'A Christmas Carol' Essay 3 Trace the development of Scrooge showing what he has learnt through the story

and how he has finally changed. Helen King 11H

For the common reader, Scrooge has a wealth of flaws and imperfections so apparent his name, optimizes the downfalls of the human character with qualities like greed, selfishness and harshness. As he represents the wealthier business classes, he shows how they abuse their power, but as he develops as a person, he realises that their the 'wealthy' are not poor in pocket but, often happiness. Scrooge is delineated by the mountainous number of forceful negative adjectives used by Dickens such as 'scraping' and 'wretching'. The most pronounced simile in my opinion is 'hard and sharp as flint from which no steel has ever struck out generous fire' which denounces him as someone who is so 'self-contained' and does not think that by giving , he might receive in reciprocation. Scrooge, in the beginning, thinks time and money is the only thing to lose, but his business mind is blind to the generosity of human nature, so highlighted at Christmas time. It is also stressed by the contrast between him and his worker Bob Crachitt who blessed him as 'the Founder of the Feast', a grateful nature never seen before in Scrooge. However as he evolves as a person he shows his 'penance' of his wrongdoings, feeling shame 'to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit'. Despite being 'the Ogre of the' household, a name he is probably often called within it(shown by being a deliberate proper noun), he begins to feel the empathy towards human life, 'an interest he had never felt before'. This humanity shown in him continues, even after there is 'no further intercourse with Spirits' instead he lives by 'the Total Abstinence Principle' which is not a reference to teetotalism but, the removal of dour feeling from his life. Dickens noted, this optimism is not foolishness despite Scrooge being 'laughed at' but being 'wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good'. This ending note of change for the better instils the reader with hope, that maybe simple alterations to their life can allow them to be merry and that a path of bad is not necessarily a destiny. Scrooge has to struggle through emotional pain as the Ghosts show him 'the shadows' of his Past. This creates an uplifting tale, but also casts his past into a dark light, inferring it is either metaphorically dark or sad. This suggests to the reader, the classic story line of redemption or 'seeing the light' which is often linked to Christianity, or seeing the morals in which one should abide under. Scrooge was 'a lonely boy' and continues to be so as a man, but this loneliness is met by oldness in spirit. Scrooge is not jovial, a quality characterised by children, instead even his features are decayed for instance his' shrivelled cheeks'. He is blinded by greed that he is negligent to not have the joys of children, and the influence they have on ones demeanour. Dickens phrases it particularly well to 'I would have like' 'to have the license of a child, and yet to be man enough to know its value'. By pulling on the moral heartstrings of the public, he is able to highlight the plight of the poor and truly show, how he believes the severe class system is not only wrong doing people, but is also creating a barrier, behind which people hide. They seek not to aid, a central act within the Christmas holiday but, instead condemn the poor to a life of hardship. Tiny Tim sees Scrooge as a 'second father' and thankfully, 'does not die'. Scrooge shows the model example of a sinner turned for good, and I believe Dickens hopes to show the gaps between poor and rich is more about mentality not, wealth.