Fezziwig

Who is he?

Scrooge’s former employer during his apprenticeship. His Christmas party shows authority creating pleasure and belonging for workers, in a memory Scrooge still values deeply.

Actions and development

Earlier life: work ends: Fezziwig stops the apprentices’ work on Christmas Eve and orders the warehouse cleared.

Audience / reader: Readers may enjoy authority offering rest and celebration rather than demanding further labour.

Earlier life: the party: He and Mrs Fezziwig welcome guests, dance enthusiastically and help turn the workplace into shared enjoyment.

Audience / reader: Generosity feels infectious, involving employees and visitors rather than serving only the host.

Stave 2: the remembered effect: Watching the memory, Scrooge insists that Fezziwig’s happiness-giving matters more than the expense.

Audience / reader: Readers can recognise Scrooge measuring value through experience and relationships, despite his familiar concern with money.

Stave 2: a present connection: Scrooge remembers Bob and wishes he could speak to his own clerk immediately.

Audience / reader: His discomfort shows how remembered kindness can expose an unmet responsibility in the present.

What the character says — “No more work to-night”

Fezziwig to his apprentices · Stave 2 memory

Method: Command

The employer controls the end of labour. Here that power provides rest and shared enjoyment rather than extending demands.

What others say or describe — “laughed all over himself”

Narrator about Fezziwig · Stave 2 memory

Method: Comic hyperbole

Laughter seems to fill his whole body. The exuberant description gives the party a contagious sense of physical pleasure.

What others say or describe — “The happiness he gives”

Scrooge about Fezziwig · Stave 2

Method: Language of giving

Happiness becomes an employer’s valuable contribution. The phrase locates worth in an effect on people rather than merely in money spent.

What others say or describe — “the power to render us happy or unhappy”

Scrooge about Fezziwig · Stave 2

Method: Opposing adjectives

The alternatives expose the emotional power of an employer’s decisions. Small acts of authority can change workers’ everyday experience.

Structure and dramatic choices

The warehouse changes function from workplace to dance floor; the setting makes labour, power and companionship part of one remembered experience.

Fezziwig appears inside Scrooge’s pre-Victorian memories. Reflection on the party ends with an uncomfortable return to Scrooge’s treatment of Bob.

Relevant context

Setting: Scrooge’s earlier apprenticeship, before the main London Christmas story and its Victorian readership; the remembered employer is not a present-day colleague.

In the 1843 context, the example of personal employer responsibility connects Christmas hospitality with working relationships rather than treating celebration as a private luxury.

Check your understanding

How does Fezziwig use his authority during the party?

Why does Scrooge think of Bob after this memory?