Tag Archives: A Christmas Carol

Bob Cratchit and family live in the suburbs

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My reading of A Christmas Carol this year included noting this description of Scrooge’s travels with the Ghost of Christmas Present to observe the Cratchit family:

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"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay
claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will,
hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange
to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember
that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they
had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable
quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that,
notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any
place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as
gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could
have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this
power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and
his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's
clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his
robe; and, on the threshold of the door, the Spirit smiled, and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch.
Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a week himself; he pocketed on
Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of
Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Cratchit is the underpaid clerk who works in the city with a wealthy employer but lives in a small home (with four rooms) outside the city. A domestic scene follows as the family gathers around the modest table and food.

Scrooge, in contrast, lives and works in the city. He is about work and wealth. He looks out for himself and has little time for others, whether his employee or his former business partner.

London at the time of the writing of A Christmas Carol had nearly two million residents and had a lot of industrial activity. It had some suburbs – Clapham, for example was several miles from the center of the city and was inhabited by William Wilberforce and his associates – but it was a dense and growing city. The Cratchit family may not have been able to afford to live in London or they needed enough room for their family.

If A Christmas Carol helped create Christmas in the United States since its publishing, might it also have fit with Americans’ liking for suburbs for cities? Even as the tale involves redemption for Scrooge, he lives in the city while the typical and kind family in the story lives in a suburban home. And we know how much Americans like their suburban single-family homes.

Bob Crachit as the oppressed, modern office worker

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Bob Crachit may be irrepressible but his condition mirrors those of many a modern office worker: bad boss, long hours, and a small and cold office. While the book A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, Crachit’s position reminded me of the modern office as described in Cubed. A quick description of Scrooge’s building from A Christmas Carol (the Project Gutenberg version):

The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

It doesn’t exactly resemble the modern office park but does hint at what we know today. Scrooge and Crachit presumably work within walking distance of work but home and work life has clearly been separated. (Scrooge regularly eats at a tavern on his way home.) Scrooge is fixated on the bottom line while Crachit hopes the job can (barely) support his family. The conditions inside the office are all about maximizing the profit: not too much space, not very warm, a boss who controls the setting. This is the white-collar employee laboring for the capitalist within a controlled office.

Of course, Scrooge reverses course at the end of the book and I wonder if his change of heart would extend to a different kind of office. When visiting Bob Crachit and family, Scrooge suggests: “I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!” The second to last paragraph suggests his demeanor certainly changed. But, would this extend to having a brighter, warmer office with a more ergonomic setting for Bob?