Scrooge's materialistic tendencies are presented primarily through the contrast of his pleasant remembrances of Fezziwig's small party and his later broken engagement with Belle.
After watching his younger self enjoying a festive Christmas gathering hosted by Fezziwig, Scrooge is completely caught up in the elation of the memory. He relives the joyous gathering as he enjoyed it the first time. When the memory is complete, the Ghost asks why Scrooge recalls such a small gathering with such fondness. After all, it couldn't have cost more than a few pounds--and Scrooge has already proven himself fond of wealth. Scrooge's answer reflects his attitude toward money in his youth:
He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.
This ability to create joy in the lives of others, especially those whom Fezziwig employs, is not lost on Scrooge. He appreciates that Fezziwig made his work "light" and "a pleasure." Of course, this directly contradicts the environment he creates for his own employee, where he clearly values saving money over making work "light."
But these feelings about the great value of happiness also contradicts his later relationship with Belle. Where he should have been content with a woman who loved him and was ready to provide for him a life of happiness worth "a fortune," he instead chooses literal money instead. Belle tells Scrooge that in the "severity [of] the pursuit of wealth" she has watched all of his "nobler aspirations," including their love, die to his one great master: Gain. She realizes that he considers her merely an "unprofitable dream" and releases him. Scrooge doesn't try to deny her accusations or stop her, proving that his youthful passions for life and love have died in a materialistic quest to always gain more wealth.
Stave 2 of A Christmas Carol is remarkable partly because it shows how deeply Scrooge is moved and saddened by the scenes of the past shown to him by the Spirit. It is almost as if the Scrooge of the present has already been changed into the man that all of these visitations will ultimately make him. We also see, unsurprisingly (but perhaps something not often commented upon), that as a child, Scrooge was not only lonely but also a victim of abuse. We are told that his father "is so much kinder than he used to be" [emphasis added] and that, at the urging of Ebenezer's sister, their father is now allowing Ebenezer to "come home." We also are told that the schoolmaster:
glared at Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him.
In the vision of the past, Scrooge's materialism and his alienation from human emotion begins with his maturity, but it is easy to see the roots of it in the glimpses of a disturbed childhood Dickens shows us. In one of the most familiar passages of the story, his fiancee, Belle, breaks off the engagement because she realizes Ebenezer is more interested in money than in her. Years later, Scrooge is seen working late hours at the office—though his partner Marley is dying. Scrooge has become isolated and friendless because of his materialistic and single-minded devotion to his business.
Scrooge is shown as materialistic throughout this stave primarily by his decision to allow his true love, Belle, to leave him because he was unwilling to give up on his pursuit of wealth. Throughout his time with the Ghost of Christmas Past, he sees himself as a young man, working diligently to become wealthy and establish a place in society. At the same time, he is in a relationship with a beautiful young woman, who wants more of his time and wishes to marry him in spite of her lack of dowry. She is afraid that, over time in their marriage, she would resent him because she brought no financial gain to the relationship. She saw early on that his heart was set on wealth and that he was consumed by greed and nothing else.
At this point, we see from the Ghost of Christmas Past that Scrooge was once a much more sociable and human figure than he is in the present. He was in love with a young woman named Belle who was sweet and pretty but had no money.
Once Scrooge starts becoming obsessed with gaining wealth, Belle's lack of high standing and money cause him to view her as lesser. He does not abandon her and claims he will still honor their engagement, but there is no longer love in his heart. As Belle mentions, Scrooge has made money his new idol, leaving no room for real human warmth.
Scrooge's rejection of Belle and acceptance of her leaving him shows how far he has fallen. He prefers money to a real, loving companion. Dickens is showing how Scrooge's materialism has shut him off from love and connection with others.
In stave 2, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge the scene from the past in which Belle breaks off their engagement to be married. She makes it clear that she is ending their engagement because Scrooge has become too obsessed with money.
Scrooge protests that there is nothing wrong with accumulating wealth. He argues that there's nothing worse than poverty and that the world only pretends ("professes") to condemn the pursuit of money.
Nevertheless, Belle persists in ending the relationship. She says to Scrooge "Gain, engrosses you." She also says she fears that Scrooge will come to resent marrying her because she has no dowry (the money a woman's family traditionally provided before marriage to offset her expenses). She says that when they first met, her lack of money didn't matter to Scrooge but that it does now. She asks:
would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!
The young Scrooge knows what she says is true and is unable to prevent the breakup, which he now, as an old man, bitterly regrets. This shows how materialistic he had become by his "prime" of life, willing to sacrifice important relationships to money.
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