How does Dickens present his message in

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How does Dickens present his message in

“A Christmas Carol”.

The novella “A Christmas Carol” is a compelling tale of greed, love and charity, written by Charles Dickens in 1843. This story achieved immediate and overwhelming success. The story is also an allegory, dealing extensively with two of Dickens’ most recurrent themes, social injustice and poverty, the relationship between the two, and their causes and effects. The messages, to everyone reading it, are, be aware of your actions, as they will affect your future and, all the upper class have a responsibility to the poor people and fellow mankind. If you have more than you “need”, give to those who “need” but don’t have. Each stave in a Christmas carol has a definite mood and message. It was written to be abrupt and forceful with its message, so everyone could understand the distinct meanings the story possesses. During Victorian times, London became a centre for poverty, crime and pollution. Dickens was outraged at the conditions in which working classes lived in and wanted to draw the upper-classes attention to their plight. This is the reason that Dickens wrote novels with a social conscience to raise public awareness of the situation. It is interesting that the novel is set during Christmas, a time that is traditionally for giving, a time to be spent with the family, and a time for reflection.

The narrator used in “A Christmas Carol” is an omniscient narrator. It is in the third person and uses the pronouns “I” and “me” as though the narrator is actually above the characters in the book. Instead of using an invisible narrator, Dickens uses this kind of narrator so the reader believes a lesson is being told; "It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour." This is a method he uses to get closer to his public, as well as publishing his Christmas stories in newspapers and magazines, which reached more people. All his Christmas stories were usually sentimental, but soon they changed dramatically as Dickens started using his writing as a way of delivering his ideas about Social Reform. Good examples of these stories are “A Christmas Carol” and “Nobody’s Story”.

The main character in “A Christmas Carol” is Ebenezer Scrooge. The plot is a wondrous account of Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve. His greatest desires are to make money and to be left alone. Dickens, using his skills for grotesque characterization, played these traits to the hilt: “Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”. The harsh “c” sounds used in this description echo how harsh Scrooge is. Similarly the uses of sibilance with the “s” sounds exaggerate the negativity of the character, and emphasise his lack of humanity. Dickens also uses the bad wintry weather to completely describe Scrooge and leave nothing to the imagination; “The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.” The contrast of the red and the blue give a powerful image of coldness, further emphasised by the use of bad weather, and make his character seem even worse. Dickens really elaborates and extends the image to show this really is an awful man. The prolonged description of Scrooge depicts him as cold, mean, solitary and uncaring. The negative image is further continued in the extended descriptions; “No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he; no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.” The repetition and emphasis of the words “no” and “nor” reiterate the negative image of Scrooge to an even further extent.

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Another interesting use of characterisation in “A Christmas Carol” is the portrayal of the plight of the poor through Scrooge’s clerk, Bob Cratchit. Cratchit represents the poor, working class, desperate for help, but not receiving any. Scrooge is reluctant to give Cratchit the day off, because he wants to save as much money as he can, which he wants, for no reason. He is obsessed with making profit, and completely exploits Bob Cratchit to make this profit, making him work long, hard hours, for little money. He doesn’t even provide him with much fuel for keeping warm, despite it being ...

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