Scrooge also lacks family values and the Christmas spirit, to emphasize his meanness, he is placed in contrast with his nephew, they are completely opposite his nephew is nice and good willed whereas scrooge is bad tempered and selfish. “Merry Christmas” says the nephew. “What right
Have you to be merry? You have hardly a penny.” Which is critical thinking that only people with money can be happy even though he has loads and is always moody, which means he probably thinks everyone should have no Christmas spirit
“ Don’t be angry uncle come dine with us tomorrow.” Says the nephew showing that scrooge being mean and rude to his face does still not affect him.
“Humbug” scrooge says which in other words means he does not care for a dinner with his only relative and has no care for Christmas or having a family.
With the charity collectors scrooge is shown as misanthropic, obsessed and selfish and many others. In this quote he says, “If they’d rather die they’d better hurry up and do it and decrease the surplus population.” It isn’t hard to see that this man has no heart and is inhumane.
He also says to them when they ask for a donation what he wants to be put down as, in which he replies “nothing”, “What you wish to remain anonymous.” “ No I wish to be left.” Showing that he does not want to be disturbed and like the phrase at the beginning being “as solitary as an Oyster.
With this Dickens shows the readers how most people are with charity collectors and how selfish they actually look. And how much a miser people can be. This would enlighten people on how stubborn people are not even just giving a few pence.
With the arrival of Marleys ghost offered Scrooge the chance to change. The ghost wears a chain with all his moneyboxes, locks and links.
It is the chain he has “forged in life” because he has done many bad deeds from each link is a bad deed like throwing beggars out of the way or being mean to blind people.
He is keen to explain to Scrooge that “man kind was his business and that it should be Scrooges.” He predicts the visit of 3 spirits who will give scrooge “ a chance of hope” Dickens is using the ghost to place this “ghost of an idea” in the readers minds that they should give to charity and be good.
The ghost of Christmas past comes in to show of when scrooge was in his school days and how his parents just left him at his boarding school during Christmas, and that all he did was work while his friends went home. This shows the reason why he started off hating Christmas due to all that he had when he was young was loneliness.
Even when he went to work and there was a Christmas party scrooge complained about how the money spent on the party would cost a lot.
Where as his employer fuzzywig didn’t care, It was all in the Christmas spirit, all scrooge cared about was money, But this party was where he met his love.
Belle was his fiancée his whole life but then he gave it up on money and business,
“Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man.” Which Belle implies knowing that all Scrooge wants now is money due to his bitter greediness and she realises that he has know more feelings towards her. This is the turning point in his life when he chooses money over love. Dickens here is presenting his readers with a character who was not only wholly, unfeeling and misanthropic and is there fore capable of change back to his old self.
The ghost of Christmas present reveals to scrooge the consequences of his behaviour on others. His meanness as an employer is shown when he sees his employee’s family, Bob cratchit was paid very badly by scrooge
He just about manages to survive on the money that he gets. Even though they are poor and in poverty they try and keep their spirits up and have fun. Bob arrives home with his disabled son Tiny Tim who had got out of breath by the slightest excitement, they had just been to the church and were singing on the way back. As they had got home they dinner was served and everybody had gone mad for the dinner as it would have been a real treat to have meat even though there was more stuffing than meat. Scrooge was appalled by this and said “Spirit, tell me if Tiny Tim will live.” “I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.” Scrooges mind had started to change and started to care and he said, “please let him be spared” in which the spirit had turned around and said, “Are there no prisons…” this is a major turning point as it shows just how bad Scrooge was to himself.
He sees that the dresses of the two girls have been twice turned so they don’t wear out as quick when sitting down, they had been made to look nice with ribbons on them which weren’t that much money.
The purpose of the ghost of Christmas future is to contrast Tiny Tim’s death with scrooges.
With Tiny Tim’s death every one knows about it and is sympathetic to Bob and his family even scrooges nephew goes up to Bob and asks if he is ok. Bob had gone to the church to see if his sons’ grave was a good place. He had gone upstairs and there was his son’s body lying on the bed. He sat down and kissed him, we can see that love and care was all around him. Where as on the other had was Scrooges dead body, which was cared for by three people who didn’t really care about him. They had took the bed curtains off his bed while he was still lying in it, then the three people decided to his belongings and sell them to get money, not even his nephew had turned up to see him.
“If he wanted to keep them after he was dead, a wicked old screw,” pursued the woman,” why wasn't he natural in his lifetime. If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.” This showed scrooge how “solitary as an oyster” he was and how no one liked him. This shows what you put in life, you get out.
The spirits work to educate scrooge, he realises he is not always as he is now, that his actions have caused hardship for those around him and that others view him with hatred and contempt. But as scrooge is educated, so is the reader. The reader is made to examine his or her own actions towards those in poverty and how they give to charity and don’t ignore it.
As soon as scrooge wakes up he has a transformation from misanthropist to philanthropist, “I don't know what to do.” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody. A happy New Year to the entire world. Hallo here. Whoop. Hallo.” These are the same kind of phrases as before in the story but opposite which shows he is a happier man.
Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. “No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious.”
His surrounding have changed with his attitude it’s not covered in fog and dark, it is a much more happier, brighter place
Dickens now lets scrooge encounter one of the people in the first paragraph (the carol singer) In which he shouts down “Merry Christmas fine fellow.”
This shocks the lad, Scrooge asks the lad to get the butcher to get the prize turkey in the shop and bring it to him, he also says the if he’s back in 5 minutes he’ll get half a crown showing how generous he is now, giving away money. He get the turkey delivered to Bob cratchits door and tell them to keep his name secret and to surprise Bob
Then he gets put in place with the charity collector who he goes up to and whispers in his ear about a sum of money he wants to give him, this leaves the charity collector gob smacked, which shows the amount of money is incredible. This proving more that scrooge has changed.
Then he goes and meets his nephew at his house where he asks to go in to his servants and goes upstairs giving his nephew’s wife a shock to see him, and then asks his nephew if he can join them for lunch like his nephew asked him for the day before.
He plays a trick on Bob the next morning when Bob arrives late for work. He tries and puts on his grumpy voice has a go at Bob then says
“Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, ”I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again;” and therefore I am about to raise your salary for you and your struggling family.”
A Christmas carol is an imaginative story to catch the readers mind using ghosts and try and make them a better person. The character of scrooge is used as a tool to make the reader think of their own attitudes towards charities.
I personally think it has changed me a little about how the way the poor people live and get around life and how hard these charities work.
OLIVER SMITH
