Stave One Section 2
What Happened?
Who's Who?
What does it Mean?
Dickens
Scrooge distrusts Bob Cratchit and wont spend money on heating.
Fred visits and Scrooge calls him a fool.
Chariry collectors visit and Scrooge is rude saying the poor should go to the workhouse or die.
Weather gets worse and the church bells can just be seen through the fog looking down on Scrooge.
Lots of people are having fun away from the office.
scrooge reluctantly gives Bob the day off and Bob goes home in a playful mood whilst Scrooge is gloomy.
Scrooge is not just an unpleasant person but he is unpleasant to other people as well.
The 'problem of the poor' is introduced - not everyone has fun at Christmas.
We learn about Bob at work, in his cell suggestive of a prisoner.
Fred is Scrooges opposite - he thinks Christmas is ' a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time' where as Scrooge is negative and cynical and calls him an idiot.
Scrooge is established as a difficult, unpleasant, unsympathetic character so that his transformation is all the more powerful.
Themes
Social Responsibility - charity collectors and scrooges middle class Victorian reaction to them and the poor.
Pathetic Fllacy - a form of personification - where natural, inanimate objects, such as weather reflect human emotions. So Scrooges bad temper is made visible in the fog that gets everywhere demonstrating how infections negative emotions are.
Fred is all aglow because he has been walking fast and happy, suggesting a warm personality.
He is not disheartened by Scrooge and stands up for what he believes.
He has no money he married for love, Scrooge calls him a fool.