Greed

Dickens had no love for people like Scrooge - it was a debt collector who put his father in prison, after all. But in the book, Dickens doesn't present Scrooge as a villain, he actually finds a way to sympathise with him. Dickens shows Scrooge the compassion that Scrooge couldn't show others.

Dickens argues that Scrooge's upbringing taught him how to be alone - in fact it taught him that he did live alone. This combined with Scrooge's understandable fear of poverty - he didn't want to become poor and outcast by society - and created a man who couldn't share. Scrooge was so afraid of ending up with nothing that he wrapped himself in a cloak and hid himself away, "warning human compassion to keep its distance."

It was if the world had rejected Scrooge when he was a child, and so Scrooge rejected the world and gave it nothing in return when he became an adult.

Through Scrooge Dickens encourages us to be greedy for happiness, family, compassion, care - for humanity. As Marley said: "Mankind" should have been his "business."

Scrooge was deserted by his father - we never learn what happens to his mother - and he is left alone during Christmases as a child. His friends deserted him, his family deserted him - are we really surprised that he turned his back on the world when he grew older? No-one shared their love with Scrooge when he was younger and so he won't share what he owns now he's older. It seems that all Scrooge learnt from school was that he had to look after himself.

Scrooge enjoyed his time working with Fezziwig, and in the party scene Scrooge realises that the "happiness Fezziwig gave was quite as great as if it had cost a fortune." This is Scrooge recognising that money and happiness are not necessarily linked. Scrooge realises that it doesn't take much to make people happy, and so maybe he should relax his grip a little. He responds to Fezziwig's party by wishing he could speak to Bob Cratchit - his own employee. At this point, Scrooge realises, that his greed is not getting him what he wants.

The last scene with this ghost is with Belle where we see just how obsessed by money he has become. In the scene Scrooge observes that there is "nothing the world is so hard on as poverty." Scrooge is terrified of being poor - which is understandable given how horrendous the conditions in workhouses were. But he responds to this by becoming obsessed by money. Belle goes on to say that "the master passion, Gain, engrosses you." Here, she is saying that gain - or greed - has taken him over. His "nobler aspirations" - the good things he once believed in - are gone, and now he simply wants money. This is so important because the Scrooge we knew at the beginning didn't care for anything but money, though here, Belle is saying that once, before all this, she fell in love with someone who loved something more.

When she leaves him, Belle says that Scrooge "fears" the world too much. Within this we understand Scrooge's problem: he's so afraid of ending up with nothing that he continues to grasp and wrench and clutch, even though he has more wealth than tens of thousands of working people.

So this first ghost teaches Scrooge WHY he became so greedy, and shows him a glimpse of the happiness he could enjoy if he puts people before profit. The next ghost takes this lesson even further...

Before Marley visited, Scrooge sat alone in a tavern and ate dinner. Then he went home alone for gruel before bed. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge that no matter how hard life can be, it is better when it's shared. And you don't need to be rich to laugh or smile or support your friends and family.

Together they visit the Cratchits, who enjoy Christmas despite their poverty because THEY HAVE EACH OTHER. They have love and companionship and in this book Dickens hopes to show us that real wealth comes from family and friendship, not bank balances. Tim is described as being "good as gold - and better" in an image which clearly puts the happiness of a child above any amount of gold. Dickens is also careful to describe the Cratchit's food - it is simple but brings real joy.

Then they visit Fred who insists on toasting his uncle. Here, Fred shows that no matter how greedy and selfish Scrooge is, civility, smiles and respect cost nothing and Fred will insist on sharing them with his uncle. Because Fred knows that he can be happy despite being "poor enough."

After these two tastes of what can be enjoyed if Scrooge stopped fretting about money all the time, the Ghost of Christmas Present ends with a warning: the two children, Ignorance and Want, who come with a very clear statement from Dickens. The ghost says to "beware" the children - suggesting that they are a threat - and most of all to "beware the boy" (who is Ignorance) for "on his face I see written that which is Doom." The language here is interesting, as the order of the words sounds almost like a Biblical prophecy.

Here the ghost is saying that if humans don't mend their ways then "Doom" will await them. I imagine that Dickens is referring to events like the French Revolution, which was still reasonably fresh in people's minds (it was as long ago for them as WWII is for us now.) During the French Revolution the poor rose up against the rich and killed thousands of them, brutally, in market squares and town centres. There is a school of thought - that a number of writers have subscribed to - that a certain level of equality is not just a nice thing to have, but that it is necessary for a society to remain stable.

So again: this ghost offers Scrooge some lovely things he could have if he changes, and combines them with a warning for worse to come if he does not change.

Scrooge had it all - all the wealth he could have ever dreamt of... And when he died: no-one cared.

No-one cared that he'd died.

No-one missed him, no-one thought of him fondly, no-one remembered his potential or his desires, or shed a tear for what he could have been. In fact, it was as if he had never even lived.

Though that's not entirely true: one point to be shown someone who was emotionally affected by his death and the spirit takes him to see a couple who are celebrating it - though Dickens is careful to show that they feel bad celebrating a death (they're nice people after all) but they can't help but be happy.

And what's interesting in this stave is that two people die: Scrooge - who was the richest character in the book - and Tiny Tim - the poorest. In this way, Dickens reminds us that no matter much you have, no matter how rich you are, you are just a "passenger on a journey to the grave."

In the end, Scrooge is faced by his own "neglected grave" and is forced to ask himself whether everything he'd possessed had any real value at all.

Though the book would seem to rail against the idea of greed, Dickens wasn't completely against it. Throughout the book there are hundreds of images of plenty - the second ghost arrives with the Plenty's Horn, which he uses to distribute good feelings all Christmas Day. Alongside that there are loads of lists that Dickens uses to emphasise huge numbers of things - the second Ghost arrives on a pile of food; Fezziwig's party has loads of guests; the streets of London are packed with people and each shop is piled down with exciting goods and even more food. (It's for this reason that some people have criticised its role in the commercialisation of Christmas.)

But really, the book isn't against greed itself, but it asks us what we should be greedy for - and it's not money!

When Fred describes Christmas he calls it a "kind, forgiving, charitable, and pleasant time" and this is really what Dickens wants us to crave. Be greedy for kindness; be greedy for the chance to give and forgive; to laugh. Be greedy for friends and family and the chance to share smiles and games and time with them.

Be greedy, Dickens says, but first of all work out what's really valuable in life...

One of the criticisms of A Christmas Carol is that it created the idea of the "Miserable Rich" and the "Happy Poor."

The issue is that while Dickens was trying to sympathise with Scrooge, and share the understanding that people like Scrooge are often very sad and misguided, he inadvertently creates a world where the rich are all miserable while the poor are all super chipper and coping quite happily - and after all they have all their family and friends to look after them, and Scrooge is the real loser here anyway!

In actual fact, most poor people's lives weren't like the Cratchits. Poverty increases the chance of things like domestic violence; starvation drives people into crime and prostitution; desperation creates monsters out of the most civilised folk. Wealth has none of these issues. Yes, it has problems - Scrooge was deformed by the fear of losing his wealth - but does A Christmas Carol honestly present the life of the poor? Probably not.

But it's also important to remember that A Christmas Carol isn't an "adult" book. It's the Victorian equivalent of a Hollywood Blockbuster. It's not trying to be subtle. It's a Disney narrative and the characters are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. They're not real, and they're not supposed to be. They're symbols of the points Dickens was trying to make, and in some ways they're more real than a lot of more "realistic" characters.

And also - crucially - remember that, after the initial description of Scrooge, the real novel opens with the iconic phrase: "Once upon a time..."

This is a fairy story after all, and pretending that it's real is to miss what it's really about.