Mr. Fezziwig

Mr. Fezziwig
A Christmas Carol character
Fezziwig dances with his workers, illustration by John Leech
First appearance	A Christmas Carol 1843
Created by	Charles Dickens
Portrayed by	Forrester Harvey Roddy Hughes Dick Elliott Bryan Herbert Laurence Naismith Timothy Bateson Fozzie Bear Ian McNeice Brian Bedford Bob Hoskins Luca Mantle
In-universe information
Occupation	Money lender
Family	The Fezziwigs
Nationality	English

Mr. Fezziwig is a character from the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol created by Charles Dickens to provide contrast with Ebenezer Scrooge's attitudes towards business ethics. Scrooge apprenticed under Fezziwig. Despite this, the older Scrooge seems to be the very antithesis of Mr. Fezziwig in appearance, actions, and characterization. Mr. Fezziwig is portrayed as a jovial, foppish man with a large Welsh Wig.^{[nb 1]}

In Stave 2 of A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to revisit his youthful days in Fezziwig's world located at the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. Dickens used Fezziwig to represent a set of communal values and a way of life which was quickly being swept away in the economic turmoil of the early nineteenth century.^[2][3]

Character[]

Scrooge, who is a very mean person and does not care about anything but himself and money, diverged greatly from those of someone he once admired. Fezziwig is also a capitalist, but he moderates profit maximization with kindness, generosity, and affection for his employees.^[4] In the early 19th century, such small owner-controlled traders were being swept up.^{[citation needed]}

Extended characterizations[]

Film characterizations[]

In the screenplay for the 1951 film Scrooge by Noel Langley, Fezziwig is advised to bend with the times and sell out, but Fezziwig resists this call to progress:

Jorkin: "Mr. Fezziwig, we’re good friends besides good men of business. We're men of vision and progress. Why don't you sell out while the going’s good? You'll never get a better offer. It’s the age of the machine, and the factory, and the vested interests. We small traders are ancient history, Mr. Fezziwig."
^[5]

Fezziwig: "It's not just for money alone that one spends a lifetime building up a business…. It's to preserve a way of life that one knew and loved. No, I can't see my way to selling out to the new vested interests, Mr. Jorkin. I'll have to be loyal to the old ways and die out with them if needs must."^[6]

In the end, Jorkin hires away Scrooge and buys out Fezziwig's business, moving it from private to shareholder ownership. As agent of shareholder interests, Jorkin and his managers Scrooge and Jacob Marley are constrained from diverging from the goals of profitability, making it more difficult to be a Fezziwig even if they were inclined to.^[4] Fezziwig's successor Jorkin demonstrates the weakness of self-interest when he announces to the board of directors that the company is insolvent after years of embezzling. Scrooge and Marley demonstrate their cunning self-interest by using the crisis to attain controlling interest in the company. In Langley's and director Brian Desmond Hurst's Scrooge, these new managers replacing the Fezziwigs are predatory towards shareholders and employees alike, the product of a process and a mindset that Dickens felt was at odds with humanity itself.^[3][7]

Many film adaptions, such as The Muppet Christmas Carol, show Fezziwig's Christmas party as the setting for where Scrooge first met Belle, the beautiful young woman whom he fell in love with and became engaged to. However, Belle eventually breaks off their engagement after Scrooge's obsession with money eclipses his love for her. Fezziwig is mentioned as having three daughters; although their names are not revealed, it is possible that Belle is one of his daughters.

Fezziwig, as envisioned by Sol Eytinge Jr., 1843

In A Christmas Carol starring Kelsey Grammer, Fezziwig—following a downturn in his business—approaches Scrooge and Marley for a business loan. Scrooge, starting to turn into his greedy self, refuses the request, stating that he (Scrooge) and Marley would be throwing good money after bad.^{[citation needed]}

Fezziwig: A Life[]

Mr. Fezziwig is the subject of a historical novel by Danny Kuhn, written as a memoir. This incarnation of the Dickens character was born in Lincolnshire in 1721,^[8] and eventually travels to colonial America to promote his warehouse business before returning to London. Along the way, he befriends and has adventures with numerous influential eighteenth-century figures, including Lawrence Washington, George Hadley, Samuel Johnson, Erasmus Darwin, Henry Fielding and, especially, Benjamin Franklin during Franklin's years in England. Towards the end of his life, Fezziwig returns to his childhood home, accompanied by his apprentice Ebenezer Scrooge. Kuhn's novel was originally published by favoritetrainers.com books as The Autobiography of Fezziwig, but re-released in 2015 as Fezziwig: A Life by Knox Robinson Publishing.^[9]

Popular culture[]

• Fezziwig appears in the 1983 animated featurette, Mickey's Christmas Carol, where he is portrayed in a non-speaking role by Mr. Toad.
• In the 1992 film The Muppet Christmas Carol, he is played by Fozzie Bear and called "Fozziwig".
• The Boston Brewing Company produces Old Fezziwig Ale, a winter seasonal beer named after the character.^[10][11]

Notes[]

References[]