A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens "An unsurpassed blending of vibrant story telling and social conscience" discuss how he w

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A.D.                David Chapman

        A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens “An unsurpassed blending of vibrant story telling and social conscience” .Dickens achieves such storytelling through a clever use of words woven into both a vibrant story and an analysis of the current centauries social failings.

         The story follows Scrooge, an old unkind grouch whose actions are usually of a cruel and heartless nature. Even his attitude to the current month of Christmas is that it is merely a waste of time that could be used for more work. It’s interesting that Dickens has chosen such a cruel man as the main character; however his intentions are that this will highlight to an extreme the poverty that the secondary characters are shown in.

Dickens example of such less well off characters is his main employee is a young worker named Bob Cratchitt, a poor man who lives in poverty with his family and there young crippled son Tiny Tim. Scrooge cares nothing for the poor and only sees Bob as his clerk. This was common at the time that the book was set as the poor were often forgotten, frowned upon and mistreated. Poverty was one of the key points that Dickens tries to put forward in the book to try and influences people’s attitudes towards the poor. Because of Scrooge’s nature towards Christmas and his clerk he is reluctant to let Bob send the day off, however in the end he does. This reveals something about Scrooge’s character, it suggest that there is good in him as a truly cold hearted man would have asked Bob to work Dickens may have displayed this to highlight changes that take place at the end of the book. The text then goes on to Marley’s ghost. Scrooge is warned by his old friends ghost when he arrives home of three ghosts that will come to visit him. Marley’s Ghost scene is there as a sort of introduction to the events that will take place later on in the book. It develops Scrooge’s character more showing his true frailty. Marley’s ghost warns of three spirits that will appear to him of past, present and future. Marley also explains what will become of him if he does not change, mentioning the chains that drape around him are the troubles of his past life, each one represents a bad deed he has perform and they now follow him around weighing down apron him, he warns that the same fate will befall scrooge unless he changes his ways.

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        Marley predicts the arrival of three ghosts the first being the past. The ghost of the past shows Scrooge his childhood. The character of scrooge further develops here showing us how scrooge was mistreated and forgotten as a child. It forwards the story along to the next chapter of the book and acts as an axis for the next part. The ghost of Christmas present. The ghost of Christmas present focuses on the life time now and is there to develop Scrooge’s kinder side. From the conversation about Tiny Tim where scrooge asks whiter Tiny Tim will live. Dickens also ...

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