Week 4: Stave III — The Second of the Three Spirits

1.The Ghost of Christmas Present sits on a throne of food — 'turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples...' — and carries a torch that blesses the dinners of the poor most of all 'because they need it most.' What is Dickens saying about the relationship between abundance and generosity? About who most deserves festivity?

2.When Scrooge suggests that the Spirit would 'cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment' by closing shops on Sundays, the Ghost is indignant and says that those who do such things 'are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived.' What is Dickens critiquing here, and why does he put this rebuke in the mouth of the Spirit of Christmas?

3.The Cratchit family is 'not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty.' And yet they are 'happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time.' Bob Cratchit toasts Scrooge as 'the Founder of the Feast,' while Mrs. Cratchit can barely choke the words out.