A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

“How does Charles Dickens use ‘A Christmas Carol’ as a metaphor to show the worst aspects of Victorian humanity?”

Victorian England was atrocious. During this period work house had been set up. Poor people would be working long days in work houses, on little money and virtually no food. Families would be sharing rooms with other families, sleeping on cold, damp floor. Toilets would be to a row of houses. Outside mind you. The rich didn’t care. Or was it they tried to ignore the fact? Pretend it wasn’t happening. Either way the situation never seemed to improve.

Charles Dickens cared, he was bothered. He knew something must be done to educate the rich, inform them on the dreadful treatment of the poor. But he knew he couldn’t got screaming and ordering people around. So what better to do than write it cleverly in a novel.

There were no TVs in the Victorian times, so to be ‘cultured’ the rich would read. Dickens knew that nearly everyone was affected by Christmas. So this will influence the reader more so.

Ebenezer Scrooge’ character brings out the worst possible characteristics of humanity, how he is parsimonious and has total apathy towards the poor. Scrooge reflects all of Charles Dickens feelings of social standing in Victorian times. Charles Dickens’s view is brought out in Scrooges nephew, Fred.

Charles Dickens wants us know how nasty Scrooge is from the beginning. Bob Marley was his business partner, and when Marley died scrooge was the ‘chief mourner’. his only friend. Both were absorbed with work and making money. The repetition of the word ‘sole’ accentuates how significant they are to each other. Scrooge still on his only friends funeral put business above him and when the word ‘bargain’ is used, Scrooges imagine is lowered still.

Dickens uses the repetition on the word ‘no’ when portraying scrooge within the public.

‘No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no child asked him what it was o’clock, no man, no woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place’

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Dickens uses the repetition on the word ‘no’ when portraying scrooge within the public.

‘No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no child asked him what it was o’clock, no man, no woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place’

Anthropomorphism of dogs acts as personification of the weather this doesn’t lift the animal’ status as much as it lowers Scrooges. Life for blind people wouldn’t be great in Victorian England so the fact the dog recognised the fact their view on life is much better than Scrooges, this says a lot on how being without riches doesn’t mean your life will be dreadful. But to have no friends and money would be much, much worse.

Scrooge treats his worker, Bob Cratchit no better. Cratchit works hard as a good employee for little salary, but Scrooge gives him no gratitude for this and treats him very bad.

‘Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerks fire was so very small that it looked like one coal.’

The comparative ‘smaller’ shows how mean Scrooge is to Bob. This is Christmas he should be sharing, everyone should know that this is a time for the rich to share with the poor, but of course Scrooge is stingy and doesn’t.

Scrooges nephew, Fred is the contrast to Scrooge. They are completely different people, Fred is described in such a way using ‘Ruddy and handsome’ that makes you want to like him. While Scrooge is described with ‘eyes red’ and ‘thin lips blue’. There are positive adjectives use for the first time ‘glowed’ ‘sparkled’. Sparkled being onomatopoeic, this adds to Fred’s image. Also the suggestion that one of Scrooge’s relatives could be attractive is shocking.

Fred's main speech Fred seems to emblematise Dickens message echoing the main theme in the story, and also moral lesson to the readers

‘the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open there shut-up hearts freely,’

Fred's speech is very emotive and echoes Romantics. The main thing Fred does is to separate happiness from money/wealth. This is something Scrooge is unable to do or finds it hard to do.

There was many poor people in Victorian England. They needed support and help. Christmas was this time, where they would unite with the rich. They weren’t ‘another race of creatures’. But while people starved Scrooge had more money than he could ever need. Even more than he could ever spend. Scrooge didn’t use it to make himself happy, yet he would not share.

Dickens has made Scrooge seem awful from the very start, his physical appearance seems inhuman.

‘the cold within froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice’

Dickens suggests several times that has inhuman characteristics, such as the cold within, as humans are warm blooded. Red eyes are associated with the devil or being evil. Blue lips implies that Scrooge would have no blood in his body or being dead. Harsh words are used like nipped/pointed. Many of these points link Scrooge to the weather. Dickens is linking Scrooge to the negative aspects of the environment.

‘and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas’. This is an extension of the metaphor, the idea that the cold doesn’t change, its always there and even at the festive time of Christmas he doesn’t change. Everyone knows that Christmas should be a time of happiness, joy, family and sharing but Scrooge has none of it. Dickens uses alliteration ‘wintry weather’ this gives us the cold atmosphere of Scrooges personality. When dickens uses personification he doesn’t use it to make the weather seem more human, he uses it to make Scrooge seem insensate. Scrooge isn’t affected by the weather, warm or cold. Dickens uses contrast for effect this reinforces the inhuman qualities of Scrooge. Comparative adjectives such as ‘bitterer’ and ‘more intent’. Deepens this contrast.

“The heaviest rain and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boost the advantage over him in one respect. They often ‘came down’ handsomely, and scrooge never did.”

Dickens explains that even the weather has at least one positive quality that Scrooge did not have like the fact they posses some way of making people happy or a type of energy. Scrooge is again compared to the worst qualities of the weather.

The coldness of Scrooge is repeated again in the description of him.

Coldness of ‘aura surrounding Scrooge is actually echoed in the description of his character:

‘Oh! But he was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, scrooge a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner’

There is a metaphor used to compare Scrooge to a ‘grindstone’. The grindstone is used as a symbol of hardness, again shown Scrooges inhuman qualities. The use of many adjectives, could be seen as excessive but it emphasises just how dreadful Scrooge is .

‘Hard and sharp as a flint from which no steel has ever struck out generous fire’

Once again a comparison to stone. The idea that fire could be gained from flint but Dickens points that no fire can be achieved from Scrooge. This gives the idea that Scrooge has no warmth. Dickens removes all positive qualities of the stone leaving him not only to be inhuman and also being compared to an inanimate object, Dickens goes one further to say that he is even worse.

Dickens wrote this book to show the people of Victorian times how they need to understand poor are just poor, they were people to. They need to be treated much better than how they were treated. Poverty wasn’t something to be scared about. He knew that there would be a much stronger chance that if he wrote a book people would see what an awful person Scrooge was. Showing how dreadful he was around people who were his family. He treated his works with no respect, they feared him. Dickens used strong language to if not over emphasis the abominable behaviour of Scrooge. Descriptive language used to help us imagine Scrooge is also very strong. Dickens used many metaphors, comparisons against the negative sides of the weather to show Scrooges bad side. How the weather may have a positive, Scrooge didn’t.

Charles Dickens in the end shows how Scrooge this inhuman, evil man could be changed to care. Than maybe everyone else could have come a better person.