What better way to start the week than a little thread - on FIRE! 1/17
Fire is certainly used as a prominent image in Dickens’ novella, and is revisited regularly throughout the text.
In Stave 1, we are presented with the fact that Scrooge’s fire was ‘very small’, and Bob’s ‘so very much smaller’. 2/17
In Stave 1, we are presented with the fact that Scrooge’s fire was ‘very small’, and Bob’s ‘so very much smaller’. 2/17
This detail is surrounded by in-depth descriptions of just how cold the counting-house was, & is followed by an image of Bob making a desperate attempt to warm himself over the flame of his candle, but ‘failing’. 3/17
The absence of any significant fire not only conveys a sense of coldness, but also an absence of light-which extends itself into Scrooge’s living quarters,where Dickens is quick to assert to the reader (of the home’s darkness) that,’Darkness was cheap and Scrooge liked it’. 4/17
In Stave 2, where we are taken back to the past (with an image of little Scrooge ‘forgotten’ and ‘neglected by his friends’ at the schoolhouse). Dickens takes care to detail that the child was ‘alone’ and ‘reading by a feeble fire’. 🔥 5/17
This is an important detail. Can it really be a coincidence that the feebleness of the fire he was provided with in childhood has bled into his adult life? Is there a message here about how the ways in which we treat our children can and will impact their adult lives? 6/17
In any event, the ‘feeble’ nature of the fire here is a significant detail.Fires become feeble when they aren’t stoked, kindled, nurtured; when they are left to die out, as little Scrooge was.And, if we remain with this image for a while, we can perhaps see a deeper message: 7/17
By the time he reaches adulthood, Scrooge’s spark has completely gone, turning him into the ‘squeezing, wrenching’ man whom we meet in the first Stave, who ‘carries his own low temperature about with him’, one which has ‘stiffened his gait’ & turned ‘his thin lips blue’.8/17
In contrast to this feebleness of flame, when the Spirit takes Scrooge along to Old Fezziwig’s, there is an abundance: of food, drink, joy, and FIRE. In fact, ‘fuel was heaped upon the fire’ and the semantic field of warmth & cosiness completes the description. 9/17
In Stave 3, when Dickens introduces Scrooge to the Ghost of Christmas Present, one prominent detail is the ‘mighty blaze’ that ‘went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s...’ 10/17
In addition to the ‘living green’ that adorns the room,and the abundance of food & life, the image of a fire this size perhaps conveys the potential that Scrooge has to bring warmth to the world, and the Spirit arguably models this for him in the ‘transformation’ it brings. 11/17
Next, at the Cratchit’s home, Dickens conveys the immense joy experienced by the Cratchit family at Christmas, despite their obvious lack of privilege. We are advised that the fire was ‘made up’, and we are presented with an image of them gathering around it. 12/17
At this point, the narrative voice takes care to tell us that, when Bob directs his family to make a ‘circle’ around the fire, this means ‘half of one’ - and even this detail conveys the idea of lack in their lives.
The fire isn’t huge but ‘sputtered and cracked noisily’. 13/17
The fire isn’t huge but ‘sputtered and cracked noisily’. 13/17
The Spirit then takes Scrooge to visit the place ‘where miners live’ and, here, Dickens takes care to emphasise the ‘bleak(ness)’ & ‘desolation’ of the environment. It is likened to a ‘burial ground of giants’ and a certain barrenness prevails. 14/17
And yet, despite the ‘thick gloom’ of this ‘darkest’ of places, a ‘cheerful company’ is gathered around a ‘glowing fire’ - and they sing against the howling of the wind. The fire has united them, and brought with it a certain sense of warmth and love. 15/17
In Stave 5, it is clear that Scrooge, indeed, is ‘not the man (he) was’, and unsurprisingly, Dickens’ use of fire as an image conveys this wonderfully! 16/17
In constrast to Stave 1, where the fires were minuscule and the fuel kept under heavy-guard, Scrooge directs Bob to - “Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!" 👏🏻
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥17/17
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥17/17
