Another way of conveying a character is to describe the way he looks. Scrooge's characteristics are all those in which we associate with a witch "pointed nose", "shrivelled his chin", "red eyes" and "thin lips" he even sounds unpleasant. We hear about his "grating voice" even in the heat of summer we are told that his office is cold because "He carried his own low temperature always about him."
In general his office reflects the miserable old character. And it lets in the worst of the weather. His employee Bob Crattchet works in a "Dismal little cell" "a sort of tank." Scrooge wouldn't let him build up the fire and "kept the coal box in his own room." The surroundings that Scrooge seams to be in reflect his mean miserable character.
It is no accident that Dickens sets this novel at Christmas when the reader would expect even a man of business to relax a bit and be in the mood for giving. Dickens shows that even at a time of good will Scrooge is as bad as ever. Even when his nephew comes to invite him over to his house for Christmas he can’t accept the invitation and seams even angry to be invited. It is at this point Scrooge gives his point of view about Christmas and can see he is only concerned about money. He says “Christmas is for paying bills without money” and shocks us all when he says “every idiot who goes about with merry Christmas should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” The reader thinks that Scrooge deserves to be miserable when he hears this. The fact that he is so rude to his nephew sets us against Scrooge.
Dickens uses contrasts with other characters to make Scrooge seam unreasonable. The very pleasant nephew is one character and other people are Bob Crattchet who works hard, is very pore, but is determined to enjoy Christmas, the too gentlemen callers who came to Scrooges office hoping to raise money for the pore. “They were portly gentlemen pleasant to behold.” Who politely asked Scrooge for a donation for the “poor and destitute?" Scrooge’s reply was “are there no prisons?” This suggests that Scrooge couldn’t care less for the poor.
Dickens shows us that without doubts that having a lot of money dose not always make you happy. He dose this by making Scrooge so angry and showing that his love for money has affected all his personal relationships instead of making him more generous it has made him meaner for example when he inherits more money form the deaf of Marley we are told that 2on the very day of the funeral” he “solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.”
In conclusion Dickens thinks that wealthy people should be generous. And that they shouldn’t let there pursuit of wealth affect people. Today Christmas seams to me even more a commercial event than it might have bin in Dickens time. A way for businesses to make money we should take more care that the real meaning of Christmas, which is “good will to all men”, is not forgotten.
