Family and Community Flashcards
3 Big ideas -
- The Cratchits - family is healing and valueable
- Fezziwig - a loving community can be an extension of family
- Scrooge - effect of an abscence of family
- “God bless us,
Everyone!”
The Cratchitts do not discriminate between members of society. They view everyone as equals - despite their material poverty, they are morally rich. Their views align with God, and demonstrate the need for a moral conscience in Victorian England - most of society claimed that they were religious yet failed to understand the true meaning of Christianity - Dickens is underscoring the need for a community in a Christian society. Despite their poverty, the Cratchitts are moral and optimistic, in stark contrast with Scrooge - suggests that community can render us happy over material wealth.
- “Bob’s private _______ conferred upon his _______….
property
heir
in honour of the day
The Cratchitts don’t have much, but what they do have, they share and take pride in. The lexicon of “property” and “heir” could be an allusion to the idea of leaving behind a legacy that society was obssessed with at the time - it seems as though property is something like a house, some grandose display of wealth or status, but it is simply a shirt. All that Bob’s heirs can inherit from him is poverty - the way in which the clothes are passed down mimic the cycle of poverty inescapable in Victorian poor families. However, the Cratchitts are still proud of everything that they do have - community and family, and caring for one another teaches you to understand the importance of little gestures and be more grateful.
This act of passing down property is emblematic of how personal actions (even those involving individual material wealth) contribute to the continuity and cohesion of the community. It suggests that communities are sustained not just through abstract ideals, but through tangible acts of legacy, such as inheritance, that preserve shared history and identity. Bob’s action, while personal, is also a communal one, contributing to the strengthening of bonds between individuals and the collective.
Shows the way in which whatever we pass on is adopted by our children -> if the Cratchitts have money and their kindness they could do both. Both Scrooge and the Cratchitts eventually achieve this.
- “Tiny Tim upon his _______”
shoulder
Metaphorical for the way in which family supports each other unconditionally. Tiny Tim is disabled and cannot carry himself, yet he will always be carried by his family. in the same way that the Cratchitts do not have wealth, and sufficient means to get by, but regardless they will always support each other and that’s better than nothing.
- “As good as ______”
gold
Children, family, is far more important than materialistic possessions. Allusion the the idol that Scrooge replaced Belle with: “a golden one”.
At this point, Scrooge cannot understand this but by the end of the novella he will. At the beginning he asks, “What reason have you to be merry, you’re poor enough?” - but in fact, the thing that makes the Fezziwigs, the Cratchitts and Fred happier, merrier than Scrooge is not their wealth, it’s their community. They are far richer than Scrooge in that sense.
- “In they all came,
one after the other”
At this point Scrooge is a foil to Fezziwig, as previously it was suggested that Scrooge viewed the poor as “another race of creatures”.
- “_________ breast”
capacious
Unlike Scrooge and those like Scrooge, who Fred describes to have “shut up hearts”, Fezziwig is described to have a “capacious breast” suggesting that his heart is open to everyone. He physically embodies the idea of community, the idea of having room for everyone, for having kindness to share with everyone.
- “a ________ light issued from Fezziwig’s _________”
positive
calves
The motif of light is also associated with Fezziwig and is a part of his physicality alluding to the idea that Fezziwig is part of the guidance for Scrooge to find his way along the path of redemption.
Furthermore, light connotes hope, happiness and warmth, suggesting that as Fezziwig rubs shoulders with those in his community, shares his life with the people he loves, he himself feels better and happier as well.
- “shaking hands with,
every person individually”
Once again antithetical imagery to Scrooge who is described to “edge his way along the crowded paths of life” - The motif of hands is used to juxtapose the two emplyers - where Scrooge is “tight-fisted”, Fezziwig has open hands for everyone - The tactile imagery of shaking hands shows that Fezziwig sought to rub shoulders and connect with those on the same path, that path being life, society itself. Dickens believed it not only important, but completely natural to mix with and connect individually with people of all classes and walks of life, since it is simply a matter-of-fact that no matter your class or wealth, the walk of life is the same for everyone - you are born, you grow up, have a family and a job to look after, and you die. Dickens is highlighting that there is no use in treating those different from us as a different “race of creatures” but rather as one, symbolised by the shake of hand, the linking of humans.
- “solitary ______”
child
The adjective solitary could be an allusion to the metaphor “solitary as an oyster” - Both present day Scrooge and past day Scrooge is introduced to us with this word “solitary” perhaps underscoring his stagnant character but also the way in which characteristics we adopt as children, perhaps through no fault of our own, are hard to get rid of. Scrooge has been neglected not only by his family, but also by his society. Perhaps Dickens is demosntrating the need to protect children from the lower classes who have a solitary upbringing, as Dickens himself did due to his family’s circumstances, in order to create better citizens in the future.
Furthermore, this simile could also convey the notion that Scrooge, like an oyster, has a pearl within him, and that pearl is in fact the “soltiary child”. It is possible that Scrooge has closed up and developed the hard exterior in order to protect the vulnerable child inside of him, who no one protected in the first place.
Scrooge lives a childhood of abandonment and clearly adopts this as his nature, growing fearful of becoming a part of community perhaps so that he doesn’t have to risk abandonment again.
- “long, bare, ___________ room”
melancholy
TRANSFERRED EPITHETT - this was exactly what his childhood was like.
- “feeble _______”
fire
The motif of fire within the novella, symbolises community. Here, it is suggested that Scrooge had no community to turn to as a child.
- “What reason have you to be merry?….
you’re poor enough”
Scrooge has no understanding of how anything other than material possession can bring anyone happiness. He has no understanding of the healing effects of family and the way in which Fred’s goodwill is simply based on the fact that he is in love, happy in his marriage, and has a community to share his Christmas with.
- “second _________”
father
- On a surface level this exemplifies the need for community in one’s life - in the vignette with Belle and her daughter, Scrooge recognises that this is missing in his life.
- On a deeper level, this suggests that the rich need to take on a paternal or maternal role for the poor. Just like in families, in the same way in which a father or a mother are wiser and stronger and therfore need to fend for and protect their children until they are ready to do the same for themselves and their own children one day, the upper classes can metaphorically do the same for the lower classes. Could be a demonstration of marxism and the socialist belief that all classes, despite their not being an equal distribution of wealth, must have an equal distribution of opportunity. In this case it is “father” because Scrooge is a man, but also Victorian england was largely Patriarchal therefore men would have had the money and the power to do so.
SEE PAGE IN BOOK THAT EXPLAINS DEEPER
Key Idea: Fezziwig as an employer
While Scrooge is a miser, he is not a miserly employer. He pays Bob the going-rate for a traditional Victorian clerk - in fact he pays Bob, a ‘Bob’ which was around 15 shillings. However, one thing that distinguishes Fezziwig from Scrooge is his ability to form a community. Employers have the “power to render us happy or unhappy” - charity is also important, although this only took place around Christmas time. Dickens wants to reach out to the employers in his audience and highlight the importance of community in spreading joy and benefitting from it as well. Fezziwig is the light for Scrooge’s redemption as an employer.
“he had the power to render us happy or unhappy”
The syntax of “happy or unhappy” with “happy” first could be Dicken indicating that it is far more beneficial and in face easier to simply spread happiness among community rather than go above and beyond like Scrooge to make others unhappy like himself.
“power” demonstrates the notion hat it is in the hands of an employer to decide the fate of their workers especially in a society where your salaryd efined almost every aspect of your life.
Dickens wrote his “sledgehammer of a novella” to convince employers like Scrooge how to construct a happier, more effective community and therefore a healthier more productive business.
- “Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was…
so very much smaller that it looked like one coal box”
Employment of the motif of fire immediately showcases the way in which Scrooge isolates himself from society, and tries to do the same for others to. He doesn’t understand why Fred is merry because Fred is “poor enough” but in fact Fred is happy because he has a family a community a wife he loves. The same goes for Bob Cratchit. Scrooge treats Bob as though Bob has no family to feed to provide for, pays him so little and doesn’t want him to go home for Christmas because Scrooge views everything through a materialistic lens.
Furthermore, just simply shows that Scrooge has no community, does not build a workplace community, and does not provide friendship for Bob either.
- “All the Cratchit family drew …
round the hearth”
The Cratchits happiness and lives revolves around family and community and support for one another. They’re poor but they find warmth and happiness in this. Motif of fire.
- “fuel was ______ up upon the _______”
heaped - fire
Fezziwig builds a community for his workers creating a more fruitful and productive, happy work environment. Perhaps Dickens was reaching out to the employers in his audience who were not exactly miserly, but parsimonious like Scrooge, cruel and misunderstanding. Unlike Fezziwig, they’re “tight-fisted” and callous.
Dickens believed it very important to mix between the classes and learn from one another in communities, without treating those less fortunate as another “race of creatures”. This is embodied by Fezziwig who sets an example for Scrooge - like the Ghost of Christmas Past, Fezziwig provides light for Scrooge to follow the path to redemption.
