‘They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard’
His house was even described as gloomy. The dark represents the rich being blind to the state of the poor. Scrooge is wilfully ignorant about the condition of the poor, Dickens uses the dark to show this.
‘Half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it’.
Scrooge is also displayed as quite a hard character,
‘Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. When they saw him coming on , would tug their owners into doorways and up courts’,
This is showing that he was not the sort of person that would yelp at the sound of an echo. Also people around the area knew him well enough to keep out of his way, even the guide dogs knew of him.
Scrooge’s nephew comes to see him especially to invite him to his poor household (where they can just about afford a Christmas lunch), to dine with him and his family on Christmas day. Scrooge’s nephew is a very jolly and warm person. Dickens shows a contrast between Scrooge and his nephew:
‘His face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled’.
The first thing the nephew says when he sees Scrooge is,
‘A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!’
Scrooge replies,
‘Bah Humbug! Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.’
This shows Scrooge in a very bad light. He is basically saying that his nephew should not be happy because he is poor. The nephew then cleverly replies,
‘Come then. What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.’
I think dickens is very clever here. He shows that the rich represented by Scrooge, know about the conditions of the poor but purposely ignore them. Scrooge shows society’s wilful ignorance towards the poor.
When the charity collectors come in to try to get some money from Scrooge, to give to the poor to help them, he is very rude. They explain what they are there for then go on to say,
‘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?’
They obviously had not been acquainted with Scrooge before because they expected Scrooge like all others to give money.
‘What shall I put you down for? Nothing! Replied Scrooge’
This, again emphasises how little the rich helped the poor even though they could afford it.
When Scrooge returns home to see the knocker on his door turn into to Marley’s face, he gets very worried. Double-locking his door he goes and sits in his arm chair in his slippers, dressing-gown and night cap in front of a very low fire. His bell begins to swing. In this novel a bell always signifies something about to happen. When scrooge can distinctly hear Marley coming nearer he still refuses to believe it.
Marley is in eternal punishment because he had been like Scrooge for all his life. He was a miser and he helped the poor just as little as Scrooge does. For this he was eternally locked in chains. He comes to warn Scrooge that if he does not change his ways then he will receive this punishment too.
‘The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; it was made of cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.’
When the first of the three spirits comes to visit Scrooge, once again the bell chimes to signify something is about to happen. The first spirit, the spirit of Christmas past and the second spirit of Christmas present are both associated with light. As soon as the first spirit appears, Scrooge’s bed curtains are drawn and there is a flash of light.
‘It wore a tunic of the purest white’
The second spirit is also associated with light. Scrooge is called to enter his own room to meet the ghost and upon entrance everything has changed. Everything is bright and cheerful, a direct contrast to Scrooge and his usual environment.
‘The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove’
The third of the three spirits however is the exact opposite to the first two. The third is completely associated with darkness and cold. Dickens tried to makes the Phantom appear like the Grim Reaper, the spirit that comes to get you when you die.
‘Beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached’
This spirit is also referred to as a phantom rather than a spirit. All the adjectives that describe it are hard harsh words. ‘Gravely’ is associated with death, it also means sternly but a grave is where one goes upon death. This spirit is all about death. Its hand is always pointing downwards as if to say that is where you will go when you are condemned, to hell.
The first signs of Scrooge changing are when he saw his former self, hunched in a corner reading. He feels pity for himself.
‘Poor boy!’
‘There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should have liked to have given him something: that’s all’
He starts to regret how he had acted before. This is the first sign of Scrooge changing.
Dickens is very clever in the way he portrays Fezziwig, a complete contrast to Scrooge.
‘No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick.’
Scrooge was complaining about letting Bob Cratchit, his clerk, have Christmas day off. Here Fezziwig lets all his employees close up early on Christmas Eve. Fezziwig was in the same business as Scrooge, though he loved Christmas, Scrooge hated it.
‘Some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow.’
This is to show that Fezziwig treats everyone the same. He is not patronising towards the poor like Scrooge; he treats them as if they are the same as him. Scrooge treats all poor as if they are of no worth and belong in the grotty workhouses. Fezziwig is associated with warmth and light whereas Scrooge is associated with cold and dark.
‘Hilli-ho! Cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility’.
The dinner that Fezziwig prepares for them all is emphasised very heavily too. There is a lot of repetition in the explanation of the feast. This shows Fezziwig’s generosity whereas Scrooge would not give a penny to the charity collectors.
When the spirit and Scrooge visit the Cratchit’s house everything symbolises happinessof the poor. Mrs Cratchit was dressed cheap clothes because the family could not afford better:
‘Dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence’,
Tiny Tim is another symbol of the poverty that people were living in. He is a cripple and likely to die soon. For the state he was in he was the most hearty person on the planet.
‘He hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember on Christmas day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see’
Dickens uses Tiny Tim as another message to the rich. What Tiny Tim says here is basically that the poor are the equivalent of Tiny Tim, that he wants the rich to remember Jesus making blind men see and lame beggars walk, and Dickens wants society to help the poor in the same way.
Everything in the Cratchit household emphasises warmth, light love and joy. The children talk merrily about their goose that they can smell. It is a tiny goose stuffed to the bursting with stuffing so it could fill them all. The children are still ecstatic about it.
‘There’s such a goose, Martha!’
‘There never was such a goose’ said Bob
More signs of a change in Scrooge are shown here; he asks the spirit if Tiny Tim will live. It is the fist sign of compassion we see from Scrooge. The spirit tells him that Tiny Tim will die if the Cratchits situation remains the same in the future. This is saying that society will fall apart if the current situation does not change.
When Scrooge accompanies the spirit to the graveyard he starts to get a sneaking suspicion why they are there. Through the whole course of events with the Phantom he does not realise that the death everyone was talking about was him. I think that this was more wilful ignorance shown by Dickens. I think Scrooge did have a feeling in the bottom of his stomach that he did not want to believe. Before Scrooge goes to see the headstone the Spirit was pointing at he asked,
‘Are these the shadows of things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be only?’
Scrooge now knows that it is his grave and shows the first sign of exposing his hard image, he is scared. He wants to know if he can change what is going to happen by changing his ways and becoming a kind and forgiving person.
Throughout his experience with the spirits Scrooge, the most wretched, cruel and stingy person in London manages to change. He goes from being a dark, hard, cold person to a forgiving, loving and warm person. What dickens is saying is, if Scrooge can make this transformation, so can the rest of Britain. Dickens best shows this when the spirit of Christmas Present reveals the two children from beneath its robe. The children signify want and ignorance. These were the two main things corrupting the country. The rich people will not help the poor because of their wants, and their wilful ignorance. The majority of them knew about the situation of the poor and chose to ignore it because they would do better themselves if they did so. The spirit warns to beware most of the boy, signifying ignorance. Scrooge must beware of ignorance or he is doomed, along with the rest of society. If the rich carry on ignoring the poverty going on around them then they will be damned to eternal doom like Marley. Scrooge replies to the spirits attempts to explain this with,
‘Have they no refuge or resource?’
Showing how much Scrooge has changed. The spirit then comes back at him with his own words from earlier on,
‘Are there no prisons, are there no workhouses’,
This is what Scrooge said to the charity workers that were asking Scrooge the same question Scrooge just asked the Spirit. Scrooge has no friends, this proves that money cannot buy you friends.
From writing this book, Dickens achieved his aims as part of a social change. This was not because of ‘A Christmas Carol’ but it helped people realise.
Dickens describes Scrooge with miserable adjectives at the start of the book:
‘A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!’
At the end of the book when Scrooge has undergone his change Dickens uses delightful adjectives:
‘Golden sunlight: Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!’
The rich people themselves could experience this change too if they are willing to help the poor. When Scrooge visits his ex-fiancée, she is married to someone else and they are quite poor. The room is small but full of comfort, warmth and love. If Scrooge had not been so obsessed with making money all of the time, that could have been him.
