A Christmas Carol - character study of Scrooge

A Christmas Carol - character study of Scrooge

"A Christmas Carol"

“Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching,

covetous old sinner!” Scrooge is the main character in the novel ‘A

Christmas Carol’. At the beginning of the novel he is a brutal, evil,

pitiless, cold-hearted man, but subsequent to meeting three spirits,

Scrooge regrets his life and decides he needs to alter it. The main

theme Charles Dickens conveys through the story is redemption; this is

significant especially in the Victorian era, whilst there was an

immense gap between the prosperous and the inadequate. Dickens uses

Scrooge (a rich, greedy business man) to direct his novel to the very

rich people, and to exhibit how money can impede your good judgement.

Charles’s life influenced his writing, like in ‘A Christmas Carol’;

you can relate his stories to his life. Most of Dickens writing was

regarding poverty because at the time he was deprived. He had to work

in a factory when he was only twelve and when he was fifteen he was

employed in a solicitors office, therefore he empathizes what being a

clerk was like, as one of the characters in ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Dickens chose to call his story ‘A Christmas Carol’ because carols

have some moral background and to teach people a lesson, and that’s

exactly what Dickens wanted to do, he wanted people to learn something

from reading this novel. Another reason why Dickens called his story

‘A Christmas Carol’ is because it was written at Christmas time. The

idea of a song is continued in the structure of the novel because it

is divided into staves rather than chapters, which remind us of a

song. Dickens incorporates Victorian Christmas traditions into his

story, as well as prom...

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...y Tim, who fortunately does not die. Scrooge is able to redeem

himself by becoming a better person; from cruel and cold-hearted man

to a kind loving person. This links back to the idea of the

Christianity and redemption and the religious term referring to being

saved. I n this case, Scrooge is being saved from dying a lonely, sad,

old man.

Scrooge’s story relates to society because it people that if a man as

bad as Scrooge can change and transform himself for the better , the

everyone else can as well then our society would be a much better

place for us to live in. The moral lesson that Dickens wants to convey

is not to be greedy, don’t let money obstruct your good judgement and

money does not buy you happiness. Another lesson Dickens wants to

teach his reader’s is that even if you haven’t been good all your life

just like Scrooge you could also change.