Family Theme Analysis

The entrance of Scrooge’s nephew Fred at the beginning of the story introduces another side to the miser. Scrooge is not unfortunate in the way of relatives – he has a family awaiting his presence, asking him to dinner, wanting to celebrate the season with him, yet he refuses. This is one of the important moral moments in the story that helps predict Scrooge’s coming downfall. It shows how Scrooge makes choices to prolong his own misery. He chooses to live alone and in darkness while even poor Cratchit is rich in family. Scrooge’s distaste for Fred’s happiness is not just annoyance at the sight of merriness and excess, it is also motivated by bitterness towards marriage based on Scrooge’s own lost love Belle, who left him long ago.

In the story, cold and loneliness are set up in opposition to the warmth of family. Symbols of coldness such as Scrooge’s empty hearth, refusal to provide heat for Cratchit, and keeping his own house dark to save money show Scrooge’s cruelty and lack of connection. But family provides the antidote to this coldness. When Fred enters, the counting house suddenly warms up. Further, Cratchit’s warmth, despite his lack of coal, and the togetherness and energy of his large family, show him to be one of the most fortunate men in the story.

Scrooge does have a kind of family in his partner Marley, who is described at the beginning of the novella as fulfilling many roles for Scrooge before his death. The inseparability of their names above the firm’s entrance shows how close they are—at least in business terms—and though they are bachelors they share their lives, and the suite of rooms is passed down like a family legacy from Marley to Scrooge. Ultimately, from Marley’s warning and the visions provided by the ghosts, Scrooge does learn to appreciate and connect with Fred and the rest of his family, and to even extend that family to include the Cratchits.