At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is spiteful, selfish and most people in the town are actually scared of him, except the charity collectors who are new to town. But before they enter, Scrooge says to his nephew ‘talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to bedlam which shows that he thinks that prospect of a ‘merry Christmas’ is insane. When the charity collectors do enter, Scrooge refuses to give them money and rather asks them whether there are ‘no prisons…union workhouses’ and if ‘the Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour’. Here we are given the impression of how low he really is and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. This is linked to how Dickens was appalled by the Poor Law and how it was made up like a prison sentence; he thought that rich people just shifted the poor to the workhouses as they were no good, disagreeable to all the senses and ‘idle’, meaning lazy and not hard working, as Scrooge describes them. The Poor Law was a system (from the sixteenth to the end of the twentieth century but particularly in the mid nineteenth century when the book was written) to get poor people, even children, off the streets and usually into workhouses, where often they were separated from their families. In the workhouses, made up to be little more than prisons, men and women had to work a high number of hours a day under dangerous conditions and received no pay but a small amount of food. This made it impossible for someone to work their way out of it. Knowing this, it shows how low Scrooge was if he thought he had the right to send someone to such a horrible place, than to give money to help them which he had too much of anyway. ‘In full vigour’ implies that Scrooge just sees it as if the workhouses are just another business, and it only matters that they are still working and are able to take in the poor. This is exactly what Dickens hated about the rich; they overlooked the suffering of the poor when money was involved. This links to Dickens’ childhood when his Father was sent to prison and he had to fend for himself.
The quote that truly shows the intensity of Scrooge’s bad character is when he says ‘If they (the poor) would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population’. This shows that he thinks of them as waste or leftover people and because they are not important enough for they are not rich, he thinks they are unworthy of living and deserve to die, and quickly so it is better suited for him and the rest of the rich part of the society. Dickens portrays this well in Scrooge trying to show people that it should be changed by making them think about it.
Dickens does show us that Scrooge was not always ‘as hard and sharp as flint’; meaning Scrooge was cold and had a hard heart. When the Ghost of Christmas Past takes him to his old workplace, where he was an apprentice, his old boss Fezziwig is compared with him and highlights his bad character. When Fezziwig says ‘Yo ho my boys’ and wishes ‘him or her a merry Christmas’, it shows the direct contrast to Scrooge as Fezziwig is so merry and enthusiastic about Christmas whereas Scrooge has a strong hatred for it. ‘My boys’ suggests that Fezziwig is quite close to Dick and Scrooge, which not only shows that Scrooge did have friends and good relations but also it emphasizes how lonely and anti-social he is now.
In Stave II, Fezziwig says ‘No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!’ Not only does his strong excitement highlight the difference between him Scrooge, but what he says about closing up early is almost the complete opposite to what Scrooge had said before, when he never made any allowances except when he unwillingly gave his clerk the day off for Christmas: ‘But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier in the morning.’ Here Dickens gives us the impression of how mean and avaricious he really was, and by comparing him with Fezziwig, it really emphasizes this dislike for Christmas.
At the present time, particularly at the Cratchit’s house, a change in Scrooge is seen. At first the impression we are given is that, like before, characteristics between Scrooge and others are being contrasted together to highlight Scrooge’s many faults in his attitude to Christmas such as the quote ‘It’s tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration’. This shows that even though the poor family have
But when Dickens uses speech for Scrooge at this part, his change in attitude is clearly portrayed. Scrooge asked the Ghost to tell him ‘if Tiny Tim will live’ which shows us that his attitude towards life and death has changed, and he feels compassion, something that he had ‘never felt before’. When the ghost mirrors these words to use against him, Scrooge ‘hung his head to hear his own words’ which shows how ashamed and embarrassed he was at himself, ‘and was overcome with penitence and grief,’ another thing that he had ‘never felt before’ and his new attitude shows the dramatic change in him in a short amount of time.
The section in the book that shows two ghostly children, Ignorance and Want, makes Scrooge realise that he must change: ‘Beware of the boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.’ This means that the boy, and the children, whom he represents, of Dickens’ time, are doomed unless Scrooge does not become more giving to the poor; this ties in with his own childhood of working and living separately from his family. The girl and boy are ‘ragged, scowling, and wolfish’ and Dickens uses these to show what the poor children at his time were like. Poor children like this were typical on streets in London at that time and Dickens wanted to get across the kind of suffering they endured by using words such as these. Here the Ghost mirrors Scrooge’s words again: ‘Are there no prisons... are there no workhouses?’ in response to ‘Have they no refuge or resource?’ Even though the Ghost’s words made him feel guilt, his question implies that he has changed to care about the less-fortunate.
When Scrooge sees the future, including his death and ‘neglected grave’, this is the complete turning point for Scrooge. This quote suggests that no-one cared that he died, except for their happiness, and no-one ever came to see his grave as most graves are visited because he was hated. He realises that he must change to save himself and more importantly others, such as Tiny Tim. ‘I shall not leave its lesson, trust me’ shows that he will not forget what he has been told so we get the impression he will be more thoughtful from that day forwards. The quote ‘I will honour Christmas in my heart, and keep it all the year’ shows that he will not just be different at Christmas, but all the time.
At the end of the novel, Scrooge’s attitude to Christmas has completely changed and the impression that we are given of him by Dickens is very different from the beginning of A Christmas Carol. Some examples are just small words or phrases which show this contrast between the two different types of characters such as the chapter beginning with ‘Yes!’ contrasting to ‘No’ which he often said, showing how negative and how pessimistic he is. The similes used also express a change in him. The quotes ‘as light as a feather’ and ‘as happy as an angel’ show such joy and optimistic feelings so different to the impression Dickens gave us with such similes as ‘as solitary as an oyster’, making you think how lonely and self-centred he used to be. Dickens also uses the weather to give us an impression of how Scrooge has changed. Before he compared Scrooge to the weather by saying that snow and rain ‘often came down handsomely, and he never did’, describing his ugly character, hence the implication that he wasn’t handsome and had ugly features and personality, but at the end the weather is described as ‘clear’ and ‘heavenly’. This implies that there is a new angelic feeling to him, and angels, that are thought to have come from Heaven, are often described as good and kind. The connotations that come with ‘clear’ are new and the idea of a fresh start. This means that Scrooge has cleared away that old part of his life and started afresh, and almost as if the weather is adjusting to him. This then emphasizes how much he has changed.
In the beginning if the book, Scrooge never paid for anything and never used more than what was necessary: ‘(Christmas is a) poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 25th of December’ was what he had said to Bob Cratchit, his clerk. But when he pays ‘for the turkey… the cab…and recompensed the boy’, not only does he do it willingly, but he also ‘chuckled’ whilst doing it, showing that he was actually happy to pay, something he would never have done before, showing us the dramatic change in him. These are all petty payments, so when he pays for ‘not the little prize turkey: the big one’ and gives it away wishing to remain anonymous, it shows the immensity of his change, and gives the impression that he is not going to go back to his old ways, where he ‘had a very small fire, but the clerk’s was so much very smaller.’
So, after analysing parts of the book, I think that Dickens was trying to give us the impression that Scrooge was a… but changes when he realises the true meaning of Christmas, that it’s not about wealth but rather being with family and kindness, which was the message of the novel and what Dickens wanted to happen in real life. We see this change gradually progressing through the main structure of the book: the four ghosts each representing one of the four parts of Scrooge’s accumulating change. After each part or ghost, Marley and the ghosts of Past, Present and Yet To Come, the change in Scrooge from cold and spiteful to loving and kind develops on itself further from before he had met that ghost, until the after last ghost and his transformation is complete.
As there are a lot of contextual ideas from Dickens, I think there is an intended message that had derived from this novel. I think that Dickens wanted people, particularly the wealthy, to realise that they did have responsibilities to look out for not only themselves, but to think of those less fortunate than themselves. He believed that money was only a material want, and greed was not necessary. He wanted this novel to make people realise that mankind and family were better than wealth, especially at Christmas, and uses Scrooge’s change in character to model this.
