Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Scrooge has become one of the most commonly know characters from
Charles Dickens’s novels, in the respect that he is the most horrible
and callus of all his characters, this dastardly individual was used
to convey a serious social message about the extreme neglect of
Victorian employees.
The first chapter of ‘A Christmas Carol’ prepares the reader for the
rest of the novel. Dickens does this by creating antipathy for scrooge
and by introducing gothic elements to prepare the reader for the
arrival of the spirits later on in the book. In the 18th century
Charles Dickens was one of the most important and listened to social
commentators. ‘A Christmas Carol’ was written to convey Dickens’s
social message to the rich.
Dickens creates antipathy for scrooge because he wants his readers to
dislike scrooge and reject his way of life. Scrooge represented
everything Dickens hated in the rich and this dislike is conveyed
using Dickens own didactic voice; through the way scrooge behaves
towards others; and through the description of scrooges house and
home.
By using his own didactic voice Dickens directs the readers thoughts.
Charles Dickens portrays Scrooge as inhuman and unfeeling. This is
shown through the author’s use of the comparison of Scrooge to the
weather:
“No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more
intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain was less open to entreaty”
The fact Scrooge is said by Dickens to be ‘bitterer’ than the wind
gets across the idea of the coldness of Scrooges nature. By comparing
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...emorse for anyone not
even himself. This is shown in the way he won’t buy a candle to light
his house by saying ‘Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it’. Even
though Scrooge has money he refuses to enjoy it he just keeps it.
In chapter one dickens really sets the reader up for the rest of the
novel by getting across the message he is trying to convey in his
book, by creating antipathy for scrooge and also by using elements of
gothic horror to prepare the reader for the spirits. Charles Dickens
wanted to change the way the Victorian poor were treated by the rich.
Dickens achieved this to a certain extent but its hard to see how much
Dickens’s novels actually helped changed peoples preconceptions.
However, the novels must of done something to enlighten people to the
suffering that was happening all around them.