The Change in Scrooge’s Character

The Change in Scrooge’s Character

How does dickens show the change in scrooge’s character in ‘A

Christmas Carol’, look closely at the language used and how this

influences the reader

In 1843 Charles dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ partly to make

people aware of the terrible conditions of the children of the poor.

In 1843 he visited the field lane ragged school and was appalled by

what he saw there/ ragged schools catered for the very poorest, hungry

children who roamed the streets, trying to teach them the basic skills

of reading and writing. He had also been shocked by a parliamentary

report by the children’s employment commission. Dickens was the most

popular novelist of the day and he soon realized that far more people

would take notice of the terrible conditions of the poor if he wrote

about them in a story.

‘A Christmas carol’ was published on 17th December 1843 and by the

24th he had sold 6,000 copies. Dickens called it a most prodigious

success., the greatest, I think, have ever achieved.

‘A Christmas carol’ is still widely read today and appears in many

versions including illustrated re-telling of the story for young

children. Hardly a Christmas goes by without a version of ‘A Christmas

carol’ appearing on TV in one form or another. The name of the main

character, scrooge, has come into general use in the English language

meaning ‘a miserly or mean person’.

In ‘A Christmas carol’ Dickens shows scrooge as an evil, nasty man by

using a long list of adjectives, he’s described with this sentence

“Oh! But he was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, scrooge! A

squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old

sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck

out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and as solitary as an

oyster”

Another way to show this is the way he talks to people, e.g. when his

nephew invites him to his Christmas party but he turns him down and

calls Christmas a ‘Humbug!’ and even worse, when 2 charity workers ask

him for a donation for the poor children, he says send them to the

work houses, if they would rather die they better do it, and decrease

the surplus population. This shows how much of a cold hearted,

covetous sinner he is.

Dickens makes us feel like he’s an evil man, he’s selfish and says

he’d rather the children die than donate his money to charity.

When the ghost of Marley visited scrooge in the night, he was shocked,

he first saw Marley’s face as the doorknob, then he was frightened

further when the ghost of Marley opened the door from the outside when