Week 5: Stave IV — The Last of the Spirits

1.Unlike the first two spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come does not speak a single word. It is 'shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form,' with only one outstretched hand visible. Why might Dickens have made the spirit of the future mute and faceless? What does silence add to its power?

2.The businessmen on the Exchange discuss the death of an unnamed man with casual indifference. 'What has he done with his money?' is their first question. One offers to attend the funeral only 'if a lunch is provided.' What does this scene reveal about the kind of relationships Scrooge's way of life has produced?

3.Three people — a charwoman, a laundress, and an undertaker's man — have stripped a dead man's rooms and meet at Old Joe's junk shop to sell the plunder, including the dead man's bed-curtains (pulled down while he lay in the bed) and the shirt off his back. The charwoman says: 'If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw, why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him.' What is Dickens saying about the connection between how we treat others and how we are treated in return?