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How is Bob Cratchit stave 1

Author

Joseph Russell

Updated on March 23, 2026

Bob Cratchit is Scrooge’s clerk and works in unpleasant conditions without complaint. He obeys Scrooge’s rules and is timid about asking to go home to his family early on Christmas Eve. … In the end, when Scrooge changes his ways for the better, Bob Cratchit is delighted.

How is Bob Cratchit described in Stave 1?

Bob Cratchit is Scrooge’s clerk and works in unpleasant conditions without complaint. He obeys Scrooge’s rules and is timid about asking to go home to his family early on Christmas Eve. … In the end, when Scrooge changes his ways for the better, Bob Cratchit is delighted.

What kind of person is Bob Cratchit?

Bob was a very kind and merciful person; he forgave everyone. The image of Bob Cratchit was created by Dickens to show the importance of family. As you know, Scrooge did not have good family relations. The spirit wanted to show him the warmth of the family fire, to get to his heart.

Who is Bob Cratchit in Stave 1?

Bob Cratchit is a poor man with a large family in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. His employer, Ebenezer Scrooge, does not care about Cratchit or his desire to celebrate Christmas with his family. Cratchit works in a cold office with only one coal for heat, and Scrooge watches Cratchit’s every move in the office.

How does Dickens describe Bob Cratchit?

Dickens depicts him as a ​loving father and husband​, which could be interpreted as an ​idealisation of the lower class. ​Despite his poor wages and cruel employer, Bob Cratchit remains ​grateful and compassionate​, celebrating Christmas in a way that the significantly richer Scrooge never could.

How does stave 5 Mirror stave 1?

In Stave one Scrooge is quite aggressive to people who want money from him . … Dickens uses different atmospheres to show Scrooges emotions at the time; in Stave one the atmosphere is cold and melancholy but in Stave 5 the atmosphere is bright and jovial. This helps to add contrast along with Scrooges character changes.

How does Scrooge treat his clerk in Stave 1?

And Ebenezer Scrooge begins “A Christmas Carol” as a bad one. Scrooge, a “tightfisted hand at the grindstone,” treats his clerk, Bob Cratchit, coldly. He even begrudges Cratchit’s taking Christmas off to be with Tiny Tim and the rest of his family.

What is the purpose of Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol?

Bob is Scrooge’s clerk and represents the lower classes. He has to accept poor wages and working conditions because he has a family to support, and a badly-paid job is better than no job.

How does Bob Cratchit respond to the gift?

A raise. What is Bob’s reaction to Scrooge’s gift? He is stunned.

How much does Bob Cratchit earn?

“Bob Cratchit was paid, according to ‘A Christmas Carol,’ 15 shillings a week. The average clerk in an accounting house was paid 11 shillings, 6 pence a week.”

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How many Cratchits are there?

The family comprises Bob Cratchit, his wife, and their six children: Martha, Belinda, Peter, two smaller Cratchits (an unnamed girl and boy), and the lame but ever-cheerful Tiny Tim.

How much would Bob Cratchit earn today?

the Invisible Hand of the market and the Malthusian forces of the time. So, Bob Cratchit’s weekly income is equal to a weekly income of about 385–400 pounds in today’s London – just 51–57 pounds a day, which has to pay for rent, food, clothes… everything.

How is the weather described in A Christmas Carol stave 1?

It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them.

How does Scrooge help Bob Cratchit?

He sends a turkey to the Cratchits and gives Bob a raise, atoning for his previous bitterness toward his clerk in Stave One. Scrooge also asks Bob to order more heating coals where previously, in Stave One, he forced Bob to suffer in the cold.

When Bob Cratchit asked for a day off on Christmas Eve Scrooge?

Scrooge begrudingly gives him the day off, but not without a lecture and not without an attempt of making Cratchit feel guilty for, as Scrooge says, taking Christmas day off with pay is like “picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December.” This statement obviously implies that Cratchit is stealing money from …

How does Scrooge make things right with Bob Cratchit?

He buys Bob Cratchit a huge turkey for Christmas, he goes to his nephews, he gives the old guy money. … Scrooge pretends to be mad at Bob for being late, then he raises his salary.

How does Scrooge change in Stave 1?

Through the attentions of Marley’s ghost and the journey Scrooge takes through the past present and future Scrooge changes and becomes likable. … In stave 1 Scrooge is seen as a ‘squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scrapping, clutching, covetous old sinner’. Dickens stresses the coldness of Scrooges bearing.

What did Scrooge send to the Cratchits?

The first social act of this newly reformed Scrooge is to purchase and then gift a giant prize turkey to the family of his underpaid and overworked clerk, Cratchit.

What does Bob Cratchit wear?

Bob Cratchit is depicted as wearing a long ”comforter”, or scarf, to try to stay warm at work. Cratchit even ”tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

Who do we learn was dead to begin with at the beginning of Stave 1?

Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.

How does Dickens present Bob Cratchit and his home?

Dickens also uses Bob to symbolise of the true spirit of Christmas and the importance of family. In the extract, we first gain an impression of Bob’s cheerful and enthusiastic yuletide spirit when he ‘ran home…as hard as he could pelt’ and slid on the ice ‘twenty times in honour of Christmas’.

How many staves in A Christmas Carol?

The novella is set out in five Staves. This is an unusual structure that mimics the way a musical piece is put together.

What does Bob Cratchit want for Christmas?

While Cratchit’s family curses Scrooge for his stinginess, however, Cratchit says he feels sorry for his employer, and insists that they toast his health. After Scrooge changes his ways on Christmas Day, he anonymously sends a Christmas turkey to Cratchit for his family’s dinner.

How does Dickens present Bob Cratchit as sympathetic?

A further way in which Dickens develops Bob’s character as a sympathetic one in his role as a loving father. … Just after this extract, Dickens presents Bob as generous in spirit when he proposes a toast to Scrooge, labelling him ‘the Founder of the Feast’.

How much was half a crown worth in 1843?

The Tower Mint in London struck 455,000 half crowns in 1843, the year Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. Each showed a young Queen Victoria on the obverse. The half crown (2 shillings, 6 pence) was the equivalent of about 60 cents in U.S. coin at the time.

What's wrong with Tiny Tim?

According to Russell Chesney, a physician at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tiny Tim suffered from a combination of rickets and tuberculosis.

How much was Ebenezer Scrooge worth in A Christmas Carol?

Ebenezer Scrooge gave the bulk of his $1.7 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And Superman nemesis Lex Luthor is struggling to rebuild his fortune after blowing billions on his latest (futile) attempt to take over the world.

Where does Bob Cratchit live?

The Cratchits lived at 18 Bayham Street, in Camden Town. How do we know this exact address? Dickens describes the stroll Bob Cratchit took everyday to work.

Who does Bob Cratchit live with?

The Cratchit household We’re told on two occasions that Scrooge’s clerk Bob Cratchit lives in Camden Town, along with his wife and children Peter, Martha, Belinda, “two smaller Cratchits” and the selfless Tiny Tim.

What is 1d worth?

As a group, the boy band members are said to have a combined net worth of $340 million (£260 million), according to Wealthy Gorilla.

How is Scrooge presented in Stave 1 extract?

Charles Dickens presents Scrooge in this extract as being a rich and wealthy man but also one who is both very cruel and alone. Dickens shows us that Scrooge is a respected person in society by telling us he had his own office and by saying that the men collecting for the poor ‘bowed to him’.