Christmas” Dickens makes several references to scrooge sharing characteristics with the weather, especially in the first chapter, for example “the cold within him froze his old features”.
Scrooge’s clerk, Bob Cratchit, is a kind, and gentle man, who supports large family and a crippled son, Tiny Tim, on his insufficient wages.
Bob has no comfort at work; his room is described as a prison cell, with a tiny fire with only one lump of coal. Scrooge even makes Cratchit work on Christmas eve.
One incident in particular shows the true colours of scrooge.
Two men enter the counting house, “they were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold” asking for either scrooge or Marley. This instantly shows that they have not been to the counting house before, for Marley has been dead for 7 years. They explain they are from a charity service, collecting provision for the poor and destitute.
Scrooge asks “ are there no prisons?” “and the union workhouses?”
All these things show that Scrooge is, as described by dickens, a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”. Notice the “ing” ending of the adjectives, which helps to build up and emphasize image of scrooge the reader pictures.
Scrooge has a nephew, Fred, who is the exact opposite of Scrooge. He is merry, kind- hearted, compassionate, gentle man, “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!”.
Scrooge replies with the famous line “Bah! Humbug!”.
Scrooge owns a large house, which also mirrors his character. It’s very cold, with no lamps, because they are expensive. On Christmas Eve when he is walking to his front door, he sees Marley’s face instead of his door knocker. Scrooge in scepticism dismisses it with his favourite remark “humbug”.
Later a cynical, yet startled Scrooge finished searching his house, he sits down with his gruel, and begins to eat, soon however to be interrupted by the ghost of his ex business partner Jacob Marley.
Marley was much like Scrooge in life, cold and uncaring but now he is miserable because of it. He is bound by a heavy chain that he says he had forged in life when he was thinking only about making money instead of helping those around him. Jacob warns that Scrooge shares the same fate, but his chain has had 7 more years of forging, meaning his is longer. He tells Scrooge that he is to be visited by 3 spirits during the night, and what will happen if he does not change his ways and redeem himself of all his selfish acts.
As Marley had proclaimed, the ghosts of the Christmas past, present and future visit Scrooge and help him see how his behaviour has impacted on his life, and the way that he is treated by other people as a consequence.
The first of the three spirits to visit Scrooge is the ghost of Christmas past “the curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and scrooge found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them”. The spirit is described as “a child; yet not so as a child as like an old man”. Which indicates that the spirit is in a child’s form, yet the spirit is very old.
The Spirit takes Scrooge back to when he was a boy, and shows him how he was once. “…each connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten!”.
. The spirit shows scrooge himself as a child, being left alone, with a small fire, and only books to read. This maybe shows that Scrooge as a child took his mind off his troubles by reading and doing work “intent upon his reading”. Which explains why when he’s older, he is so engrossed in his work and making money, to keep him away from his troubles, until the point where he has become an empty vessel, and “solitary as an oyster” where “no wintry weather could chill him”.
Scrooge is shown he was once in love, but she left him for he was so obsessed with his work “the recollection of it gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke”. This is saying that Scrooge choose work over his fiancée, he had become so obsessive, and shut off form everything else.
“Spirit! Show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?” Scrooge is horrified by his past memories, we see a change in him slightly, a glace of emotion.
The Next spirit to visit scrooge is the ghost of Christmas present. The ghost is described as having “a genial face, sparkling eyes, open hands and a cheery voice”.
The ghost of Christmas present takes Scrooge, and shows him the events of the present Christmas, at Bob Cratchit’s house; the whole family is celebrating Christmas, and eating a tiny goose. Making the most of Christmas in there subsistence.
The third and final spirit is the ghost of Christmas yet to come. He is a cloaked figure, very similar to the grim reaper. This ghost shows Scrooge the future, if he continues as he is. He shows Scrooge people talking about Scrooges death, and people taking and selling his possessions after he died, tiny Tim; Bob Cratchit’s son’s death, and finally Scrooges dilapidated grave stone.
In the end, scrooge is the opposite of his former self. Similes such as “solitary as an oyster” and “the cold within him froze his old features” were used to describe his personality, however at the end; Scrooge is portrayed as being warm hearted and “merry as a School boy”. The biggest progression in Scrooges personality is when he is with the final spirit, the ghost of Christmas yet to come, where Scrooge is being show his own grave. “Spirit! Hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must haven been but for this intercourse! Good spirit, I will honour Christmas in my heart, and keep it all the year!
After scrooge awakens in his bed, he rushes to the cold window “piping for the blood to dance to”. Dickens description of the weather changes completely. The weather is still the same, cold and bleak, but its now being viewed with a new attitude.
Scrooge sees a boy in the street and shouts to him “what’s today, my fine fellow?” . Soon after, Scrooge is with his nephew, sending turkeys to Bob Cratchit’s, singing and rising Cratchit’s salary. Scrooge is a Changed man at the end of the book. There is an extreme transformation in Scrooges Character .He is no longer lonely, he is good hearted, and kind.
