Scrooge and Dick Wilkins Apprenticeship

The Scrooge and Dick Wilkins Apprenticeship was a formative period in Ebenezer Scrooge's youth, spent under the benevolent master Fezziwig at his warehouse. This relationship, recalled during the Ghost of Christmas Past's visit, represents a time of joy, camaraderie, and human connection that starkly contrasts with Scrooge's later miserly isolation. The memory of this apprenticeship, and particularly the happiness Fezziwig provided with modest means, becomes a crucial catalyst for Scrooge's emotional reawakening and his eventual redemption.

Identity and Background

Dick Wilkins was Scrooge's fellow apprentice at Fezziwig's warehouse, a young man who, as Scrooge later recalled with affection, "was very much attached to me." The two worked side by side under the jovial old Fezziwig, who called them in with a hearty "Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!" and treated them with warmth and generosity. The apprenticeship took place during Scrooge's young manhood, a period before the "harsh and rigid lines of later years" had set upon his face, though even then the "signs of care and avarice" were beginning to appear. This was a time when Scrooge was still capable of feeling the kind of gratitude and happiness that the Fezziwig household inspired.

Life and Plot Trajectory

The apprenticeship is not a continuous narrative but a single, vivid scene conjured by the Ghost of Christmas Past. Scrooge and the Spirit witness the evening of Christmas Eve at Fezziwig's warehouse, when the old master declared, "No more work to-night. Christmas-eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!" The two apprentices, along with Fezziwig himself, transformed the workspace into a ballroom with astonishing speed, clearing away every movable item, sweeping the floor, trimming the lamps, and heaping fuel upon the fire. The scene that followed was one of unrestrained festivity: a fiddler arrived, Mrs. Fezziwig and her three daughters entered, and a crowd of young men and women—including the housemaid with her cousin the baker, and the cook with her brother's friend the milkman—poured in. The dancing was vigorous and joyful, with old Fezziwig and his wife leading the "Sir Roger de Coverley" with such energy that "a positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves." The evening concluded with the Fezziwigs shaking hands with every guest individually, wishing each a Merry Christmas, and finally doing the same for the two apprentices before they retired to their beds under a counter in the back-shop.

Key Actions and Objectives

During the entire scene, Scrooge "acted like a man out of his wits," his heart and soul fully immersed in the memory. He "corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation." The Ghost of Christmas Past pointed out that Fezziwig had spent only "a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps" to create such happiness. Scrooge, heated by the remark and speaking "unconsciously like his former, not his latter self," passionately defended his old master, arguing that Fezziwig's power to make his employees happy or unhappy lay not in money but "in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up." This realization directly prompted Scrooge to express a wish to say "a word or two to my clerk just now," marking the first conscious step toward his transformation.

Relationships and Conflict

The relationship between Scrooge and Dick Wilkins was one of genuine friendship and mutual attachment. Scrooge's exclamation upon seeing his former self—"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!... He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"—reveals a warmth entirely absent from his later life. The two apprentices worked together in perfect harmony, charging into the street to put up the shutters with such speed that they returned "panting like race-horses," and later pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig. This bond stands in stark contrast to Scrooge's later relationship with his own clerk, Bob Cratchit, whom he kept in a dismal cell with a fire so small it "looked like one coal" and whom he begrudged even a day off at Christmas.

Change and Ending

The memory of the apprenticeship does not lead to a reunion with Dick Wilkins, who disappears from the narrative after this single scene. Instead, its function is to awaken in Scrooge a sense of what he has lost. The Ghost's pointed question about the small cost of Fezziwig's generosity forces Scrooge to confront his own miserliness and the emotional poverty it has produced. The immediate consequence is Scrooge's wish to speak kindly to his clerk, a wish that foreshadows his final, joyful transformation. On Christmas morning, after his redemption, Scrooge's ecstatic behavior—laughing and crying, making "a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings," and declaring himself "as merry as a school-boy"—echoes the uninhibited joy of the Fezziwig ball. His final act of raising Bob Cratchit's salary and becoming "a second father" to Tiny Tim fulfills the lesson he learned from his apprenticeship: that true happiness comes not from wealth but from human kindness.

Narrative Role and Evaluation

The Scrooge and Dick Wilkins Apprenticeship serves as a crucial emotional and moral pivot in the story. It provides the first concrete evidence that Scrooge was not always the cold, isolated figure of the opening chapters, and it establishes a template for the kind of joyful, communal life he has abandoned. The scene is rendered with such vivid, affectionate detail that it becomes a benchmark against which all of Scrooge's later choices are measured. The Ghost of Christmas Past uses this memory not to shame Scrooge but to remind him of a happiness he once knew and could know again. The apprenticeship thus functions as a narrative device that makes Scrooge's redemption believable: it shows that the capacity for joy and connection was always within him, merely buried under years of avarice and isolation.