Unit 9 - 'A Christmas Carol' - context

Synopsis

The play follows Ebenezer Scrooge, who is a grumpy, bitter, old man. On Christmas eve, Scrooge is at work and his clerk, Bob Cratchit, is shivering because Scrooge refuses to spend money on heating. Scrooge is a very selfish and greedy man who seeks wealth with no regard to others. His business partner of 18 years, Jacob Marley, has died. His spirit warns Scrooge that he will be visited by 3 ghosts and warns him to change his ways so  he doesn't end up fettered like Jacob is. Shortly after his encounter with his deceased partner, Scrooge is visited by his first ghost, The ghost of Christmas past. The spirit took Scrooge to key moments in his past which make up his mind-set about Christmas. It showed him how his greed pushed away his loved ones (for example Belle, his betrothed). however, Scrooge insists that he is too old to change. Soon after, Scrooge is visited by the second spirit that Jacob warned him of, The ghost of Christmas present. This spirit shows him first hand how his actions affect people around him, This includes: The Cratchits and Fred's family and friends. This is where Scrooge starts to show remorse for his actions. Before he departs, the ghost shows Scrooge Ignorance and Want, they are the personified versions of two of the aspects of man. The ghost warns Scrooge about them, to stay away from them, but Ignorance more. Shortly after a shadowy figure visits Scrooge, The ghost of Christmas yet to come. This spirit shows him the future of what things may happen if he doesn't change without speaking to him at all. At first they it wasn't clear what was going to happen, for example business men, that Scrooge knew, were talking about "someone's" death, he didn't realise it was his own. Towards the end of his time with this spectre, the ghost shows Scrooge his grave stone. Scrooge is grieved by these visions and repents to the spirit after all the visions are completed. Later on, Scrooge wakes up in his bed, unscathed, and jumps about all giddy like (unlike his character at the start of the story). He notices that the spirits all visited him in the same night so he was able to change before Christmas day. Scrooge goes around very merry fixing all his mistakes, including raising his clerks salary.

Themes

• Greed
• Religion
• Change
• Family
• Rich vs. poor
• Clouded judgement
• Wants vs. needs
• Victorian

Character notes

• first appearance pg. 11-14

in this appearance I am visiting my old partner, Ebeneezer Scrooge, in his chambers, which happens to be my old place of residence. I have come to warn him about how the things he is doing in his life will effect him after he is dead. I don't want him to share my fate, I don't want him to be fettered like me. So I explain my story and how I ended up this way. Since I knew this wouldn't dis-way  him and since I knew of the on coming specters he would have to endure, I decided to warn him of the spirits that would come to set him on the 'Straight and Narrow' in the next "nights".

• first mention pg. 1
• second appearance pg.56-57

In this appearance I was being a deterant. I did this by putting him in my shoes. What I mean by that is that I changed the words in my explanation ,as to why I was fettered, to change it from 1st person to 2nd. This made him think about what he would want from the after life, and also reminded him that there is a afterlife where the bad get punished and the good get rewarded.

Character profile

Character name: Jacob Marley
Hair colour: Silver
Eye colour: White
Age: 52 years old

• Born: 30th October 1784
• Died: 24th December 1836

Clothing: Rags
Personal/Associated item: Chains
Educational background: Several years of boarding schools and and additional 3 years as an apprentice under Fezziwig
likes:

• In life: Money, Work
• In death: Nothing

dislikes:

• In life: Poverty, Manual labor
• In death: The weight of his chains, The amount of wandering he must do, the constant wailing of others stuck on the same plain of insistence, the fact that his friend follows in his footsteps

Family: Only child usually away from my parents (either working or at school)
Ethnic background: English
Occupation:

• In life: Partner of Scrooge and Marley's business firm
• In death: Spokes man for the dead

 Residence: none

Personality/traits:

• In life: Love of money, greedy, selfish, wretched
• in death: Lamentable, wailing, shaking

Personal goal(s): To pass on

• Achievable: No, Never

Religion

https://dickens.ucsc.edu/resources/faq/religion.html [1]

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/znjnb9q/revision/5 [2]

During the 19th century religion still played a big part in most English people's lives. Most people were either apart of the Anglican or Presbyterian church, this is because during the 19th century (where this play takes place) the protestant belief began to sky rocket. This is because it was basically illegal to be a catholic in England up until 1829 (a mere 14 years before the world of the play). Since Charles Dickens was born in 1812, he would have spent part of his life living under these 'anti-catholic' laws. Through my research I had also found out that Dickens was of Protestant faith and was very outspoken in his dislike of  evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism [1] . Personally I feel that this is major information to creating a backstory for my character of Marley. This is because it tells me that, most likely, Jacob Marley has some sort of religious experience but decides to give it up in later life. Either him giving it up lead him to find a new source of comfort or his love of money lead him away from God. I thought the later would have been more plausible because the bible says 'For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.' (1 Timothy 6:10). I believe that Dickens took this concept and created both the characters of Scrooge and  Marley (being the christian that he is). This theory shows why Marley can come back to Scrooge and warn him, it shows that there is an afterlife where one can be eternally damned, like Marley says he is 'Doomed to wander to the ends of the earth'.
Something else I learned while researching is that the social life of ordinary people (people of working class or lower) consisted of choir meetings and Sunday school outings[2]. This shows that their lives mainly revolve around the church. This wasn't really helpful for the character of Marley, but it kind of helped my character of the Ghost of Christmas Present. This is because i had to remember that the poorer people have faith that those better off will change to start helping all. This revelation helped me to keep my happy demeanour and help my characters intention to help Scrooge to change and spread Christmas joy through my 'peculiar flavour'. This information also helps with the Cratchit family (since we've been struggling with that a bit). It shows them how important faith is to the family and also helps them to develop a loving nature towards one another.

Ghosts

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/23/ghost-stories-victorians-spookily-good [1]

During the reign of Queen Victoria, published ghost stories began to sky rocket because of 'The rise of periodical press' as said by English literature professor at Leeds Metropolitan university, Ruth Robbins.[1] This basically means the writers took what they already knew was popular during the times and reused the basic plots. Not everyone believed in ghosts in the 19th century so seeing one in real life would most likely freak out. This information definitely gave me the incentive to make my Marley as scary as possible. while researching I found that ghost were depicted as faded images of the dead, usually dressed in large, white clothes. Since i wanted to keep the character in the costume I went for more of a 'tattered businessman' type of look.

To make Marley seem more Ghostly, I decided to make the clothes larger to create the illusion of a withered body 'from walking to the ends of the earth'. But I still wanted to differentiate Marley from the living, so I decided to change his eye colour. By using white contacts I feel that I had added a fear factor to the character because it shows abnormality amongst other characters.
It wasn't easy to get inspiration for the ghost of Christmas present because I didn't think that his jolly persona would be well portrayed by the stereotypical 19th century ghost. So instead of focusing on the Ghost part of this character, I decided to focus on the Christmas cheer/spirit of Present. I began to think of him as the embodiment of of Christmas spirit. That's why I began so search up on the character of the Ghost of Christmas Present. I looked into different renditions of the movie of a Christmas Carol (including Bah hum-duck and other non-real life renditions)

In almost every rendition of the movie, The Ghost of Christmas Present id depicted as a jolly, fat man. Some people know the jolly, fat man as Santa as this song depicts:

So I decided to base my depiction of present on the movies. It gave me, at least, a basis for my character creation. All in all Ghosts didn't really play a part in the creation of the character of the Ghost of Christmas Present. 

Poor law

https://spartacus-educational.com/Lpoor1834.htm [1]

The poor law amendment act (PLAA) took place a mere 9 years before 'A Christmas Carol' was written. The poor law stated that:

(a) no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse;

(b) conditions in workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to receive help;

(c) workhouses were to be built in every parish or, if parishes were too small, in unions of parishes;

(d) ratepayers in each parish or union had to elect a Board of Guardians to supervise the workhouse, to collect the Poor Rate and to send reports to the Central Poor Law Commission;

(e) the three man Central Poor Law Commission would be appointed by the government and would be responsible for supervising the Amendment Act throughout the country.[1]

I believe that they made these amendments so harsh because they thought it would deter poor people from getting off working so easily. Though some people disagreed with the poor law saying that it was too harsh. Other people argued that the PLAA would actually deter people from working altogether. Information on the PLAA helped us to realise how bad some character's lives were thus helping us to shape our characters around them. In my case that meant me making my present as jolly as possible so that his Christmas spirit rubs off on others. It also meant making my character of Marley more lamentable so that the regret of not helping those who really needed it.