However Scrooge was a very selfish man with his money. He lived for his work and was extremely hardworking, maybe too hardworking. Therefore he made a lot of money but spent the smallest amount of it possible, whether it was on himself or someone else even if it was friends, family or charity. He was so stingy with his money and was a great miser. For example he did not care that it was a freezing cold day and because he paid his clerk so little that poor Bob Cratchit couldn’t afford enough clothes to keep warm from the terrible cold winter’s day outside. Bob Cratchit worked long hours to put food on the table for his family as well as his crippled and sickly son, while getting paid an appalling wage. Scrooge would not let Bob Cratchit have more than one lump of coal, even though he was freezing.
He treats Bob Cratchit inadequately, with no appreciation or respect. Scrooge also makes Bob Cratchit work in very bad conditions; ‘in a dismal cell’ the clerk’s fire was ‘much smaller that it looked like one coal.’ So not only is the clerk made to work in a horrible dingy room, but in the freezing cold. Scrooge knows he is perfectly capable of helping the Cratchits a great deal, but he again can’t bear to part with his precious money. Scrooge is like a magpie, he has so much money but just likes hording it, he doesn’t try to make his life more comfortable or indeed anyone else’s, he just likes having in his possession.
On Christmas Eve as Cratchit was getting ready to leave Scrooge exclaimed in an accusing accusation manner that Cratchit would be wanting Christmas off
“I suppose . . .” which Cratchit replayed to as politely as possible that indeed he would be wanting Christmas off. Scrooge got quite angry, at the fact that he would have to pay a day’s wages without getting any work done. To which Cratchit replied that it was only once a year. “A poor excuse for picking a mans pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” Said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat to the chin. “But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!” This just shows how Scrooge has not one drop of Christmas Spirit or charity. He doesn’t take in to account that Bob Cratchit is very hard working, doesn’t complain, works in terrible conditions and puts up with a deplorable wage even for Victorian times, and in return he asks for one day off a year so he can spend a day with his family.
You can see from this that Dickens was putting a strong contrast between the selfish miserly Scrooge, and the loving, caring Bob Cratchit. Some of Dickens message is shown here, showing how Scrooges money doesn’t buy him happiness, because he is dismal and lost the love of his life, to his obsession in money. She was called Belle who was a beautiful girl who Scrooge really loved when he was young. But Belle broke off the engagement when Scrooge changed and was becoming more and more obsessed in money. This is shown in the following quotation ``our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so” Compared to Bob Cratchit who is a happy family man, who shares everything he has (which is very little) but lives life to the full and treasures everything he has. He has everything he wants, a happy family and a loving wife. He may be poor and struggle to put food on the table, but he knows that money doesn’t buy happiness.
Also on Christmas Eve two charity gentlemen walked into his office. The charity gentlemen are being very polite and are just trying to get money together, no matter how small, for the poor. At first Scrooge uses sarcastic humour and then he just becomes very blunt and rude. Refusing to give them a penny. They try to explain that the poor are desperate and that they have nowhere to go, but Scrooge comes back with a comment that haunts him throughout the book.
“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, they?” said Scrooge.
This passage shows just how cold and unconcerned he is. He doesn’t care how awful these people lives are. That they would prefer to die then go to all these horrid places that Scrooge is talking about.
``If they would rather die,’’ said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. He isn’t even slightly embarrassed that he isn’t giving to the poor and being so rude to the gentlemen. He is just so convinced that these people are scum, and as far as he is concerned he would prefer it if they were dead to ‘decrease the surplus population.’
In Stave 1 Marley who was Scrooges good and only friend as an adult, visits Scrooge as a ghost. Marley has a very meaningful message for Scrooge it is a very big part in Dickens’ message that he is trying to convey throughout the book. In the book when Marley comes to Scrooge he explains that if we do not make the most of our lives on earth, by giving, sharing etc… then we have to do so after death, we have to wander the world regretting not helping and being a good person wanting to help but not being able to do so and never being to rest for eternity. “That the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not froth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.” Also that the spirit cannot be happy because its not aloud to rest, stay of linger anywhere it has to watch what it could have had done on earth. “Doomed to wander through the world – oh, woe is me! – And witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!
Marley then goes on to talk about his chain that has a very strong meaning as well. The chain is all the bad things we have done in life, we then have to carry it when we are dead, and each bad thing is one link. The chain shows how the acts of our life come back to "haunt us", so if we are good people we have nothing to fear when we die but if we have been selfish and un-charitable, we have to change now and redeem our selves or pay for eternity. “I wear the chain I forged in life,’ replied the ghost. ‘I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
Fezzywig was Scrooge’s employer from when he left school. Fezzywig is a popular and vibrant, generous man as well as an employer. Fezzywig shows what power an employer has. He has the power to make his employers content and happy or make their lives hard and desperate. Fezzywig was famous for his Christmas parties. A good example of Fezzywig’s character is nearly every good but often poor person was welcome to his parties. Fezzywig knew that it wasn’t the amount of money you have that makes you a good or a bad person but what’s inside the person that counts. This moral Dickens clearly puts across in this stave when the ghost of Christmas Past, shows Scrooge how Fezzywig made a difference, it wasn’t on a worldly scale but it had an effect on all the people that worked for him, it made there lives better and easier. Compared to Scrooge who doesn’t care about anyone and how as a consequence his employee was having a hard life, unnecessarily. The lesson was that treat others how you would wont to be treated and how even the smallest kind acts can make a difference on a much larger scale. This is why Scrooge says to the Ghost “He has the power to render us happy of unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or toil.” Scrooge then goes and says “The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
The ghost of Christmas present showed Scrooge the Cratchit family. (The family of Bob Cratchit, Scrooges employee.) The ghost took Scrooge here to watch just how loving, caring and happy this family was in spite of being very poor, due to Scrooge paying Bob Cratchit an appalling wage. The whole family love and cherish each other, even though can hardly afford enough food for them all, and Tiny Tim the youngest is a cripple. “Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time;” This family shows so many lessons that Scrooge at this point in the storey needed to learn. Through the Cratchit family Dickens conveys quite an important message. The Cratchit’s show, that money doesn’t bring happiness, and there are more important things that money; like family and love. Despite all their problems, they are happy. Compared to Scrooge who is very well off for the time, but is a miserable, cold man who nobody loves.
From this Scrooge started to realise what he was missing out on and how wrong he had been, thinking that the poor were worthless. This is shown in the book when Scrooge asks the ghost if Tiny Tim will live and the ghost shoots back at him his own words. “If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Tiny Tim is a very strong character. Dickens is trying to show through him about appertaining what you have and to make the most of life. Even though Tiny Tim is a cripple and doesn’t have long to live he is still happy and unselfish. He is showing what every good Christian should be like.
After the Cratchit family the ghost showed Scrooge other people across the world that are in very desperate situations, with hardly anything to keep them happy or in good spirit. But just the fact that it’s Christmas gives them hope. The ghost takes Scrooge to the hut of a miners, the keepers of the light house, who wish each other a Merry Christmas because it’s the one thing they can hold on to, the ship at sea reminds them of their families at home and at Scrooges nephew’s home everyone is cheerful even though they are not well off and are playing games reminding Scrooge of his youth, sickbeds, foreign lands, Almshouses, hospitals and jails.
From the folding of the Ghost of Christmas Presents robes came two children. These children were “wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable,” The ghost told Scrooge that these children were Man’s. This is because man hasn’t helped and just watches them grow in society. There boy is ignorance and the girl is want. The ghost said to watch out for them, but most of all to watch out for the boy because on his forehead it says Doom, unless something is done about it, this is because Ignorance breeds doom. “Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing is eased.
Dickens is putting another message across here; by ignoring these children it will just get worse and worse, which will spiral out of control. It is man’s duty to help the ignorant and the poor because they are mans future. Ignore them and have a bad future with greed, poverty etc… or deal with them and prosper in the future.
After the ghosts have left Scrooge wakes up to find that it’s Christmas day, he has now leant all his lessons. He jumps out of bed because he realises how lucky he is in everyway and that he’s lucky that the ghosts did visit him because he still has time to redeem himself and make up for lost time. He realises he won’t be able to change things like Belle and so forth but that he can help in many ways. The first thing he does is get the biggest and the best turkey and sends it to the Cratchit’s. He then goes to his nephew Fred’s house to celebrate Christmas with them, because he now realised that Christmas was far from a humbug. From that moment on Scrooge changed and became the best man he could be.
“Scrooge was better than his word…. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew.
In conclusion to this essay, the message to A Christmas Carol that Dickens is trying to convey in all the different ways is mainly that we are equal, nobody is more important than anyone else even if one person is a millionaire and the other lives on the streets. That we should love and look out for each other “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” After all, this book is also about Christmas spirit and to be a good Christian. To give to the less fortunate then yourself. Also that money can’t make happiness that happiness can be found by being a good person and to love everyone no matter what there situation is. We should live our lives to the full and be grateful for what we have, and not always wishing we had more therefore never being content with what we do have. There is always someone worse off than ourselves. That being selfish and greedy, gets us nowhere, which one day we will regrette. But that it’s never to let to change and help others.
