A Christmas Carol - How does Dickens portray Scrooge?

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EMMA PARRISH                                                                                         23/11/2004

A Christmas Carol

By Charles Dickens

Scrooge is represented from the beginning as a miserable old man being described as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” I think this a perfect description of him in one sentence. People know Scrooge well and avoid him, this suites Scrooge because he does not like other people and not a big fan of being sociable. The name ‘Scrooge’ was created by Dickens and is now well known in the dictionary as someone that is mean, this is basically what Scrooge is in the novel, a symbol of meanness. It is described that the people know Scrooge well and avoid him as much as possible. Although this suites him well because he does not like other people, and is not sociable in any way.

Dickens makes you dislike Scrooge from the very beginning by using a number of methods such as, the described setting and Scrooge, how he treats the poor, the language used etc. The setting he’s in is just like him, cold, gloomy, small and cheap. His treatment to the poor is appalling as when he is asked to give a donation for them he replies, “Are there no prisons?” “And the Union Workhouses?” this is very harsh and selfish, because he is basically saying they should be put in prison instead of trying to get money off of him, this instantly creates bad impression on him. His counting house is described by Dickens to be like a “dismal little cell”, this gives the impression that it is cheap, dark and cold because the fire he describes is so small its as if it only has one coal. Being so cheap and not wanting to spend anymore money than he has to he only employs one person Bob Cratchit (A clerk), the conditions Scrooge makes his employee work in are terrible, as you are told that he tries “to warm himself at the candle”.

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Dickens describes the weather to be “cold, bleak, biting” on Christmas Eve (The day in which the story is set). The environment he’s in is similar to his personality and it appears to be that he is distant from everyone else; it is obvious that he prefers it this way. You can tell there is something going to happen (but you don’t know what) because the atmosphere is dark, candle lit, there is fog, and by the sounds of it, it is fairly quiet, apart from the sound of people outside shuffling and wheezing. This creates a little bit ...

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