ready to
celebrate…
Scrooge says, “Bah, humbug.”
Page 35 – 36
“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You
don’t mean that, I am sure.”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right do you
have to be merry? What reason do you have to be merry?
You’re poor enough.”
“Come then,” return the nephew gaily. “What right have
you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose?
You’re rich enough.”
Page 39 - 40
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
overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice.
The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs
and berries cracked 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.
Scrooge talking about Fezziwig (p. 64):
“…He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make
our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil…The
happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
He felt the Spirit’s glance, and stopped.
“What is the matter?” asked the Ghost.
“Nothing 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.”
Note examples:
• miners
• lighthouse keepers
• sailors
Read p. 85-86
• Key part of celebration and bringing people together
• Universal (street scenes, Fezziwig’s, miners,
lighthouse keepers)
• Reflected in the title of the novella (and chapters
called ‘staves’)
‘Scrooge took his melancholy
dinner in his usual melancholy
tavern.’ (p. 41)
• Fezziwig’s party (p. 63)
• The Ghost of Christmas
Present (Heaped up on the
floor… p. 72)
• Long, effusive description of
food on display in the street
(p. 75-76)
‘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.’ (p. 81)
“I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit,” whispered Scrooge, rubbing his
hands and splitting with a laugh.
Draw a mind-map of Dickens’
values:
• People/Relationships
• Money
• Celebration
Include:
• examples
• quotes
• visual images