The Change in Scrooge’s Character :: A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens Essays

The Change in Scrooges Character How does dickens show the change in scrooges character in AChristmas Carol, look closely at the language used and how thisinfluences the readerIn 1843 Charles dickens wrote A Christmas Carol partly to make batch aware of the terrible conditions of the children of the poor.In 1843 he visited the field lane ragged school and was appalled bywhat he saw there/ ragged schools catered for the truly poorest, hungrychildren who roamed the streets, trying to teach them the basic skillsof reading and writing. He had also been shocked by a parliamentaryreport by the childrens enjoyment commission. fiend was the mostpopular novelist of the day and he soon realized that far more peoplewould take notice of the terrible conditions of the poor if he wroteabout them in a story.A Christmas carol was published on 17th December 1843 and by the24th he had sold 6,000 copies. Dickens called it a most prodigioussuccess., the greatest, I think, have ever achieved.A Christm as carol is still widely read today and appears in manyversions including illustrated re-telling of the story for greenchildren. Hardly a Christmas goes by without a version of A Christmascarol appearing on TV in one form or another. The refer of the maincharacter, scrooge, has come into general use in the English languagemeaning a miserly or mean person.In A Christmas carol Dickens shows scrooge as an evil, nasty man byusing a long list of adjectives, hes described with this destineOh But he was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, scrooge Asqueezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous oldsinner Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struckout generous fire secret, and self-contained, and as solitary as anoysterAnother way to show this is the way he talks to people, e.g. when hisnephew invites him to his Christmas party but he turns him down andcalls Christmas a Humbug and even worse, when 2 charity workers askhim for a donation for the poor chil dren, he says send them to thework houses, if they would rather die they better do it, and decreasethe surplus population. This shows how much of a cold hearted,covetous sinner he is.Dickens makes us feel like hes an evil man, hes selfish and sayshed rather the children die than donate his money to charity.When the shadowiness of Marley visited scrooge in the night, he was shocked,he first saw Marleys face as the doorknob, then he was frightenedfurther when the ghost of Marley opened the door from the outside when