Skildring

Barnard's purpose here is to reinforce the text's characterisation of Scrooge's emotionally barren relationship with his clerk, Bob Cratchit so that his transformation from Malthusian miser on Christmas Eve to ebullient philanthropist on Christmas morning will seem all that more marvellous. Barnard prepares us for the ensuing fantasy by grounding us in Scrooge's workaday reality, which focuses around the miser's obsession with keeping costs down, whether the specific issue be the excessive consumption of coal or the inconvenience of shutting down the counting-house for Christmas Day. The interior illustration, with its extensive caption, pinpoints the cause of Scrooge's ill-humour as he departs at closing time. Scrooge's money morality, then, is presented in stark contrast to the frontispiece's exterior scene dramatising the companionship of father and son: the Bob Cratchit of the second scene, still recognisable by his extended comforter, cowed and submissive before his irascible employer, is a far cry from the man happily serving as his son's beast of burden in a spirit of play rather than out of capitalistic necessity.

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