Comparing Dante's Inferno And A Christmas Carol

Ring, Ring, Ring! People begin to celebrate the spirit of Christmas. I walk through town seeing everyone celebrating Christmas and having a good time with their family. Around these times you can tell how generous people become and people begin to change due to the holiday spirit. People don't always change due to the holiday spirits. In the stories of “Dante’s Inferno” and “A Christmas Carol” both show many similarities and differences through them. Some similarities consist both have guides, both have chapters that represent different places or times, and they both have consequences on their actions. Then the differences consist that they have different places they go through, the age differences, and Scrooge changes his lifestyle while Dante

does not.

In the stories of “Dante’s Inferno” and “A Christmas Carol” I have found many similarities between the two. First I found that they both have guides that guide them. In Dante’s Inferno, Virgil is sent by Betris to help Dante with his life crisis. In Dante's Inferno it says “For I am Beatrice who send you on; I come from where I most long to return; Love prompted me, that Love which makes. When once again I stand before my Lord…”(Cantos 2) This statement states that his Lord sent him to guide Dante himself through the many levels of hell. In “A Christmas Carol” it says “ They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks.”(Stave 2) which this shows that the ghost portrays as his guide showing him the past of his life. The second similarity I found was that they both had chapters that represented a certain time or place. They both show that consequences will be found after death if they don't change their ways. In Dante’s Inferno, Virgil guides him through the different levels of hell to show him the consequences that could happen. While in “A Christmas Carol” the ghosts show Scrooge his past, present, and future to convince him to change his ways so he can change and be a better man.
In the stories of “Dante’s Inferno” and “A Christmas Carol” I have found many differences between the two.

Scrooge went through his past present and future to be shown he needs to change his ways of his lifestyle. In “A Christmas Carol” Scrooge says “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”(Stave 4) This showed me that the ghosts showed him though the past, present, and future. Then in “Dante’s Inferno” Dante followed Virgil around to show him the consequences of sin. The ages between Dante and Scrooge are different. Dante is just around 35 years old while Scrooge appeared a lot older. I found that Scrooge changed his ways and became a better man in the end while Dante moves toward purgatory. In “A Christmas Carol” they say “ Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man…”(Stave 5) so it shows that he changed from being the greedy old man he was into a better

man.
In “Dante’s Inferno” and “A Christmas Carol” many similarities and differences can be found throughout the stories. Some similarities consist that they both have guides, both have chapters that represent different places or times, and they both have consequences on their actions. Some differences consist that they have different places they go through, the age differences, and Scrooge changes his lifestyle while Dante does not by the end.