Stave 2
of is remarkable partly because it shows how deeply Scrooge is moved and
saddened by the scenes of the past shown to him by the Spirit. It is almost as if the Scrooge of
the present has already been changed into the man that all of these visitations will ultimately
make him. We also see, unsurprisingly (but perhaps something not often commented upon), that as
a child, Scrooge was not only lonely but also a victim of abuse. We are told that his father
"is so much kinder than he used to be" [emphasis added] and that,
at the urging of Ebenezer's sister, their father is now allowing Ebenezer to "come
home." We also are told that the schoolmaster:
glared
at Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by
shaking hands with him.
In the vision of the past,
Scrooge's materialism and his alienation from human emotion begins with his maturity, but it is
easy to see the roots of it in the glimpses of a disturbed childhood Dickens...
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