How Does Dickens Present Scrooge In A Christmas Carol
Discuss how dickens uses “A Christmas Carol,” and the character of scrooge to promote a more caring, less selfish society.
In the 19th century, the poor people faced a very atrocious and frightful life in London. They starved if they had no jobs and had nowhere to live except for streets which were filthy and filled with crime. There was a poor law, as there weren’t even state benefits and if someone couldn’t pay the rent for the room they were given to stay in they were moved to union workhouses or prisons, which they unfortunately died in. Dickens uses these them of poor and rich in his novel through the character of scrooge to show people are just for the greed of money and how they can change, which puts quite a truthful moral to this …show more content…
novel.
Our first impression of scrooge shows us that he is grasping and covetous, rich but penny pinching, selfish and ignorant; warning all human sympathy to keep its distance. He has a poor attitude towards the poor and thinks Christmas is stupid as well as a waste of money and time.
“What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money?
A time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer.”
This indicates to us that he has no sympathy for the poor he thinks they put up an act at this time of the year just to make money also he frustrated by this whole concept of Christmas as he can’t make money because everyone is busy with their family and he thinks its stupid. His nephew comes to invite him over for dinner and he totally ignores what his nephew is saying,
“I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?”
“Good afternoon,” said scrooge.
We can see that he is very selfish and don’t care about anyone and doesn’t want to waste his time celebrating as he could be making money at this time instead of wasting it, which makes him very greedy and shows us he has no heart. He also suggests for them to go to the union workhouses as he already knows many die there,
“The union workhouses? Demanded scrooge are they still in operation?”
He wishes bad for the poor in every way he could as he comes up with this idea which is quite sad towards the poor and shows such cheap behaviour.
Stave 1 we see Jacob Marley’s ghost) his business partner who dies seven Christmas eves ago) he comes to visit scrooge to warn him that he still has a chance and hope of escaping the fate that Marley has had and that he will be visited by three spirits,
“You will be haunted,” resumed the ghost, “by the three spirits.”
These three spirits will be past, present and future that will show him these 3 stages of his life and will indicate to him how to change his fate before it’s too late. Around Marley’s ghost there is chains and metal which are the weight of coil he has to carry now that he’s dead to pay for his sins, scrooge will also have the same as scrooge is the same as Marley,
“the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago, you have laboured on it since it is a ponderous chain.”
This means scrooge’s chain has forged since and is much heavier, which indicates he will have no rest or peace but incessant torture of remorse, if he don’t clean up his act.
Stave 2 we see the first of the two spirits (spirit of the past) who shows him his childhood, him as a boy in his boarding school.
Seeing his classmates brings him to tears, and he starts to regret that he did not give anything to the boy who sang a carol at the counting house door earlier that evening. They then move onto a scene where fezziwig, scrooge’s old employer has given them a Christmas party n everyone is enjoying, the ghost asks scrooge,
“Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three
Or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?”
Scrooge starts explaining how his power lies in his words and in things so slight and insignificant that is impossible to count up and the happiness he gives them costs a fortune, while he is saying this remembers about his clerk and wishes he could say a few things to Bob Crachit, which shows us that there is vast changes being made to his outlook in life as his thinking is changing.
Scrooge sees a bright light in the next room and follows it as he sees a giant surrounded by a feast of Christmas foods filling the room, which was the ghost of Christmas present. He takes scrooge to Bob Crachits house where everyone is preparing their meagre Christmas feast, while at the same time Tiny Tim enters with Bob and has crutches. Bob starts crying and
says,
“Bob, with tears in his eyes, insists that Tim is growing stronger every day,
But his tears seem to suggest otherwise.”
This puts scrooge to thinking and asks the ghost whether Tiny Tim will live, the ghost replies it is best if he does as its will reduce the surplus population. On hearing this scrooge is very ashamed of himself as these are the word he spoke for the poor people. Next they stop at scrooges nephews house where a Christmas party is underway he hears his nephew say,
“However, his offences carry their own punishment, and i have nothing to say against him.”
And by all the happiness the family is sharing scrooge gets touched and wants to be involved he starts talking to them as if they can hear him, this shows us that his mind has changed and now wants to spend time with his nephew and feel the love of Christmas and what is like. Next he is in a place of sick and dying people and realises the spirit is beginning to age His hair has greyed and Scrooge notices a claw coming out from the ghost's robe. When Scrooge asks what is happening, the ghost explains,
“My life upon this globe, is very brief, it ends tonight.”
Then he opens his robe and two hideous, frightful and monstrous children are there.
He explains the girl child is Want and the boy child Ignorance and that they are the children of mankind and to beware of them both especially Ignorance or doom is imminent. From which scrooge is really appalled by.
The ghost of Christmas yet to come (the final of all ghosts) appears and scrooge is ready to see what he has to show him but scrooge cannot even see a hint of the ghosts face, he says nothing but points to several groups of men talking and is instructed to listen to their conversations,
“No, I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.”
“When did he die?” enquired another.
“Last night I believe.”
That’s all people were gossiping about a man who had died this morning and he goes onto see a poorer part of the city where three people gather with bundles of things that they have stolen from the dead man's house to sell. They don’t feel bad about this thievery they have done as they think the man had been so selfish and cold in life. Scrooge was horrified by all this and told the spirit this could be a warning for him to how he’s life might end if he doesn’t change his ways. When he is in the Crachit home he sees everyone is waiting for Bob to come home, as Bob enters he says he has found a place for Tiny Tim to be buried and bursts out crying, which tells us Tiny Tim may die. Scrooge realises time with the last ghost is nearly over and wants to know who the man was that died, so he is taken to the cemetery and is pointed at the gravestone as he looks at the gravestone with fear he reads his name he falls down and begs,
Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why sow me this if I am past all hope.”
We can now tell he has realised everything wrong he has done in life, what he needs to do in order to change his ways and make his future not like this. He promises the spirit,
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year. I will live in the past, present and future. The spirits of all three shall strive within m. I will not shut out the lessons they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone.
Overall we see that the impact of this spirit is the most effective as it makes him regret what he’s done in life is wrong and has pleaded before the spirit that he will change his ways it also frightened him by its actions.
In the last stave dickens reveals scrooges transformation really openly, everyone is very delighted and confused by his actions towards them as he has just changed all of a sudden. The first thing he does is sends a big turkey to Crachits house. Tiny Tim did not die, and Scrooge became very close to the Cratchit family. Then when he’s on the way to his nephews house he sees one of the donation collectors and gives him a large donation, the donation collector is over whelmed by his generosity and thanks him a lot he then arrived at his nephew's home, and was afraid to knock on the door after he has been so cruel to him, but he did it. When Fred realized who had come, he was so happy to see his uncle. Scrooge stayed and enjoyed the party just as he did when he watched it with the Ghost of Christmas Present. The next morning Scrooge tells his clerk that he will raise his salary and help his struggling family in any way that he can. He kept his word to the ghosts and continued his Christmas spirit of generosity and kindness every year round after that. The theme of this story is that money should not matter and it should not take control of your life.
In the 19th century, the poor people faced a very atrocious and frightful life in London. They starved if they had no jobs and had nowhere to live except for streets which were filthy and filled with crime. There was a poor law, as there weren’t even state benefits and if someone couldn’t pay the rent for the room they were given to stay in they were moved to union workhouses or prisons, which they unfortunately died in. Dickens uses these them of poor and rich in his novel through the character of scrooge to show people are just for the greed of money and how they can change, which puts quite a truthful moral to this …show more content…
novel.
Our first impression of scrooge shows us that he is grasping and covetous, rich but penny pinching, selfish and ignorant; warning all human sympathy to keep its distance. He has a poor attitude towards the poor and thinks Christmas is stupid as well as a waste of money and time.
“What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money?
A time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer.”
This indicates to us that he has no sympathy for the poor he thinks they put up an act at this time of the year just to make money also he frustrated by this whole concept of Christmas as he can’t make money because everyone is busy with their family and he thinks its stupid. His nephew comes to invite him over for dinner and he totally ignores what his nephew is saying,
“I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?”
“Good afternoon,” said scrooge.
We can see that he is very selfish and don’t care about anyone and doesn’t want to waste his time celebrating as he could be making money at this time instead of wasting it, which makes him very greedy and shows us he has no heart. He also suggests for them to go to the union workhouses as he already knows many die there,
“The union workhouses? Demanded scrooge are they still in operation?”
He wishes bad for the poor in every way he could as he comes up with this idea which is quite sad towards the poor and shows such cheap behaviour.
Stave 1 we see Jacob Marley’s ghost) his business partner who dies seven Christmas eves ago) he comes to visit scrooge to warn him that he still has a chance and hope of escaping the fate that Marley has had and that he will be visited by three spirits,
“You will be haunted,” resumed the ghost, “by the three spirits.”
These three spirits will be past, present and future that will show him these 3 stages of his life and will indicate to him how to change his fate before it’s too late. Around Marley’s ghost there is chains and metal which are the weight of coil he has to carry now that he’s dead to pay for his sins, scrooge will also have the same as scrooge is the same as Marley,
“the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago, you have laboured on it since it is a ponderous chain.”
This means scrooge’s chain has forged since and is much heavier, which indicates he will have no rest or peace but incessant torture of remorse, if he don’t clean up his act.
Stave 2 we see the first of the two spirits (spirit of the past) who shows him his childhood, him as a boy in his boarding school.
Seeing his classmates brings him to tears, and he starts to regret that he did not give anything to the boy who sang a carol at the counting house door earlier that evening. They then move onto a scene where fezziwig, scrooge’s old employer has given them a Christmas party n everyone is enjoying, the ghost asks scrooge,
“Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three
Or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?”
Scrooge starts explaining how his power lies in his words and in things so slight and insignificant that is impossible to count up and the happiness he gives them costs a fortune, while he is saying this remembers about his clerk and wishes he could say a few things to Bob Crachit, which shows us that there is vast changes being made to his outlook in life as his thinking is changing.
Scrooge sees a bright light in the next room and follows it as he sees a giant surrounded by a feast of Christmas foods filling the room, which was the ghost of Christmas present. He takes scrooge to Bob Crachits house where everyone is preparing their meagre Christmas feast, while at the same time Tiny Tim enters with Bob and has crutches. Bob starts crying and
says,
“Bob, with tears in his eyes, insists that Tim is growing stronger every day,
But his tears seem to suggest otherwise.”
This puts scrooge to thinking and asks the ghost whether Tiny Tim will live, the ghost replies it is best if he does as its will reduce the surplus population. On hearing this scrooge is very ashamed of himself as these are the word he spoke for the poor people. Next they stop at scrooges nephews house where a Christmas party is underway he hears his nephew say,
“However, his offences carry their own punishment, and i have nothing to say against him.”
And by all the happiness the family is sharing scrooge gets touched and wants to be involved he starts talking to them as if they can hear him, this shows us that his mind has changed and now wants to spend time with his nephew and feel the love of Christmas and what is like. Next he is in a place of sick and dying people and realises the spirit is beginning to age His hair has greyed and Scrooge notices a claw coming out from the ghost's robe. When Scrooge asks what is happening, the ghost explains,
“My life upon this globe, is very brief, it ends tonight.”
Then he opens his robe and two hideous, frightful and monstrous children are there.
He explains the girl child is Want and the boy child Ignorance and that they are the children of mankind and to beware of them both especially Ignorance or doom is imminent. From which scrooge is really appalled by.
The ghost of Christmas yet to come (the final of all ghosts) appears and scrooge is ready to see what he has to show him but scrooge cannot even see a hint of the ghosts face, he says nothing but points to several groups of men talking and is instructed to listen to their conversations,
“No, I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.”
“When did he die?” enquired another.
“Last night I believe.”
That’s all people were gossiping about a man who had died this morning and he goes onto see a poorer part of the city where three people gather with bundles of things that they have stolen from the dead man's house to sell. They don’t feel bad about this thievery they have done as they think the man had been so selfish and cold in life. Scrooge was horrified by all this and told the spirit this could be a warning for him to how he’s life might end if he doesn’t change his ways. When he is in the Crachit home he sees everyone is waiting for Bob to come home, as Bob enters he says he has found a place for Tiny Tim to be buried and bursts out crying, which tells us Tiny Tim may die. Scrooge realises time with the last ghost is nearly over and wants to know who the man was that died, so he is taken to the cemetery and is pointed at the gravestone as he looks at the gravestone with fear he reads his name he falls down and begs,
Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why sow me this if I am past all hope.”
We can now tell he has realised everything wrong he has done in life, what he needs to do in order to change his ways and make his future not like this. He promises the spirit,
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year. I will live in the past, present and future. The spirits of all three shall strive within m. I will not shut out the lessons they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone.
Overall we see that the impact of this spirit is the most effective as it makes him regret what he’s done in life is wrong and has pleaded before the spirit that he will change his ways it also frightened him by its actions.
In the last stave dickens reveals scrooges transformation really openly, everyone is very delighted and confused by his actions towards them as he has just changed all of a sudden. The first thing he does is sends a big turkey to Crachits house. Tiny Tim did not die, and Scrooge became very close to the Cratchit family. Then when he’s on the way to his nephews house he sees one of the donation collectors and gives him a large donation, the donation collector is over whelmed by his generosity and thanks him a lot he then arrived at his nephew's home, and was afraid to knock on the door after he has been so cruel to him, but he did it. When Fred realized who had come, he was so happy to see his uncle. Scrooge stayed and enjoyed the party just as he did when he watched it with the Ghost of Christmas Present. The next morning Scrooge tells his clerk that he will raise his salary and help his struggling family in any way that he can. He kept his word to the ghosts and continued his Christmas spirit of generosity and kindness every year round after that. The theme of this story is that money should not matter and it should not take control of your life.