The Ghost shows Scrooge a person; Scrooge knew him very well it was his former self. “He wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be”. He Remember how he used to celebrate Christmas and enjoy doing so, this was a contrast to what he is now a sad lonely old man. He wept with pity again. This section of the text is considered to be semi-autobiographical. No wonder Dickens was moved to help the poor Scrooge (Dickens) lived his childhood in squalor and poverty. “Let us see another Christmas! ” said the ghost soothingly to Scrooge.

A child has been left alone by a woman, a woman Scrooge knew well, “she died when she was a woman” This child is Scrooges nephew, they argue about Christmas every year, his nephew loves Christmas even thought he is poor, and he is also very positive. Scrooge’s nephew is happy and joyous despite being poor. Dickens tells the businessman to invest in their families rather then purely business. At the end of this stave Dickens wants the readers to feel sympathy and to pity Scrooge. We see a challenge a head of Scrooge making us want to read on.

In A Christmas carol Fezziewig is portrayed as a caricature the total opposite to Scrooge, where as Scrooge is a “tight fisted old man” Fezziewig is a happy, joyful, energetic man. Scrooge reacts with excitement and happiness – a sign of his former self, to see his former boss, “Scrooge cried in great excitement” scrooge had happy memories of the time he spent at Fezziewigs. There are many different classes of people at Fezziewigs party, he treats them all with equality and kindness – Dickens is trying to set the standard for a good boss, “In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker.

In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master. The way Scrooge reacts shows us that he was one a very happy man; Dickens uses Fezziewig as an ideal. Dickens tells us that all the classes of society are welcome. In Dickens’s view Fezziewig is an ideal employer and the antithesis of Scrooge. Dickens wants employers to consider their own actions. The spirit takes Scrooge to see his former love Belle.

This former relationship was one that would of effected Scrooge greatly as he grew older however his interests where more for work rather than love. Belle says that she has been replaced by a ‘golden idol’ Scrooge shows signs of avarice and greed. This suggests that he puts wealth over emotions. The relentless Ghost told him to observe what happened next. When Belle agreed to marry they where both poor adolescents who had the rest of their lives to look forward to, Scrooge does not he his now very rich Belle on the other hand is not.

Belles’ emotions are mixed to concerning Scrooge, anger and sadness. “She left him and they parted” The ghost then goes on to show Belle and her now present family. She is not rich but she is still extremely happy. She is sharing her full heartedness with her children and her husband. Dickens want people to think that if people act like Scrooge will not find love and will lead a lonely life. Scrooge collapses and finds himself in his room. When the clock struck the next hour the ghost appeared but much different to the first.

“The ghost sat in the middle of a room, this room was full of Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim. This list shows all of the luxurious good that wealthy people would class as mandatory at Christmas, but of which the poor can only dream of. “Come in! ” exclaimed the Ghost.

“Come in. and know me better, man! ” The ghost of Christmas present symbolises goodness and benevolence. Much like a man everybody associates with Christmas: Santa Clause. The ghost shows Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and his Christmas, the Cratchits have an extremely good Christmas considering what Scrooge pays Bob. Tiny Tim is Bobs crippled son and he was close to death but on this occasion even though he was so weak and feeble he still manages to enjoy Christmas on what little money the Cratchits owned. Bob stated that at church Tim was “As good as gold, and better”.

This shows the slow down fall of his child and how Tim thinks about his life “He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see. ” Dickens intrudes here to put across the Christian point of Christmas that Jesus watches and judges us all. Bob finds wealth in his family unlike Scrooge. The Cratchits sit and eat their Christmas meal, Nobody comments on the size of it they just enjoy what Bobs little money has provided them with. “eeked out with apple sauce”.

The small bird is made to feed a family because of the cheap thing they have done and served with it. Scrooge notices something from the spirits legs. “Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw! ” Hidden in the sprits robe are two children. The Victorians believed in innocent and the vulnerability of the children this would have shocked the readers. They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.

Ignorance – the boy implies the wealthy do not want to know the plight of the poor. The girl – want tells of all the things the poor people want and do not have. This shows the true disgust of the children. The major theme in A Christmas Carol was rooted in Dickens’ observations of the plight of the children of London’s poor. It has been said of the times that sex was the only affordable pleasure for the poor; the result was thousands of children living in unimaginable poverty, filth, and disease. In 1839 it was estimated that nearly half of all funerals in London were for children under the age of ten.

Those who survived grew up without education or resource and virtually no chance to escape the cycle of poverty. Dickens felt that this cycle of poverty could only be broken through education and became interested in the Ragged Schools in London. Scrooge finds himself soon after in his room awaiting the Ghost of Christmas yet to come. On the third toll of the bell he came, he was dressed in robes of black long and dark, this resembles the grim reaper also having connections to death. The ghost haunts Scrooge by not speaking just pointing with his finger and nodding his head.

The ghost takes Scrooge to a town, not unknown to Scrooge. Where a group of low lifed merchants where talking about their possessions one had bedclothes one had nightgown and one has curtains they where talking with disgust about who they had these items from. “Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did! ”This shows that the person is dead and they have stolen from them. This person is Scrooge, but little does Scrooge know it. The ghost then takes Scrooge to the Cratchits house Scrooge is happy to see the house, but his happiness dithers when he sees inside. Tiny Tim is dead.

This is pathos, Dickens uses Tim’s death to make the wealthy of London be aware of the influence they had on people’s lives. We are lead to believe that Tim has died due to the lack of medical treatment provided this is because of lack of money. The ghost takes the weeping Scrooge to a cemetery a ghost points to a headstone. Scrooge reluctantly wipes off the frost from the stone with his bear hand. He shakily ran over to the sprit and grabbed his robes shaking them violently. “Spirit! ” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse.

Why show me this, if I am past all hope? ” Stave five is titled the end of it all” as indeed it is. Dickens shows his readers Scrooge’s redemption of his former self “I am as happy as an angel” Dickens shows that anybody can change, he troughs down the challenge to the wealthy. “He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One! “