More Than A Christmas Carol

He sees his former fiancée, Belle, who came a poor second to Scrooge’s passion for wealth. ‘A golden idol displaces me,’ she complains to him from the past. ‘All hopes have merged to a master passion; the thought of money engrosses you!’

Dickens explores, through Scrooge’s terrifying ordeal, the love of money compared with the value of relationships. Scrooge’s whole life has come to revolve around his counting house. His insatiable appetite consumes him for more. To him, Christmas has become nothing more than a ‘time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer’.

Back in the 21st century, we can fall into a similar trap, seeing money - and the things it can buy - as the answer to our problems. Especially if our lives have not been that happy, like the young Ebenezer Scrooge’s. We perceive the ‘good life’ as being about an abundance of bigger, brighter and better things. And if we start to feel guilty, we can excuse ourselves with the thought that we want our children to have the things we missed out on.

Jacob Marley’s ghostly visit is not just a wake up call for Scrooge. As we hear his words, we should make sure we haven’t lost out on the things that money can’t buy. We all need money, of course - but it’s possible to pay too high a price for it. It’s as if society has caught a cultural disease called ‘affluenza’. The symptoms include always wanting more, despite what we already have. And then there’s the insatiable desire for ‘success’ without experiencing contentment. Consistently, we choose our career over family. And we seem unwilling to settle for less than the best of everything.

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If Scrooge has been shaken by the visit of the first spirit, then the second is no less disturbing. The Spirit of Christmas Present arrives to take Scrooge on a tour of the people he now knows. He finds himself standing in the home of his poor clerk, Bob Cratchit, where he feels the warmth of a large and friendly family who are making the best of what little they can afford on the tiny salary Scrooge pays. He experiences their anxiety over the fate of Tiny Tim, the Cratchit’s sick youngest child.

Scrooge is clearly shown the effects of his selfish nature; but the spirit helps him understand that even though he is utterly hard-hearted, others have not entirely given up on him. As they sit down to their feeble Christmas dinner, Bob Cratchit thinks to toast his boss, despite protests from his wife.

The Spirit of Christmas Present then shows Scrooge the harsh reality of life on the streets, together with the absolute determination of the families who live there to stay out of the prisons and workhouses, whatever the cost. Scrooge has never before seen the need to help anyone other than himself. He’s always believed that the poor ‘should go to the institutions provided - if they should rather die, let them die and reduce the surplus population’. But his heart is softening...

Then, the Spirit reveals two hauntingly thin and deathly children from within his cloak. They are called IGNORANCE and WANT - two of the grim realities of Victorian life. The Spirit describes them as the ‘children of all who walk the earth unseen’. On their brow is written ‘DOOM’.