Another interesting use of characterisation in “A Christmas Carol” is the portrayal of the plight of the poor through Scrooge’s clerk, Bob Cratchit. Cratchit represents the poor, working class, desperate for help, but not receiving any. Scrooge is reluctant to give Cratchit the day off, because he wants to save as much money as he can, which he wants, for no reason. He is obsessed with making profit, and completely exploits Bob Cratchit to make this profit, making him work long, hard hours, for little money. He doesn’t even provide him with much fuel for keeping warm, despite it being the middle of winter. Scrooge does not care about him at all, he is just concerned with squeezing as much money out of him as possible; “Let me hear another sound from you, said Scrooge, and you’ll keep Christmas by losing your situation”. He wants to completely control Bob Cratchit to make his money, and gain as much work out of him as he can for as little salary as possible. His only interest is making money and he basically ignores the rest of the world.
Scrooge specifically represents the capitalists of the Victorian period, and the greed of mankind. He is the epitome of meanness, and greed, with his parsimonious attitude. Like many other capitalists in Victorian times, Scrooge is blind to his own of responsibility to the poor. Scrooge is however given a chance to redeem his actions throughout his life, by the visitation of three spirits, plus his former partner, Jacob Marley.
In “A Christmas Carol”, Dickens uses the supernatural, ghost, and spirits to bring the characters together through the plot line. The three ghosts that he uses are allegorical figures in the book. The Ghost of Christmas Past resembles childhood, age, forgetfulness and memory. The Ghost of Christmas Present resembles ease, plenty, and joy, while The Ghost of Christmas Yet to come is death. Marley represents an unredeemed figure, and to a certain extent, Scrooge’s conscience, and the conscience of mankind. Marley carries a chain; “the chain he forged in life”. This chain is symbolic, and symbolises how Marley can never be at peace, he is tied to the Earth forever. Using this imagery Dickens is stressing that human beings have free choice in the way they live and behave towards others, and to ignore one’s duties to one’s fellow man comes at great cost to one’s spirit.
The ghost of Christmas Past’s sole purpose is to show Scrooge he is responsible for the life he now leads and his lonely and difficult past, as a child, as a young adult, and his gradual decline into the life he now leads, the life of a miser. The spirit carries with it a snuffer cap; “he seized the extinguisher cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon it’s head”. This symbolises all the memories from Scrooge’s past, which he will never be able to get rid of. It is with this ghost, that Scrooge first begins to succumb to self-realisation, and how his actions should be changed in the future, and everything that he did wrong in the past.
The second spirit, the ghost of Christmas Present is full of good cheer and blessings. This spirit also wears a scabbard which is caked in rust; “girded around its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust”. This implies a symbol of peace, and this ghost represents all that is good about Christmas. The spirit is also aware of mankind’s suffering and wants to relieve it. This spirit reveals two wretched, miserable children who not only scare Scrooge by their appearance, but by what they represent symbolically. Scrooge must undergo a transformation, to help create a better standard of living for the world in which the poor people’s children live in. Dickens uses these two children Ignorance and Want as a mouthpiece to attack the injustice in society; “Spirit! Are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more. “They are Man’s, said the spirit”. The ghost is referring to the two children, and how they belong to all of mankind representing the future of humans in this world. If no actions are taken immediately, all of society will feel the affects of the greed, selfishness, and ignorance in a tremendously negative way. Want and Ignorance are a common theme which echo throughout the book. In the position of the poor, they want a better a life. They want education and they want to live. However, the ignorance of the rich is the only factor preventing this from happening. Scrooge refers to prisons and workhouses, and if the poor can not go there they should die “and decrease the surplus population.” Dickens uses this phrase to display the ignorance that not only scrooge portrays, but society in general portrays towards the poor.
In “Nobody’s story” Dickens explores the ideas of Ignorance and Want further, and imagines what will happen if Ignorance is allowed to reign. He predicts that if the poor are not helped nor educated, they will eventually rebel, as they want a better standard of life. He also predicts a pestilence; they always do, they always have done- just like the pestilence”, resulting in the death of many people, caused by lack of education about personal hygiene. The boy, Ignorance, is a child of society, and they will both be the result if Scrooge does not get involved, and change his ways. The boy; “I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” meaning that ignorance is the doom of society. The girl, Want, is also suffering, and Scrooge now has an obligation to her, that he has seen her. He should help the poor, with the excess that he has. The theme here is that no person is more important than any other, and it is each person's duty to help those less fortunate.
To Dickens, children always symbolized innocence and sometimes the mistreatment of others by those in power. Tiny Tim's death in “A Christmas Carol”, for instance, symbolizes the death of an innocent at the hands of the powerful- Scrooge. Ignorance and Want are of course symbols of man's evils. Children can also be the foundation of a catharsis, the purging of emotion, and this is the case in A Christmas Carol. It begins when Scrooge remembers himself as a child, then sees others' children, meets Ignorance and Want and witnesses Tiny Tim's death. The focus on these three children is one of Dickens' vehicles for change in “A Christmas Carol”.
Scrooge is redeemed because he learns how to let his spirit walk among his fellow men. He shows this by becoming “a better man, a better master, as the good old city ever knew”. He shows his redemption slowly throughout each visitation from each ghost, by his actions, reactions and emotions.
For example, when the Ghost of Christmas Past shows him his sister and remarks that she had a good heart, Scrooge feels for her and begins to show more affection for his nephew. He also remarks that Fezzywig had the power to make his apprentices happy or sad- a recognition that he returns to by treating his clerk Cratchit better, by raising his salary and caring for his family. After Scrooge wakes, he sends a turkey to the Cratchits. This in itself would not be redemption if he didn't follow through in other ways- he pays the boy, he pays for the taxi, and he delights in thinking that they will not know who it is from. He is not trying to just save himself, he really wants to make a difference. He treats Cratchit kindly, and visits his nephew. In fact he becomes a good man to all of the people he has let down, and in his actions and change of heart he is redeemed.
Scrooge’s change can also be described by the weather. The weather at the beginning of the novella is described as “cold” and “foggy”. This represents Scrooge’s clouded mind, ignoring all the things that are important at Christmas time. At the end of the book, the fog has lifted, representing the clearing of Scrooge’s clouded mind, as he now knows what is truly important, and what is not. Also in the beginning of the book, Cratchit is nearly frozen and shivers constantly in the cold, but is not allowed to put more coal on the fire. Scrooge, on the other hand, does not notice that it is cold. This is a symbol of Scrooge's cold heart. The weather reiterates this point. The warming of his heart is symbolized by his allowing Cratchit to buy another coal scuttle at the end of the book, and making the fires a lot bigger. Dickens uses weather and inanimate objects often to symbolize bigger ideas. Life is given to things like doorknockers, and meaning is given to weather. There is a reason for everything, and this is one of the reasons that Dickens is such a successful writer.
Dickens had his own experiences of poverty, his father was sent to a debtor’s prison, when Dickens was a boy. He felt very strongly about the plight of the poor, and wanted to help them. He tried many ways to get his message across, by talking and by writing. He succeeded in the fact that “A Christmas Carol” is still very popular today, and people continue to make films and plays about it. There are already so many famous phrases from A Christmas Carol that we use, such as “God bless us, every one”, that will live on for generations. His thinly disguised message railing against social and economic injustice was well taken, and Dickens’ work has become a cornerstone of classical literature as a result of it.