‘I wear the chain I forged in life… I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.’ - Marley, A Christmas Carol Introduction There are many theories that people have as to why Scrooge is so cruel and terrible in, “A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and Marley,” but I think that one theory in particular stands out among all the other and really does make sense. Not only is it reasonable, but it has evidence to back up why Scrooge acts the way he does now: his father’s anger issues must have made his childhood really, truly terrible and traumatic. Maybe his father’s anger has influenced him to act the same way, or maybe he wants people to feel how he did when he was a child so that …show more content…
they will understand how he really feels and understand what he was going through and what he is going through now. The Evidence Another thing is how he was sent to boarding school by his father, and was not in contact with his father nor Fan, his little sister, which must have been absolutely terrible, even though his father did treat him awfully.
Spending Christmas alone must have been really sad and lonely for Scrooge, since he didn’t have any friends at the boarding school. In the play, when Scrooge relives that moment in his past, he remembers how lonely and sad he was that Christmas, and he immediately becomes sad himself as he remembers that moment. One example of this is in Act 1, Scene 5, the text says: ‘SCROOGE falls to the ground; sobbing as he sees, and we see a small boy, the young SCROOGE, sitting and weeping, bravely, alone at his desk: alone in a vast space, a void.’ (Horovitz 760) It is clear from the way Scrooge falls to the ground, crying, that he is feeling immense pain from seeing his younger self suffer, all alone at boarding school, when no one came to pick him up for Christmas break. Then a few lines under this excerpt, Scrooge says: ‘It’s me. [Pauses; weeps] Poor boy. He lived inside his head… alone… [Pauses; weeps] poor boy. [Pauses; stops his weeping] I wish… [Dries his eyes on his cuff] ah! It’s too late!’ (Horovitz 760) Scrooge must have realized that his past has changed him at the point where he says: ‘I wish… ah! It’s too late!’ (Horovitz 760) and then continued to tell The Ghost of Christmas Past an example of how he treated a little boy cruelly last night
who was singing carols outside his window. He says, ‘There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol outside my door last night. I should like to have given him something; that’s all.’ (Horovitz 760) This event, when he yelled at the boy to go away and leave him alone, he didn’t think twice about doing it, just like his father’s anger issues - Scrooge’s father must not have thought about him necessarily having ‘anger issues.’ So maybe Scrooge has anger issues as well that he never really thought about. His childhood and life in general were pretty terrible up to the point where we see the main events in the play unfold - from being left alone at boarding school on Christmas to losing his family and everyone he loves. To sum everything up, this is why I think Scrooge’s childhood, and most of all his father’s anger issues, had the biggest effect on him and caused him to change majorly.
Dickens displays guilt as the main form of how Scrooge’s character develops into a compassionate person by the end of the novella. As Scrooge feels this quilt, it's purely based on the visions that the ghosts provide which further causes Scrooge to realise the consequences of his actions. His alienation from specific characters that he used to love such as Belle, “...has displaced me…” whom left Scrooge, due to his desire for money and wealth which grew. This desire grows with him as he is rejecting the christmas joy and spirit as he continuously states that Christmas is a “humbug,” but by stating this it provides comparison. Dickens depicts that Scrooge has become a better person because of fear but in the end he has become kinder. As the
Scrooge was and owner of a factory and made a whole bunch of money, but he did not care about anyone else. “Merry Christmas said his nephew, what right do have to be merry you are poor enough”. This shows that scrooge is mean to family and does not care about Christmas.
If Scrooge did not change his mean old ways, then he is only to look
In the beginning of the play in spite of being selfish Scrooge is also cheap, cold-hearted, and cruel. Scrooge behaves in this manner to his nephew, Fred. One way of proving this is when Fred said “Merry Christmas.” Scrooge replied salty saying “Humbug Christmas is just a time for spending and wasting money.” Not only he treats Fred badly but many more people. For instance take one of his quotes towards the Gentleman Visitor, “Are there no Jails for the poor, are there no
According to the text, Scrooge is such a miser that when his partner, Jacob Marley passed away, he didn’t spend the money to change the business sign outside their production to reflect his partner’s death, instead he left the sign to swing alone mysteriously camouflaging Marley’s passing. In the reading, his nephew, Fred, comes to invite Scrooge to Christmas dinner with his family, Scrooge, in turn responds, “Bah! Humbug! The text describes Scrooge as a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone. Based on what I have read in the text, foreign heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge, he was a man whom felt no warmth or wintry climate, even the winds of the winter chill did not affect his inner self or his outermost surroundings. The text states that Scrooge is all head, no heart, a miserable, bitter old miser.
In the play, Mr. Scrooge is a greedy man who thinks Christmas is “Bah Humbug!” (Dickens 3). His family has always wanted him to join them for a Christmas feast, but Mr. Scrooge has never wanted anything to do with Christmas. Marley, Mr. Scrooge’s old business partner, didn’t want Mr. Scrooge to end up like him with chains of greed attached to him when he died, so he sent Mr. Scrooge three spirits: Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Those three spirits visited each day to haunt him about his Christmases. Eventually, he traveled with two of the three spirits, but when the spirit of Christmas Future arrived, Mr. Scrooge realized that he would die in a few years. Ebenezer begged for mercy and promised to celebrate Christmas with joy and festivity. (Dickens 7-32) After the haunting with the spirits, Mr. Scrooge woke up and asked a boy what day it was. When the little boy, Adam, replied that it was Christmas, he ordered the boy
Scrooge was a terrible, terrible man. However, after a fantastic night of visions, he transforms into a better man. Patrick T. Reardon wrote in the National Catholic Reporter, that “A Christmas Carol isn’t about a sinner. It’s about a sinner who goes through a conversion experience. (Reardon, Patrick T. "The conversion of St. Scrooge." National Catholic Reporter, 18 Dec. 2015) He says that we are all like Scrooge, and we all have our Bah Humbug experiences; and like Scrooge, we need a conversion in some way. Scrooge is in all of us, but it’s what we do to try and change ourselves that’s makes the story have a happy
On page 64, we see how Scrooge shows sympathy in the quote, “There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something. That 's All.” After being shown a memory of himself as a boy, Scrooge regrets being harsh to the boy caroling and not giving him any money. Seeing his own sadness as a child made him realize it would have been nice to give the boy something to make him happy. He will probably do nicer things in the future because he now realizes that the boy would have been upset because of how Scrooge turned him away so harshly. He is changing his actions, and regretting bad actions in the past. He wants to fix what he did wrong, and he feels sympathy for the boy. People want to be shown compassion, so in the future if he helps people out and is kind, he will not be as isolated. Another quote to show how he becomes less detached from humanity is on pages 92-93, ‘”Spirit,” said Scrooge, “Tell me if Tiny Tim will live.” Scrooge feels sorry for Bob Cratchit because the spirit says if the future remains unaltered he will die. He feels upset that Tiny Tim will die, and sympathy for Bob because his son will probably die. He probably regrets not giving Bob more time with his son. He had made a comment earlier that if someone will die they better go and die to decrease the population, when the donation collector
During the story, Scrooge is visited by the Ghosts from Christmas past, present, and future, who shows the ill-tempered Scrooge how to be feel compassion towards others human beings. A large quantity of the story revolves around money, and it plays a large role, to contrast how generosity is viewed in society. Scrooge is incredibly wealthy, as he lives a l...
When we first met Scrooge, we are informed, and also observe that he is cold, miserly, and bitter. However, after the visit of the Ghost of Christmas future, Scrooge changes into a generous and cheerful man. It is clear that something must have caused a man who is really nice, turn into a mean and nasty person, in this case it was the Industrial Revolution.
When the Ghost of Past Christmas shows Scrooge his childhood, appears according to David. E Robinson, “the Romantic conception of childhood as a special spiritual state of innocence.” (2). It didn’t exist in Victorian times, children who did not belong to an upper class were sent to work and forced to be adults.
The novel introduces Scrooge as a man of greed. This is shown in the first stave when Scrooge's clerk Bob Cratchit can barely keep warm by such a small fire "that it looked like one coal." Because of Scrooge's greed, he insists on storing up on his wealth by burning less coal, despite it's lack of warmth. Furthermore, one can notice Scrooge's greed as he refuses to give any donation from his surplus wealth to the poor and destitute that the collectors were raising money for. Scrooge's selfish response to the collectors was, " 'I wish to be left alone...I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry..."
Well In A Christmas carol Scrooge and Marley “Act 1” and “Act 2” this is just the case where he is visited by something, rather quite frightful, but actually quite delightful. As Scrooge was one of the most horrendous people alive, but he will soon go under a miracle like transformation after meeting Four new people who shift him into third gear and make him drive to his destiny. As it was stated in the text Marley came to visit him to give him his warning of a doomed fate which he has forged for himself. Thus, making the presence of the other spirits horrific to him, but they do make persuade him to shift his way out of the way he is going and enjoy life for what it
In this extract we are presented with a solitary gentleman named Scrooge. We see that he has an icy and criticising demeanour and his personality warns all human contact to keep its distance. But we also learn he enjoys this wants to keep it that way. This and all the other clues lead us to believe that Scrooge is an outsider, a miser and in general a mean human being that no-one likes or wants to talk to.
Meeting the Ghost of Christmas Past begins the first stage of Scrooge’s transformation: regretting his actions. When Scrooge is shown his younger self alone in his classroom on Christmas, he regrets chasing a Christmas caroler away from his door. The Spirit skips ahead a few years to show him a happier time. His sweet little sister Fan arrives to take him home, and this is his first Christmas in a long time that is spent with family. Unfortunately, Scrooge doesn’t see it that way; seeing this scene makes him “uneasy in his mind” as he thinks about the way he treats his nephew Fred. Instead of treating him like his only family member, Scrooge denies invitations to Christmas dinner every year and is rude whenever Fred speaks to him. He doesn’t have time to dwell on this for long, however; Scrooge has many other important things to think...