Why does Bob Cratchit say that his son is good as gold?
Dickens adapts the phrase to mean well behaved (of Bob Cratchit's son Tiny Tim at church). Bob Cratchit was a clerk working at a counting house (dealing with money) so it would not be unexpected for him to have come across the expression as good as gold in his time working for Ebenezer Scrooge.
Scrooge is too miserly to offer his clerk a decent wage, but Cratchit is generous enough to be grateful to his boss. He cries openly when his son Tiny Tim is dead. "My little, little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!"
“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”
Cratchit's son, Tiny Tim, is crippled and sick; according to the Ghost of Christmas Present, Tim will die because the family is too poor to give him the treatment he needs.
"Time for your annual reminder that, according to A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit makes 15 shillings a week. Adjusted for inflation, that's $530.27/wk, $27,574/yr, or $13.50/hr. "Most Americans on minimum wage earn less than a Dickensian allegory for destitution."
In the extract, Dickens uses Bob Cratchit to symbolise the poor working conditions of the working classes in the Victorian era. Bob's office is referred to by the noun 'Tank' which has obvious connotations of claustrophobia, imprisonment and containment.
Firstly, at the start of the novel Dickens uses the Cratchit family to show the struggles of the poor throughout the whole novel, Bob cratchit the father of the cratchit family is a lower class man who's trying his hardest to earn money for his family to pay bills/taxes so they don't have to go into a work house, this ...
Dickens depicts him as a loving father and husband, which could be interpreted as an idealisation of the lower class. Despite his poor wages and cruel employer, Bob Cratchit remains grateful and compassionate, celebrating Christmas in a way that the significantly richer Scrooge never could.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
EBENEZER SCROOGE (m) ........................ (126 lines) BOB CRATCHIT (m) ................................... (24 lines) MRS.
Scrooge: “Spirit, tell me if Tiny Tim will live.” Christmas Present: “I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.”
What did Scrooge ask the Ghost of Christmas Present about Tiny Tim?
In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Present if Tiny Tim will live, and the ghost replies, “ If he be like to die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus population.” Explain why this quote is significant.
The Ghost of Christmas Present uses Scrooge's own words against him. In his honest response, that Tiny Tim is likely to die, he holds a mirror up to Scrooge and his behaviour. The Ghost predicts that Mankind, Scrooge included, will suffer unless the lessons of generosity and tolerance are learned.
| How does Dickens show this? | |
|---|---|
| Scrooge refuses to give money | In Stave I Scrooge is asked to make a donation for the 'Poor and destitute' of society. |
| Ignorance and Want | Dickens uses two wretched children, called Ignorance and Want, to represent the poor. |
