“If they would rather die…they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population”
Dickens makes Scrooge say these words, as Scrooge is the ‘villain’ in this story so people will disagree with Malthus’s words, which are from Malthus’s ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’ (1803), which proposed the idea that ‘nature’ can only produce a particular amount of food – so that it is only ‘natural’ that ‘the surplus population’ would starve.
Dickens uses Cratchit, the employee and Scrooge, the employer to show the readers a harsh employer who doesn’t treat his employee with respect. When Cratchit asks Scrooge for a day off on Christmas day, he was reluctant as he was paying a day’s wages for no days work, he then says:
“…But I suppose you must have the whole day off. Be here all the earlier next morning.”
Dickens has Scrooge say these words, which make the readers, feel sympathetic to Cratchit and his family because Scrooge is a miser and doesn’t want to give his employee a day off where as some employers would hold a Christmas party as well. Scrooge treats Cratchit with no respect as a person; Cratchit is just Scrooge’s employee.
The ghost of Marley warns Scrooge that if he has to change his ways and he still has a chance of escaping his fate. The Ghost of Marley wore heavy chains and
“…It was made…of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.”
The Ghost of Marley regrets not being more philanthropic in life when he was alive and he said
“…Why did I walk through crowds of fellow human beings with my eyes turned down, never raise them…to a poor abode!”
Outside the window, the Ghost of Marley showed Scrooge phantoms which all had chains like the Ghost of Marley. They were
“Wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went.”
“…Some few were linked together; none were free”
“…One old ghost…cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant….upon a doorstep.”
In stave 2, Dickens has the Ghost of Christmas Past show Scrooge himself as a young boy, when his father maltreated him. Dickens uses the Ghost of Christmas
Past to show us, where Scrooge went wrong in his life. Dickens uses his past Christmases to soften Scrooge’s heart.
The sight of of the past Christmases moved Scrooge especially his childhood Christmases, when he “…wept to see his poor forgotten self.” Scrooge says there was a boy last night singing at his door and he would have liked to give him something, this is as he starts feeling sorry for people. This promotes benevolence, charity and philanthropy because he is starting to change so others can too.
The Ghost of Christmas Past took Scrooge to “a certain warehouse door” and they went in. Scrooge’s immediate reaction was “Why, its old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again.”
Fezziwig is important to Scrooge as he is Scrooge’s first employer and he was very philanthropic. He throws a Christmas party and Dickens describes it in a very lively manner. The Ghost of Christmas Past is working on Scrooge when he first walks into the warehouse. Fezziwig is very warm hearted, as an employer should be and Dickens contrasts between the warm hearted Fezziwig to the misery old Scrooge as employers. After Fezziwigs ball Dickens has the old Scrooge enjoy himself. Scrooge argues with the Ghost of Christmas Past about the old him and Dick giving Fezziwig praise and Scrooge says
“It isn’t that…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 toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and significant that it is impossible to add and count ‘em up; what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
Fezziwig treated Dick and Scrooge with respect and treats them almost as if they are family. Whereas Scrooge treats Cratchit with little respect and makes him work in poor conditions.
Dickens includes the section concerning the old Scrooge and his fiancée, Belle because it shows that Scrooge did love someone but he lost it through love of money. Belle gives Scrooge the chance to break off the engagement because she is poor and she says that Scrooge loves money more than love, he has become mercenary. Dickens shows us where Scrooge chooses money over love. A mistake. Dickens just uses a very short scene that could be a whole novel but instead he of doing that he gives Belle a cameo roll. She could have been the woman of his life, Scrooge wouldn’t have ended up a bitter, lonely man. The loneliness of Scrooge is emphasised by Dickens. Scrooge extinguishes the Ghost of Christmas Past.
In stave 3, Dickens introduces to us the second of the three ghosts The Ghost of Christmas Present. The start of this stave an attractive scene is painted, Dickens paints such an attractive scene, we cannot help but be moved and excited by Christmas. Dickens describes how Christmas is a good, exciting time. The reader is reminded of this as well as Scrooge.
Dickens has The Ghost of Christmas Present to take Scrooge on a tour of the city because Scrooge has never seen the city in the way the Ghost of Christmas Present shows it to him. Dickens has Scrooge react in the way he does to the people in the street, because Dickens is showing that is asking questions about them. Dickens has Scrooge react to the Cratchits especially Tiny Tim after he said “God bless us every one!” because he had an interest that he had never felt before in whether Tiny Tim will die or survive and the spirit just says “if these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die”
“No, no…Oh, no, kind spirit! Say he will be spared”
“If he be like to die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus population.” When Dickens had made the spirit repeat Scrooge’s own words, Scrooge was overcome with penitence and grief and his head was hung. Dickens has Scrooge says about Cratchit only earning “but fifteen ‘Bob’ a week himself” and then the spirit blessed the four-roomed house. This promotes benevolence and charity because people like Tiny Tim and feel sorry for the Cratchit family who have to survive on a small earning. When Cratchit gives Mr. Scrooge a toast for being “founder of the feast” he wife gets cross and says she will toast for the days sake and for Bobs but not for a “odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge.”
Dickens has Scrooge to react in the way that he does to his nephew, Fred because it promotes charity and benevolence. At Fred’s house there is a game of yes or no being played about Scrooge
“An animal, a live animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes and talked sometimes and lived in London.” Fred also gave Scrooge a toast, at which
“Scrooge had imperceptibly became 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.” This promotes benevolence and charity by people being nice to Scrooge even when he isn’t pleasant to them.
When the Ghost of Christmas Present opens his robe there are two children; a boy and a girl. “Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish” Scrooge stared appalled at what he saw. The spirit tells Scrooge their names are “ignorance” and “want,”
“Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware of the boy, for on his brow I see that written which is doom, unless the writing be erased” Both of them are going to cause destruction of the society- the Athenaeum. “Have they no refuge or resource?” and the spirit quotes his words back at him, “Are there no prisons…are there no workhouses?”
In Stave 4, Dickens has The Ghost of Christmases Yet to come show what will happen to Scrooge if he does not change his ways. The ghost was “shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, it’s face, it’s form” Dickens tries to frighten the readers because no one likes us. Dickens plays the same yes or no game with the readers that Fred plays with his family at his house about ‘Uncle Scrooge’. The ‘corpse’ is identified as anonymous and the readers are kept in suspense. Scrooge has pity on the ‘corpse’. Dickens reserves the gothic horror for when Scrooge finds it’s his body. The ghost shows a group of three business men talking “…I only know he’s dead” “…What has he done with his money?” “…He hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know.”
In the rag and bone shop where Old Joe receives stolen goods “bones and greasy offal, were brought” “mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones” the charwoman, the laundress and the undertaker’s man were all laughing
“he frightened everyone away when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!” Dickens tells us that this is how you will be treated if you are unpleasant and nasty when you are alive, so you need to be to nice and pleasant to people. Scrooge is shown being sympathetic.
Dickens gives Tiny Tim the role of dying and Dickens deliberately tries to touch our hearts with the child who everyone loves from a poor family, being desperately missed. This shows how close the Cratchit family are. Tiny Tim evokes sympathy from the readers. Dickens promotes charity and benevolence because even Scrooge has a chance to change-he can redeem him.
“Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?”
Dickens has Scrooge beg for mercy with a promise of an absolute change. “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year.” “ The Spirits of all three shall strive within me.” “I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.” Scrooge really shows true remorse, he recognises what and where he’s done wrong and shows remorse. Scrooge repents himself and then he reconciles with Fred and Cratchit and through that his reconciles Scrooge finds redemption. Scrooge dies but only metamorphic ally.
In stave 5, Dickens shows that Scrooge is a changed person and Scrooge has now become a comical character. As Scrooge realizes that the bedpost is his own and he is in his bedroom, he is “light as a feather” and “as happy as an angel” and “as merry as a schoolboy.” Scrooge is laughing and all the way through the paragraph in which he paided for the turkey, Dickens has written ‘chuckle’ five times in five lines.
As Scrooge walks out to greet everyone with “Merry Christmas”, he meets the two charitable gentlemen and whispered an amount in their ears and Scrooge replies “Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you” Scrooge when to his nephew’s, Fred’s house and recognised with Fred. Dickens describes everything as “wonderful.” By writing this, Dickens shows us that if Scrooge can change, then anyone can change. Dickens has Scrooge play a joke on his employee, Cratchit about being late and raising his salary, Scrooge says with an honest kind heart
“A Merry Christmas, Bob…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!”
Now that Scrooge has changed to a kind, loving person and he helps those in need of help. I think it a good way to finish the book with Tiny Tim’s Christmas blessing “God bless Us, Every One!”
