“The cold inside him has nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffed his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue: and spoke in a shrewdly grating voice.”
Dickens has shown that greed has ruined Scrooge’s looks and life. The description suggests someone evil and sinister.
The author tells us directly what Scrooge is,
“ A tight-fisted hand at the grindstone. Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner.”
This is a very good description by Dickens showing us how horrible Scrooge is, Dickens doesn’t stop after a few lines he continues until the reader clearly gets the point.
To express Scrooge’s meanness Dickens uses harsh words saying that
“Scrooge liked to edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.”
This shows that the human race didn’t like Scrooge.
The author describes Scrooge by putting plenty of feelings into the lines. Dickens describes Scrooge with feeling in the line,
“Oh! But he was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone.”
This suggests that Scrooge makes people work very hard and doesn’t give them a lot in return.
Another way Dickens uses to dramatise Scrooge’s unpleasantness is by showing how the other characters react to him and him to them. If he is asked a question the answer is always No. He never reacts with kindness or politeness to other characters. Scrooge’s nephew is one of the few characters who makes an effort to be pleasant to him, but Scrooge is always nasty to him. When Christmas is mentioned Scrooge becomes especially cross.
The time that Dickens has chosen, Christmas, is perfect for showing just how mean and nasty Scrooge is. Scrooge hates Christmas and he also hates to see people being happy, at Christmas even the very poor people who have nothing, try and be happy even if it’s only for the day. Scrooge didn’t have happy Christmas’s when he was younger and by his hatred of Christmas Dickens shows the extent of this man’s misery. Scrooge lives in a nice house in a good area, and is annoyed by everyone enjoying Christmas, to add to his annoyance it begins to snow making everyone even happier as everyone dreams of a white Christmas. The aggression in Scrooge is building up just waiting to explode.
The main characters own actions ensure that the reader is repelled by the greed and self-interest he shows. This is shown at it’s worst by the way in which Bob Cratchett is treated, he is not allowed a heater when it is freezing in the office. When he is asked for money by a gentleman collecting Scrooge’s reaction is awful
“ Are there no prisons, and the union workhouse are they still in operation The treadmill and the poor law are in full vigor”
He upsets the man and all because he is to mean to put a few pennies in a pot, it is not as if he cannot afford it.
The invitation to spend Christmas with his nephew was turned down with an ungrateful gesture,
“Bah! Humbug what reason do you have to be merry, you are poor”
The way in which Marley is treated shows Scrooge’s true meanness, after being left everything, Scrooge gives him the cheapest funeral that he can find.
Overall I think that money has ruined Scrooges life, he has no friends and not even his family like him. Dickens is showing us that money is not everything, it cannot buy us true friends or make us happy.
