The entire Cratchit family come together to celebrate on Christmas day. The whole family wear their best, even if it’s not what some would call ‘finery’. Everyone is excited and in high spirits even thought they are not as rich as they would like to be and they do not have as much as they would like. They celebrate Christmas as one large, happy family who are thankful for all they have.
An air of excitement and delight is even more evident when Bob Cratchit returns home with Tiny Tim.
“…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.”
Scrooge’s nephew, Fred has a get together on Christmas day to celebrate the special holiday. Scrooge was invited to join in the merriment with Fred and his family. However, Scrooge declined. Dickens felt that Christmas was a time to be happy, carefree and have fun.
“…they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas…”
So all in all Christmas is a tradition that almost all find delight in. A time for giving and receiving, a time to share with people you love and cherish.
The scariness of ghosts.
Even though ‘A Christmas Carol’ integrates many ideas into itself, you will find that it is indeed a ghost story.
Although the story may not be frightening or as gory as the books or film we see now, ‘A Christmas Carol’ was almost a whole new genre. Dickens used melodrama in his writing of this tale. As you can tell from Marley’s ghost, who laments, wails and clanks his chains.
“At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chains with such a dismal and appalling noise…”
Marley’s ghost is made to seem even more gruesome by his jaw dropping down, as though it is only just held on by a single ligament.
“…the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!”
‘A Christmas Carol’ was the first ‘ghost at Christmas story’, with its ghostly settings, eerie atmospheres, spectres and phantoms. All of these things are scary, but Dickens elevated their scariness by using melodrama and making them seem humorous at times. The Victorian audience would most likely have found the tale highly gory and frightening. Some might scoff and say why read it, but there is something in human nature, which loves to be scared but not directly. Dickens used this to captivate his readers. He used eerie tensions and the silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to create such an atmosphere that you cannot help but feel compelled to read on.
“Quiet and dark, beside him stood the phantom, with its outstretched hand.”
The satirical element.
Dickens attacks the Victorian take on poverty and the harsh living conditions that the poor had to endure.
He uses satire to express how he feels about the attitudes towards these issues and to show how he thinks they should be tackled. Dickens also attacks the complacency and coldness of the time.
Satire is hard to pinpoint into a quote because of its subtleness. However, a good example of satire in ‘A Christmas Carol’ is when the two portly gentle ask for donation from Scrooge and Scrooge refuses. Dickens mentions the prisons, workhouses, the Treadmill and Poor Law, whish were used to keep the poor from the streets and to make them work for little or no money.
Although Scrooge is the ‘villain’ in the story, we laugh at him and feel compassion for him at times, for example when he visits his past.
Scrooge has extreme views on the poor, money, holidays and just about anything you can have a view on. Even the way that Scrooge lives is somewhat comical.
Scrooge lives in his dead partners old accommodations.
“He lived in chambers which once had belonged to his deceased partner.”
Scrooge does not believe in wasting money, he is an old miser who hates everything and everyone except money.
“Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.”
Scrooge’s character has no warmth in him; he is not a halfhearted character. Dickens made him completely cold, and there is no doubt about that.
“He carried his own low temperature always about with him…”
Christmas is a time to look upon those who are less fortunate and Dickens hints at this subject throughout the story.
“…it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.”
The Cratchit family are poor in financial and material matters. However, they are all good in heart. As all stories with villains, there are also ‘heroes’ or ‘good’ people. The Cratchits are essentially the ‘good’ people in ‘A Christmas Carol’. They are noble and kind. Dickens uses the Cratchit family, poor as they are to show that higher classes may be better off with money, but more likely worse off in the heart and spirit.
“They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed… But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another…”
The Ghost of Christmas present tries to explain to Scrooge that goodwill and blessing is for everyone at Christmas. Especially for the less fortunate and poor, which is where it is needed most.
“’Why to a poor one most?’ asked Scrooge.
‘Because it needs it most.’”
The poor should be blessed even though they may not live in grandeur or earn much. The poor can be as good or even better than any other class.
“…the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwellings with the sprinklings of his torch.”
A heart-warming story
Although ‘A Christmas Carol’ is a ghost story, it is also among other things a heart-warming story.
Dickens uses the concept of redemption, being able to change before you are eternally damned in ‘A Christmas Carol’.
Scrooge, a cold, cruel man is able to redeem himself and change into a man who is willing to give and to be merry. True, he needed the help of several spirits to finally change him, but the point is that Scrooge did change. Even with the first of the spirits we can see Scrooge beginning to change and to show some humanity.
“’There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that’s all.’”
Dickens also uses the idea of inherent goodness, that everyone is born good, but they just get a little lost on the way. That with a little nudge, or large, we can all revert to the right path. Scrooge started off as good as any other and he needed that nudge later on in life.
“Scrooge, heated by the remarks, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self.”
Another point, which makes ‘A Christmas Carol’, a heart-warming tale is that Tiny Tim lives! Tiny Tim is a poor crippled boy, almost on his last wing.
“Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and has his limbs supported by an iron frame!”
If Tiny Tim were to die then the ideas of redemption and change would not work to their full potential. This is because Scrooge must give to save Tiny Tim’s life, so that the story may end on a happy note.
“…to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die,” Scrooge “…was a second father.”
Changing and becoming good is quite simply a great thing as Scrooge found out, as did all those who knew and came to know him.
“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.”
