Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge Essay Example

Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge Essay Example Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge Paper Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge Paper Essay Topic: A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge is a tightfisted miser who has only one purpose in life, to extort as much money and profit he can from anything and everything. As with all things, too much of one thing is bad for you; Scrooges miserly ways are catching up with him. His cheap ways have not brought him any friends, quite the contrary; they have brought him derision and scorn. He was thought of as a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire. As we can see, he wasnt a very pleasant person, but that is to be expected of people who work around money all their lives. Money became more than a possession to Scrooge, all his coins were his little children. He hoarded them and kept them safe in their strongboxes. To give away but one petty coin, would have been asking Scrooge to give away part of his soul. He was greedy and crooked to the bone. No warmth could warm him, no wintry weather chill him. However much you may want to consider Scrooge blameless, after all, a mans behaviour and temperament is directly linked to the environment he works in, it is all too clear that he brought this sour disposition and attitude upon himself. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me? Scrooge had an inherent fear of opening up to people. All his years of working with money have turned him into a recluse. He was a unique type of man, a man who became a hermit while living in society. He retreated into his shell of seclusion and misconceptions whenever he was prompted to be sociable or generous. Too much money can go to your head. Scrooge would have stayed like this till the end of his days until one night, the most remarkable thing happened. Scrooge was one of those men who took little joy in the happiness of others around them. He cared nothing for sentimentalities and he looked upon the upcoming Christmas festivities with thinly veiled contempt. Christmas was a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer. He could despised Christmas, and he especially despised fools who thought it fun and joyous, . . . every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. These famous lines were uttered by Scrooge on Christmas Eve, 7 years to the day, of his old partner, Jacob Marleys death. Then as Scrooge was about to enter his marvelously slum-like mansion, he looked at his doorknocker, and nearly fainted dead away with fright. Scrooge saw in the knocker not a knocker, but Marleys face. Bad omens breed ill times to come, and this was most definitely a bad omen. As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. This was the beginning of a very long night in which he was visited firstly by the Ghost of Marley. Both Marley and Scrooge were cut from the same cloth; they were miserly and cheap. However, Marley was dead and he was suffering for all his sins. He was being punished for being such a transgressor. He broke the most fundamental rule of Christianity. He hoarded his money and did not share with the poor. Because of this he was not accepted into the kingdom of God and was condemned to eternal misery. Marleys mission was simple; he was trying to seek redemption by saving another soul that was very close to becoming ultimately and irrevocably corrupted. He was trying to save Scrooge from an after-life full of pain and misery. Following this warning, he was to have three more visitations. By the end of the night, he was scared witless and he had feared that he had overslept Christmas. Scrooges transformation from a selfish miser to a man who knew how to keep Christmas well is remarkable and miraculous. Nobody would have thought that a man who lived like that and was stepped was so deeply in his own cesspool of sin could be changed so dramatically and quickly. To make sure that we dont accidentally confuse Scrooge with a nice person, Dickens only portrays him to us in incriminating circumstances to further convince us of his guilt (metaphorically). Dickens goes into great depth to depict Scrooge character with words. He did not have to be concise, as that way he would be able to get his full meaning across. The statements impact would be lowered if the sentences were to be shortened and fewer words were used e. g. Scrooge was a greedy, mean and cold-hearted person with no compassion for anything or anyone but himself! It wouldnt get across just how vile Scrooge was. Dickens presents Scrooges character to us throughout the novel in his many bad deeds, which show us what he is like. Dickens shows us scenes such the one in which Scrooge is cantankerous and grumpy with his clerk, Let me here another sound from you, and youll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! and Fred his nephew. The next description of Scrooge character is No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master! This sentence helps to reinforce our views that Scrooge was mean-hearted. His bad looks were enough to inspire dislike towards him. Dickens was in a descriptive frenzy Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail. The descriptions that Dickens uses are intense as they show the presentation of the character. Dickens goes into tremendous detail concerning the food around the Ghost of Christmas Present. He wants us to really be there, to taste the gravy, and smell the pies. He wants us to become part of the story, not just readers. Dickens uses powerful vocabulary to involve us. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. His vivid descriptions of the food are astounding. This was no ordinary Christmas dinner; it was fit for a king; the perfect Christmas dinner. The scene where Scrooge meets the spirit is also painstakingly detailed (surprise, surprise! ). The details he has used set the atmosphere and draw in the reader. The reader just has to continue, or he may miss some vital little detail without which the picture is not complete. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. The dialogue in the book helps the story to go on and the characters to express their feelings through the dialogue. Dickens does not purposely confuse us with his odd vocabulary; it is just the only way he can make the characters express their true feelings. Scrooges words to the spirit are apparently unambiguous though. If you have anything to teach me then let me gain by this lesson to better myself. The use of dialogue between Scrooge and the ghost of Christmas yet to come, in stave four is a good example of feelings being expressed through dialogue, as this final spirit changes Scrooge and he experiences great sorrow. For once, Dickens has not sprinkled the dialogue with a myriad of different old style words and sayings. This last extract is of the ghost of Christmas yet to come. We see at the beginning of the fourth stave that a solemn phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. We instantly gain an impression of the phantom, and its slow movements. Dickens has set the mood of this stave brilliantly by describing the hooded figure. The description of the phantom is brim-full of adjectives giving the reader no respite. However, this brings a new light into the phantom. We see it in our minds eye as it was meant to be (or maybe not). Dickens does a marvelous job of illustrating the phantom for us, and only by using mere words too! His power of convincing us that what we are reading is actually going on is almost magical. He brings new depth to the story using vibrant descriptions and not so vibrant images of foul things and phantoms. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. This is marvelous. We can actually now see the phantom; a thin bony thing with an outstretched hand clawing towards you, ready to drag you to the deepest pit in Hell. This is very ironic, as in fact, the phantom is here to help, not to kill, or hurt. However, throughout this dialogue that we witness between Scrooge and the spirit, Scrooge clearly feels intimidated and uneasy, but we realize that the spirit is here to help him, not to do harm to him. Ghost of the future! I fear you more then any specter I have ever seen. But I know your purpose is to do me good. Scrooge becomes anxious to see what lies ahead for him as he says Lead on! Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, spirit! At the end of stave four Scrooge begins to cry and shows true emotion through the dialogue as he cries and pleads with the spirit to forgive him, as he believes that he is a changed man and that this is his final chance for redemption. Hear me! I am not the man I was! Scrooge is finally showing some bit of humanity behind that polished and fraudulent fai ade, as he learned to be happy; he learned to be sad. Throughout that long night, Scrooge transformed himself from a crooked old man, to a friendly and jolly gentleman. A very good analogy would be the one of the ugly chrysalis transforming itself into the beautiful butterfly. Scrooge was in his chrysalis stage for too long and had become petrified there. The three spirits helped to change all of that with their magical touch (metaphorically, after all, they had no substance, so they couldnt touch him). Scrooges heart had been touched (somehow) and the dam had cracked. He was finally able to let some emotions and human feelings flow through without fear of any reprisal. Scrooge was a changed man. His words show that more than anything else. I dont want to die before I can redeem myself! I will do it if you let me live. Scrooge has become friendly. He calls out. Boy! Hallo! Whoop, Hallo there! My fine fellow! He probably never even thought of calling anyone his fine fellow, let alone having done it. An intelligent boy, delightful boy, what a pleasure to talk to him! Scrooge has complimented someone for possibly the first time in his life. The warm feeling it gives him of being able to inspire happiness in others convinces him that Christmas should be a happy time, even for the less fortunate. So, without further delay, he buys a huge turkey and sends it over to Bob Cratchits house. Deep down, beneath that bleak exterior Scrooge was a greedy, mean and cold-hearted person with no compassion for anything or anyone but himself! there was a human heart beating, and human feelings lurked beneath the surface. They were well hidden from view, but they were struggling to escape. His transformation is remarkable; he saved himself from a life without love and without friends, by finally opening up and facing his paranoia and fears. He thought that showing any weakness would destroy him; he thought that showing compassion would demean him, he thought that he could survive on his own in a world where everyone depends on everyone else. He was wrong on all three counts. .