fred Flashcards
fred’s characterisation
-fred maintains his optimistic outlook throughout the novella
-despite scrooge’s ill-mannered behaviour with Fred, he vows to keep visiting his uncle ‘year after year’ to try and change his attitude
-this adds a sense of stability within the novella
-by choosing to have the minor characters remain constant, dickens heightens scrooge’s transformation
-fred is presented as a foil or antithesis to scrooge & amplifies the negative qualities within Scrooge
-role model for scrooge
-dickens carefully constructs a cold and hostile atmosphere in the opening of the novella
-undertone is immediately contrasted with the introduction of fred
‘glow…his face was ruddy…his eyes sparkled’ [stave 1]
hyperbolic metaphor: ‘his eyes sparkled’
↳ makes him seem almost inhumanly positive & full of joy (antithesis of scrooge)
↳ fred seems like a fictional character due to his overwhelming excitement, however this hyperbolic joy is to show the effects of utilitarianism & expressing christmas spirit in your everyday life
‘his face was ruddy’
↳ the fact that fred is hot even though it is cold and bleak juxtaposes him to the society in the story and makes him stand out, it also makes him (and therefore the qualities of christmas spirit) seem powerful as he is able to contradict weather and let his warmth constantly show, dickens suggests that having philanthropistic views is the most powerful way of getting rid of the ignorant views in society
‘glow’
↳ suggests that fred radiates warmth, therefore he clears a path for goodness and cheerfulness to seep into Scrooge’s melancholy life and stands out from the metaphorical atmosphere of capitalism and material gain
‘the only time I know of…when men and women seem…to open their shut-up hearts freely…not another race of creatures bound on other journeys’
metaphor: ‘shut up hearts’
↳ every other time of the year, people are unwilling to show kindness to one another
↳ opening hearts would connotate to having empathy
↳ the heart pumps blood around our body and ensures life, if the heart is shut up, it connotates to a lack of living, which relates to how how scrooge is often describes inhumanely, this shows how dickens believes that those who don’t celebrate xmas aren’t living life properly
‘another race of creatures’
↳ relates to the severe class divides and how the rich didn’t view the poor as humans but rather dehumanised them
↳ the fact that all the creatures aren’t on different journeys around christmas, and this is when they begin to share and show love to one another shows an opposition to inequality, as well as a push for personal philanthropy
why do scrooge and fred constantly refer to eachother as ‘nephew’ and ‘uncle’
-to remind the reader that scrooge and fred are blood relatives; therefore they should have a familial connection
-this is ironic considering the way scrooge communicates with his ‘nephew’, some may say their conversation is like two strangers talking, fred even asks scrooge ‘why cannot we be friends’
-dickens does this to highlight the distance between the two
-despite this obstacle, fred continually tries to bridge the gap between them by inviting scrooge to his annual christmas dinner
-we can infer that fred is persistent in ensuring that his uncle stops marginalising himself as he understands the importance of community and how people can benefit spiritually from it, something dickens strongly believed people needed to have
how does scrooge and fred’s relationship gain more depth in stave 2?
‘I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried’
fred is completely full of compassion and kindness regardless of how cruelly scrooge treats him
