Back to: Dickens A Christmas Carol and the Bible
Scene 2. The next stop is the home of Bob Cratchit and family, and the scene is the family’s Christmas dinner. It is a scene of domestic exuberance, verging on chaos.
1. Cratchits name
Dickens likely got the last name “Cratchit” from the word cratch, which is archaic English for creche or the manger of baby Jesus.
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that. Bob had but fifteen bob a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house.
2. Wealth and Poverty
Dickens writes in mock wonder, sarcastically censuring the view that wealth is always a sign of God’s approval and poverty is always a sign of his disapproval (a “Bob” or shilling was worth only twelve pennies)—and tweaking Christians that hold this opinion by slyly evoking “Christian name” instead of given name, the more modem synonym for a first name.
As a boy in London, Dickens lived with his impoverished family in such a “four-roomed house
Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.
3. Mrs. Cratchit
Feelings of goodwill prevail, and there is food enough for all. The long anticipated highlight of the feast is Mrs. Cratchit’s famous pudding, described as looking like a “speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck in the top.” One can easily recognize in the appealing figure of Mrs. Cratchit the universal mother who cannot bring a prized pie or pudding to the table without apologizing for some imagined failing on her part sure to cause some imagined inadequacy in the flavor, texture, size, or appearance of her creation. The entire family is appealing; everyone pitches in to help, everyone is grateful for what they have and asks for no more when the dinner is over. They also enjoy one another’s presence, recalling the family witnessed earlier that Scrooge might have had had he married his sweetheart.
Mrs. Cratchit’s “twice- turned gown” and the attire of the whole family not only reveals their poverty but also how much the celebration of Christmas means to them, Turning a gown involved the slcilled practice of unsewing a dress completely and putting it back together with the fabric turned out to the other, less-worn, side. Mrs. Cratchit tries to hide any remaining worn places with cheap ribbons. The family put on their best duds not to impress anyone, but simply in honor of the day
The Cratchit family corresponds to the Dickens family of the four-roomed house—a poor clerk and his wife with six children, three boys and three girls
‘What has ever got your precious father then.’ said Mrs Cratchit. ‘And your brother, Tiny Tim. And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.’
‘Here’s Martha, mother.’ said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
‘Here’s Martha, mother.’ cried the two young Cratchits. ‘Hurrah. There’s such a goose, Martha.’
‘Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.’ said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.
‘We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,’ replied the girl,’ and had to clear away this morning, mother.’
‘Well. Never mind so long as you are come,’ said Mrs Cratchit. ‘Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye.’
‘No, no. There’s father coming,’ cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. ‘Hide, Martha, hide.’
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.
‘Why, where’s our Martha.’ cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
‘Not coming,’ said Mrs Cratchit.
‘Not coming.’ said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. ‘Not coming upon Christmas Day.’
Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.
4. The Copper
The copper was the boiler, usually used for washing laundry—which is why it is located in the “wash-house” and also why the Christmas pudding is said to produce a “smell like a washing-day.”
‘And how did little Tim behave. asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.
‘As good as gold,’ said Bob,’ and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. 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.‘
5. Dickens references two of Jesus healing miracles
Dickens references two of the healing miracles of Jesus—the lame beggar whom Christ told to walk in John 5:1-9 and the blind man whom Christ told to see in Mark 8:22-25
Mark 8:22-25
22 They came to Bethsaida. Some people[a] brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” 24 And the man[b] looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus[c] laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs — as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby — compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course — and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah.
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up and bring it in.
Suppose it should not be done enough. Suppose it should break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose — a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors were supposed.
Hallo. A great deal of steam. The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
‘A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.’
Which all the family re-echoed.
‘God bless us every one.’ said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.
‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, ‘tell me if Tiny Tim will live.’
‘I see a vacant seat,’ replied the Ghost, ‘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.’
‘No, no,’ said Scrooge. ‘Oh, no, kind Spirit. say he will be spared.’
‘If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,’ returned the Ghost, ‘will find him here. What then. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. ‘Man,’ said the Ghost, ‘if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.’
Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.
6. God Bless Everyone
God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
Tiny Tim’s famous line may have come from the carol “Holy Well,” in which a young Jesus says to the other children: “God bless you every one / Your bodies Christ save and see.”
As the family gathers around the hearth and the chestnuts are roasting (in a postcard vision of the family at Christmas), Scrooge watches Bob Cratchit with his son, Tiny Tim, and is struck, uncharacteristically for him, with compassion for the family and concern for the little boy’s chances for survival. Before his eyes, Scrooge watches as his clerk, a mere functionary in the office, is transformed into a person in his own right, a father with a physically challenged son, a man deserving of respect and concern. Scrooge has also overheard Tiny Tim recalling the church service he had attended with his father earlier in the day. He said he hoped that all the people in the congregation who had noticed him could be reminded that the man called Jesus whose birthday they were in church to celebrate was the one who healed the sick and cured the lame. There is no self-pity in Tiny Tim’s remarks— just a matter-of-fact willingness to allow his affliction to serve a larger purpose. Perhaps this quality of selflessness catches Scrooge’s attention; his own deeds have been motivated by a very different instinct. Perhaps, too, Scrooge sees that a person can possess more than one kind of wealth. Tiny Tim and his family are rich in spirit and in love—a concept that for Scrooge has been unimaginable.
This is the Bethlehem Candle. These are people Scrooge has no room for in his life for and he has not made peace with them. But the person who is prominent in this chapter is Tiny Tim. In most theatrical productions Tiny Tim is represented as a little boy with a glowing face who has a leg brace. He is portrayed as someone with shortened leg or permanent paralysis of some kind. But paralysis or a limp could not have been helped by a Victorian doctor. Charles Dickens, himself, had a crippled nephew who perished in spite of ample medical care. The tragedy of Tiny Tim was that his death could have been preventable.
We can tell this by the Spirit’s remark, “if these shadows are not altered,” Tiny Tim will die. The reality was that Tiny Tim’s wound was probably an uglier wound that was found among the factory children in Victorian England. Most women and children were employed in textile factories. Ordinary weaving had been replaced by mechanical sewing machines and looms. Inventions such as the “spinning jenny” and “flying shuttle” had increased textile production, which would make a handsome profit for Scrooge and Investors. The cheapest labor, children and women, often manned these machines but the machines were not easily operated. One child describes how she was made “lame” by a factory accident
Tiny Tim’s wound was probably a gaping infected wound caused by a large loom at one of these factories. This wound could easily be healed by a cleaning and proper setting by a physician, but if not cared for the wound would become infected and fester and cause death. Remember Scrooge is in the investment business and makes the bulk of his profits in local industries like these factories that steal the health from little boys like “Tiny Tim”. Scrooge could not disavow any knowledge that his profits were made at the expense of such children, but his own clerk has such a child.
“Skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.” Amos 8:5-6
Amos 8:5-6
saying, “When will the new moon be over
Christian, heed the scriptural warnings against making our profits at the expense of the less powerful, God warns His children against:
“Skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.” Amos 8:5-6
Scrooge is seeing, for the first time the face of the child through which he earned his income. He comes to the painful realization of his guilt connected to Tiny Tim’s injury. In the past he could deny that these were real people with feeling and pain, from this point on the profit that Scrooge makes will no longer be an easy profit.
Listen to the Spirit’s burning rebuke as he reminds Scrooge that these people bare the same image that Scrooge bares. In the past Scrooge has endowed certain people with inferiority so he could pronounce them expendable for the necessity of a healthy economy. But now this denial system has been ripped out from under Scrooge. The Spirits remind Scrooge that he does not know the full picture about people’s lives, only God does. And as fellow creature created in God’s image how dare Scrooge decide who is “expendable and who is not.”
Dickens knew this tragic sight well, having lost two siblings when he was a boy
The Third lesson in Advent is also the turning point for Scrooge in this story. When Marley first visits Scrooge, Scrooge does everything he can to avoid expressing any grief about his sin; he even tries to talk Marley out of his grief “over sin by legitimizing his exploitation of others by explaining that Marley was simply doing his job in that he was being a “good man of business.”
In the second lesson of Advent when the next Spirit appears before Scrooge, Scrooge experiences some grief when encountering the image of his lonely childhood, his beloved sister and his lost love.
But this type of grief is closer to annoying regret than real repentance. It is not until Scrooge sees the image of Tiny Tim, a suffering child who trusts God and sees himself as a tool of God in spite of his current circumstance, that Scrooge shows real concern for someone else besides himself when he asks the Spirit, “Will the child live?”
Isaiah25.
25 O Lord, you are my God;
6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
The Moabites shall be trodden down in their place
The passage of Isaiah 25 turns on God’s comfort, and Scrooges life must turn on the same comfort after he grieves the lives that have suffered in His presence where he has taken no responsibility
Colossians 2:17
17 These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
The repetition of the phrase about shadows seems to place upon Scrooge, and by extension the reader, the charge to positively affect the future, specifically the future welfare of poor children—the Spirit next underscoring the need to make a change in the present by reminding Scrooge of his recent cruel solution to “decrease the surplus population.” The phrase also brings to mind Colossians 2:17, where Paul refers to the keeping of religious customs as “a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”
The spirit claims to have no powers of clairvoyance, but it warns that only some unseen intervention can prevent what appears inevitable for Tiny Tim. Spirits, apparently, are capable of irony, for, once again, this spirit does not hesitate to throw back at Scrooge his own words uttered earlier about the sick and the destitute: “If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” Scrooge’s journey has had some effect; he hears these words differently now that he has seen one to whom these heartless sentiments could be applied.
Scrooge experiences repentance—the necessary bridge between regret and salvation.
Unlike earlier exchanges between the heavenly Spirits and the worldly Scrooge, for the first time, the miser does not misunderstand this Spirit’s perspective and thereby miss its meaning.
But notice the difference between Tiny Tim and child left alone in the school house. While Tiny Tim suffers, he is not alone. Voices of comfort are all around him. Also listen to the voice of faith that comes out of Tiny Tim that is absent in the younger Scrooge.
“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.”28
In spite of the prosperity that Scrooge would know in his adult years, he had never viewed himself as a conduit of God’s love and justice. Here this wounded, improvised child shows himself richer than the banker Scrooge.
The scriptures are clear that none of us are given permission to raise ourselves above other people in value or life, because all of us depend upon God for our value and life
. 1 Corinthians 4:5
5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.
“Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” 1 Corinthians 4:5
In this Corinthians passage the apostle Paul is encouraging God’s people to leave the final judgment with God. God will give it in the appropriate time because God sees the whole picture which we cannot
In this analogy, the self made business man Ebenezer is a bug, who is looking down on another bug on a leaf next to him. The Spirit is reminding Ebenezer of an incident that happened earlier that day in his office, when Ebenezer had callously retorted to the two charitable solicitors that the poor “had better die and decrease the surplus population
Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present visit Bob Cratchit’s home on Christams. Scrooge receives a tongue lashing!
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
6 buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat
Praise for Deliverance from Oppression
I will exalt you, I will praise your name;
for you have done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
2 For you have made the city a heap,
the fortified city a ruin;
the palace of aliens is a city no more,
it will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;
cities of ruthless nations will fear you.
4 For you have been a refuge to the poor,
a refuge to the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.
When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm,
5 the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place,
you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds;
the song of the ruthless was stilled.
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
10 For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.
as straw is trodden down in a dung-pit.
11 Though they spread out their hands in the midst of it,
as swimmers spread out their hands to swim,
their pride will be laid low despite the struggle[a] of their hands.
12 The high fortifications of his walls will be brought down,
laid low, cast to the ground, even to the dust