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Ask a question to our educatorsHow is fear presented in a Christmas carol?
Just to add to the other answers, we learn about scrooges prudent, restricted and of course “covetous” character in Stave 1. Him being merely obsessive over his affluence causes his fear of losing said wealth - a common theme in Victorian Society. This is heightened when the first apparition guides Scrooge on a journey into his past. Although initially Scrooge is nostalgic and filled with fond memories, we can sense his fear and dread, hence his suppression of these memories. Dickens purposely states that Scrooge “wept to see his poor forgotten self”. We can easily conceive that his fear comes from his contrition: knowing he has lost his friends, a fiancé and ultimately his family.
The obvious answer might be to focus in the Ghost of Christmas yet to come, but why not consider the devout focus on capitalism. Scrooge demonstrates this fear in the Belle scene in Stave 2 where he talks about his fear of poverty. If we think of Scrooge as a caricature of upper class victorian society, then his fear of poverty and thus desire for wealth demonstrates a wider fear within society to avoid being poor. In this sense, the idea of fear is used by Dicekens as a means of critiquing societies desire for capitalistic gain as it creates a fear based greed that disenfranchised the poor and creates an upper class that are nothing but harsh and cruel to those around them to acquire it.
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Fear is a theme that runs throughout a Christmas Carol. It is shown in a literal sense with the Ghost Of Christmas Future. A silent and dark figure, similar to a lost memory. Here and with what the third Ghost shows him, the threat to Scrooge is being forgotten and leaving nothing but emptiness in his wake. It is foreshadowed with his earlier visit from the Ghost of Jacob Marley, who Scrooge would otherwise join in limbo unless he changed.
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