How Does Dickens Portray Scrooge in the Beginning of "A Christmas Carol"?

The character of Scrooge in Stave One is portrayed from the start as angry. The narrator says that “Scrooge walked out with a growl”, which likens him to an angry animal. He is also shown as being miserable, “caustic and cold”, constantly saying “Bah. Humbug.” The quote “darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it” shows he will not give to the needy, or waste his own money, and prefers being alone in the dark. This darkness is physical darkness and also the spiritual darkness that he chooses to live in. It is ironic that although he has plenty of money, he chooses to live like the poorest people without enough heat or light in his home, eating gruel. He appears to dislike all people and everything good and kind in the world. He says “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled.” This shows he cannot see good in anyone who wants to be happy. He is self-important and pleased with himself, as is shown in “Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself” after refusing to help the charity collectors, and in the joke about “grave” and “gravy” that he says to distract himself from the ghost although “Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes”. He is very selfish; he says “You’ll want the day off tomorrow?” to Bob Cratchit, his underpaid employee, not wishing to give him time off even on Christmas day. Dickens uses specific language to show the reader what Scrooge is like as a character, and how other people see him, e.g. his nephew, who thinks he has the wrong attitude to Christmas and the poor. “What right do you have to be morose? You’re rich enough.” But his nephew keeps his temper and doesn’t let Scrooge’s bad temper affect him, “I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!” Even strangers in the street felt Scrooge was cold and evil and kept their distance: “Nobody ever stopped him in the street”, “warning all human sympathy to keep his distance”. The charity collectors expected him to give money to the needy at Christmas because he was a businessman, but he was just angry and heartless. “Want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?” “Nothing.” Scrooge would rather see the poor die and “decrease the surplus” population or go to prison than give money to them. The weather is also symbolic of Scrooge’s attitude, “It was cold, bleak, biting weather”. Scrooge is cold like the winter. Scrooge’s appearance is described as cold, dark and angry, using descriptive words “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous old sinner” and similes like “hard and sharp as a flint” and “solitary as an oyster”. His features are also described harshly, and cold, “his eyes red, his lips thin blue”, “a frosty rime was on his head”. We are told that “external heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge”. This contrasts with the other characters who are affected by the cold, and try to warm themselves rather than staying frozen inside: “he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement-stones to warm them” and “a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture.” Jacob Marley’s role is to visit Scrooge and warn him of the consequences of acting the way he is, his only friend in life. Jacob was his business partner and died seven years before he returns as a ghost, in purgatory, roaming in between life and death. This is because he did not live life fully and care for others “and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.” He is cast in chains, and forced to wander through the world lonely and enslaved. As he speaks, Scrooge’s attitude begins to change and he “began to quake exceedingly”. Jacob tells him that if he does not mend his ways, he too will end up like this unless he starts to care about others and be kind and giving.

Charles Dickens uses language in Stave One to influence the reader into seeing that Scrooge is a mean and miserable man. It begins before Scrooge’s own character is even introduced. The repetition of “sole” in “Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner” sets the reader up to expect that Scrooge will be a similar lonely character to Marley, and they are later described as “two kindred spirits”. Scrooge and his surroundings are always described with miserable words: “dark”, “dreary”, “melancholy”, “gloomy”. He uses negative words to describe and characterise him, lists of words to emphasise the point about his meanness so the reader knows all about him from the beginning, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner”. Dickens sometimes personalises non-living objects with Scrooge’s miserable outlook: “The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold”, “one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale” and the “gruff old bell was always peeping slily” which makes it seem wary of Scrooge. He also makes good use of contrast. The description of Scrooge’s frozen features contrasts strongly with his nephew, who “was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.” The use of repetition is striking, not only with “sole” and “dead as a door-nail” in the opening, but in phrases giving emphasis like “Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern”, “old fire-guard, old shoes” and all the times he says “Bah! Humbug!” Some of the words which we find difficult today were probably well-known to the readers of the time, who would not need to look up legal terms like “legatee” or “solemnised” or words like “palpable” or “immediately sensible of the impropriety”. Dickens expects the reader to be familiar with other works like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, by referring to the ghost. There are many similes which add richness to the writing. Dickens acknowledges this; he says about “dead as a door-nail” that “the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile”. He emphasises Scrooge’s character with similes, “a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone”, “hard and sharp as flint”, “solitary as an oyster. Some of the similes are very visual, like the candles flaring “like ruddy smears on the palpable brown air” and make the reader able to sense exactly how it was, like “the sound resounded through the house like thunder”. The description is very clear, filled with descriptions of cold and fog, “no wind that blew was bitterer than he, no pelting rain less open to intreaty”. Dickens also varies the rhythm of the language. In the description, he uses long winding sentences. This one also illustrates the use of alliteration, the sound “d” making it feel heavy: “To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.” At other times, when the pace is more tense, Dickens uses short sentences, “Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold.” The word “Scrooge” has entered the English language to mean somebody who is mean and a miser. “Bah! Humbug” is no longer used in this sense. Calling someone a humbug today means that they are a hypocrite.

“A Christmas Carol” is divided into five “staves” instead of chapters. This is a musical word and it suggests that Dickens was thinking of the book as a musical work like a symphony. It is a linear story, which moves from exposition (Scrooge’s character, his situation, the introduction of the ghost theme) to complication (the three middle staves, introducing the three ghosts and showing Scrooge where he is going wrong), climax (where his character actually changes) and then resolution. In the resolution at the end we have a happy ending typical of a Victorian novel, where Scrooge sees the error of his ways and changes into a kind and charitable man. Most Victorian novels follow this straightforward structure.

In conclusion, Dickens sets his character against the life and morals of Victorian England, and deliberately makes him an opposite of what all the readers would want him to be, so that there can be a great contrast as he learns the lesson, which is meant to work on the readers as well. Scrooge is shown to be miserable, lonely, miserly and selfish. This contrasts with the life we are shown of Bob Cratchit’s family, which manages to be happy although they are poor. The story gives a strong moral message to the readers, telling them that if they are charitable and kind to people who are less fortunate, they will become happier themselves.