Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was born February 7th, 1812 in Portsmouth, England. His family was poor because his dad did not know how to manage money and went to Marshalsea Prison because of debts when Charles was 12. This forced him to work at a blacking warehouse to support the family. This was his worst but most influential experience; later through his speaking and writing, Charles became a vigorous and influential voice of working class people.
At age 15, Charles Dickens worked as an office boy at an attorney office to support the family again. This is where he started to become a writer. A year later he worked as a freelance court reporter and a few years after that, he worked as a parliamentary and newspaper reporter. His first work,
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No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect.” (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)
This excerpt depicts Scrooge’s personality. A simple way to paraphrase this excerpt is nothing in the world could warm Scrooge’s heart. He was bitter and harsh like that of the coldest winter storm you can imagine.
Tale of Two Cities was another one of Charles Dickens major novels. This book actually consists of three books. I found the excerpts below to be key to the book and the era.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles
Ebenezer Scrooge’s character greatly varies from the beginning to the end of “A Christmas Carol”. When readers first meet the main character, Scrooge, they get the impression that he solely has a heart of coal. By the middle of the story, he was summoned by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future to show him how the rest of the towns’ people view him. Finally, in the end, Scrooge came to the realization that there needs to be a powerful change in his pitiful Christmas spirit creating a whole new man within him. Throughout the play, Ebenezer’s character flourished, but he began as a cruel, irascible old man.
Dickens describes him as cold and hard. “Hard and sharp as flint…secret, and self-contained. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped at his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek” (Dickens 31). These descriptions are all associated with an arrogant and un-empathetic person. Scrooge’s behaviors set him apart from the other characters, and earned him a reputation of the man to avoid.
In 'A Christmas Carol', Charles Dickens represents Scrooge as an unsympathetic man who is offered the opportunity to redeem himself. Through the use of language, the reader is positioned to view him adversely, but during the journey of the morality lessons shown by four phantoms. In the form of an allegory, we will discover how Dickens demonstrates a defiant and isolated character in Stave One. In a Christmas carol, Dickens portrays his protagonist, scrooge, unfavourably. ‘Solitary’ is an adjective which Dickens implanted into the prose so that the readers could grow a stronger dislike for him as it infers that he is anti-social and unpleasant, ‘solitary’ also relates to Scrooge as he has the characteristics of someone in solitude.
“The cold within Scrooge froze his old features...he carried his own low temperatures always about him”(2). At the beginning of A Christmas Carol Scrooge was a bitter and selfish man who hates Christmas. “What shall I put you down for?” “Nothing!”Scrooge replied(9). This shows that Scrooge is selfish because he doesn’t want to donate money to charity.
In the beginning the text states “anyway, Scrooge turns out to be the grumpiest grumper that ever grumped”. It shows that he is a grumpy person that can be very hard to handle sometimes. He is more head than heart so he is not that caring, loving, and thoughtful kind of person. He is more of a person who would argue and get angry a lot. He can be pretty greedy most of the time.
Dickens presents Scrooge as a greedy and stingy character whose love for money increases until he does not see the consequences of his actions. Dickens uses the name “Scrooge” because it describes someone who is selfish and does not like giving or spending. In this extract, Dickens motivation is to highlight how avarice and callous Scrooge is in his argument with his fiancee. This is emphasised when Belle, Scrooge’s fiancee makes Scrooge aware that “another idol has displaced” her in his life.
The entrance of Scrooge’s nephew Fred at the beginning of the story introduces another side to the miser. Scrooge is not unfortunate in the way of relatives – he has a family awaiting his presence, asking him to dinner, wanting to celebrate the season with him, yet he refuses. This is one of the important moral moments in the story that helps predict Scrooge’s coming downfall. It shows how Scrooge makes choices to prolong his own misery. He chooses to live alone and in darkness while even poor Cratchit is rich in family.
In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens utilizes a plethora of literary devices such as similes, metaphors, imagery, and denouement to explore the capacity for change. This reveals that changing is never impossible until you’re six-feet under. A simile is a comparison that usually uses the word “like” or “as”. Dickens’ use of similes demonstrates how Scrooge changes throughout the story and because of this, we see how changing all aspects of yourself isn’t impossible. “Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self- contained, and solitary as an oyster.”
In the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is the exact opposite of everything Christmas exemplifies: “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner… He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas” (Dickens 6-7). Throughout the journey of the novel, Dickens
Stave One, Dickens uses a lot of different quotes and conversations to tell the readers how Scrooge really is, most of these quotes are found in the first few pages and describe how much of a horrible, cold hearted person Scrooge is. Scrooge is described as 'hard and sharp as a flint, ' flint is a type of sedimentary rock with a glossy and waxy appearance and inside it 's usually dark grey. Dickens has used this quote to describe Scrooge as an inanimate object and get the effect what he was like, it also describes the same appearance to scrooge that he was hard on other people and wouldn 't show people his true emotions. Another example of Scrooge being described to an object is 'self-contained, and as solitary as a oyster ' this is a simile which is suggesting that Scrooge was a secretive person, who kept himself to himself and he didn 't like to show others how he felt or what problems he was going through.
Scrooge in "The Christmas Carol" shows how much he hates Christmas, and everyone he works with to change to a happy person with the help of others. Scrooge emphasizes, "What a fine day fellow... An Intelligent boy, a remarkable boy. " This is a critical part of this novel because this shows Scrooge overcame his dislike of Christmas and his entire disliking of people. Instead of rudely gesturing to people, he is now starting to act nicer, and more mature.
In Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is molded into an exceptional person by three spirits of Christmas. Though they all contributed to Scrooge’s change of heart, the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come influenced him the most. This ghost, though he couldn’t speak, led Scrooge down a brighter path by forcing him to witness a few depressing events. The aftermath of adorable Tiny Tim’s demise, Scrooge’s own deathbed and grave, and the fact that no one could’ve cared less that he was gone. Firstly, Scrooge was impacted by the death of poor Tiny Tim Cratchit.
In the Book The Christmas Carol. The main character Scrooge is a nasty, harsh, and cruel person, transformed to a kind, everyday person. He learns how to become a kind person, and treat people kindly and generously. Scrooge starts out as a nasty person but is transformed into an everyday kind person. Scrooge is visited by ghosts of Marley, Past, Present, and Future.
Payton Albanese Carey, Per 1 English 1H O4 January 2016 Scrooge: The Spoilsport of Christmas Authors are always trying to paint images into the reader’s mind and help understand the story better by using figurative language. In “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, Scrooge is portrayed as greedy, bitter and isolated man.
Christmas Carol Literary Analysis Have you ever wondered if someone can change overnight? In this book Scrooge changed very rapidly with the ghost appearing and changing him completely . In the beginning of the story Scrooge was hateful and in the end he was very loving. But once he started to change he changed very rapidly.