Tiny Tim (real name "Timothy Cratchit") is a fictional character in the classic story
A Christmas CarolA Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens about a curmudgeon and his secular conversion and redemption after being visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve...
by
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
. He is the son of
Bob CratchitRobert "Bob" Cratchit is a fictional character, the abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol.-Synopsis:...
. It is claimed that the character is based on the invalid son of a friend of Dickens who owned a cotton mill in
ArdwickArdwick is a district of the City of Manchester, in North West England. It is approximately one mile south-east of Manchester City Centre.By the early 19th century Ardwick had grown from being a village into a pleasant and wealthy suburb of Manchester, but by the end of that century it had become...
,
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2007, the population of the city was estimated to be 458,100...
.
When
ScroogeScrooge may refer to:*Ebenezer Scrooge, the name of the selfish and miserly protagonist of Charles Dickens' 1843 novel A Christmas Carol*Scrooge , a film featuring Seymour Hicks*Scrooge , a film featuring Alastair Sim...
is visited by
The Ghost of Christmas PresentThe Ghost of Christmas Present is a character in one of the best-known works of the English novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. The Spirit closely resembles Father Christmas from local folklore....
he is shown just how ill Tim really is, and that Tim will die unless he receives treatment. When visited by
The Ghost of Christmas FutureThe Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, or the Ghost of Christmas Future, is a fictional character in English novelist Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol...
all he sees of Tim is his crutch, as Tim has died.
Tiny Tim (real name "Timothy Cratchit") is a fictional character in the classic story
A Christmas CarolA Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens about a curmudgeon and his secular conversion and redemption after being visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve...
by
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
. He is the son of
Bob CratchitRobert "Bob" Cratchit is a fictional character, the abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol.-Synopsis:...
. It is claimed that the character is based on the invalid son of a friend of Dickens who owned a cotton mill in
ArdwickArdwick is a district of the City of Manchester, in North West England. It is approximately one mile south-east of Manchester City Centre.By the early 19th century Ardwick had grown from being a village into a pleasant and wealthy suburb of Manchester, but by the end of that century it had become...
,
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2007, the population of the city was estimated to be 458,100...
.
When
ScroogeScrooge may refer to:*Ebenezer Scrooge, the name of the selfish and miserly protagonist of Charles Dickens' 1843 novel A Christmas Carol*Scrooge , a film featuring Seymour Hicks*Scrooge , a film featuring Alastair Sim...
is visited by
The Ghost of Christmas PresentThe Ghost of Christmas Present is a character in one of the best-known works of the English novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. The Spirit closely resembles Father Christmas from local folklore....
he is shown just how ill Tim really is, and that Tim will die unless he receives treatment. When visited by
The Ghost of Christmas FutureThe Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, or the Ghost of Christmas Future, is a fictional character in English novelist Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol...
all he sees of Tim is his crutch, as Tim has died. This, and several other visions, lead Scrooge to reform his ways. At the end of the story, Dickens makes it explicit that Tim did not die, and Scrooge became a "second father" to him. According to some other versions of the Christmas Carol, Tim Cratchit eventually gained health by Scrooge's money, and later became a successful businessman. When Ebenezer Scrooge died, he became the only member of the Cratchit family to attend his funeral
Dickens did not reveal in the book what Tiny Tim's illness was, but
renal tubular acidosisRenal tubular acidosis is a medical condition that involves an accumulation of acid in the body due to a failure of the kidneys to appropriately acidify the urine. When blood is filtered by the kidney, the filtrate passes through the tubules of the nephron, allowing for exchange of salts, acid...
(a type of kidney failure causing the blood to become acidic) has been proposed as one possibility, as has
ricketsRickets is a softening of bones in children potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is among the most frequent childhood diseases in many developing countries. The predominant cause is a vitamin D deficiency, but lack of adequate calcium in the diet may also lead to rickets...
(caused by a lack of
Vitamin DVitamin D is a group of fat-soluble prohormones, the two major forms of which are vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 . Vitamin D obtained from sun exposure, food, and supplements, is biologically inert and must undergo two hydroxylation reactions to be activated in the body...
)
Tiny Tim says "God Bless Us, Every One." at the end of the story.
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