A Christmas Carol The character of Scrooge and the main themes of the story.

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‘A Christmas Carol’ is the most famous Christmas novella; whenever we think of Christmas we think of Scrooge. Dicken’s deliberately chose to publish the book around because people are usually more generous at this time; it is the season of Goodwill. The story was set in Victorian London in the 19th century, when the city was the centre of poverty and crime. Charles Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ because he wanted to make people more conscious of -and was outraged at- the conditions in which working classes lived in. When he was a child, his father was incarcerated for debt and his family did not have enough money so he had to go to a workhouse. This novella, like many of his other works such as ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘David Copperfield’, was inspired by the events in his life such as working in the Blacking factory as a child.

The story has a supernatural theme. Despite some secularisation in 19th century when the Darwin’s publication of the Origin of Species led people to doubt Christianity for the first time, the Victorians were largely obsessed with the idea of life after death and were interested in ghost stories. Supernatural stories are generally written with the intention of scaring the reader, however, ‘A Christmas Carol’ is a story of morals and at the end the main character learns from his negative past. The story also plays on people’s conscience and makes them worry about life after death. The reason that Ebenezer Scrooge is being haunted is his selfishness and behaviour towards other people, which makes it different to the usual supernatural stories as the ghosts want to help him become a better person. He is visited by four ghosts: the ghost of the Christmas past, present, future and also by his dead business partner Marley.

In the Victorian era, novels were the leading form of literature. The major genres were: gothic, romance, 'Silver Fork' (stories about the upper-class, in which the poor were interested) 'Social-purpose' (stories which highlighted social issues) and Newgate' (books that made criminals’ lives seem fascinating). In the Victorian era there were many gothic novels published, such as Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. Dickens was aware of these novels, and would have been influenced by them when writing ‘A Christmas Carol’, as he wanted to have a gothic element in his novella. Dickens’ novella would have been the gothic and ‘Social-Purpose’ genre.

Many of his novels have a ‘Social-Purpose’ genre, as he wanted to make people aware of the conditions the poor had to live in, and it was something he felt strong about. When first published, the book cost five shillings as Dickens wanted even the poor people to be able to afford to buy the book.

At the beginning of the story, the main character Ebenezer Scrooge is portrayed by Charles Dickens as a cold-hearted, mean and miserly character who is preoccupied with making money. This is conveyed to the reader through his behaviour, relationships with other people, and through the use of effective language. As an employer, Scrooge was very mean and selfish; he expected his clerk Bob Cratchit to work very hard for little money. He was ‘a tight fisted hand at the grindstone’; he would not let him put another coal on the fire in December when it was really cold. It also shows how mean, uncaring and also greedy he was, as the piece of coal cost nothing compared to how much money Scrooge had. He was also very inconsiderate; he knew that Bob had a large family, but he still did not pay him enough.

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Furthermore, Dickens uses effective language to give us a vivid picture of what the character of Scrooge is like. Firstly, he uses present participles to show the reader how important money is to him. Scrooge is described as a ‘squeezing, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner’. The verbs all emphasise that money means everything to Scrooge by associating with hands and thereby showing his desperation ; he is a money grabber. The rhythmic use of these verbs which are repeated could also imply that the list does not stop and that Scrooge is even crueler than depicted. This already ...

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