A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Ebenezer Scrooge acts as the main character within this novel in which he is depicted as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, old sinner as self-contained and as solitary as an oyster”. He is incapable of relationships. However, throughout his life of suffering he is guided by the Ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas Present and of Christmas future. A Christmas Carol is a celebration of Christmas and the good it inspires. Scrooge was a cold and old disgruntled man that saw no purpose in life, wouldn’t accept changes, and wished to be alone. The heaviest rain, snow, hail and sleet were just like any other days that had no effect on him. Nobody ever stopped him in the streets to greet him or even ask what time of the day it was. The only relationship he had was with his lifelong business partner Marley, who had been dead for seven years when the novel began. He despises the poor and hates any part of life that is in relation to happiness or spending money. Scrooge’s appearance has been made very “cold and bitter”. For example, “his thin lips blue”. Scrooge’s personality attitude towards the poor is horrible, for example, when the charity guys come into the room and asked Scrooge if he wishes to make a donation he replies no, this makes the readers dislike Scrooge and disagree with the points that he has to make like, “it is a good thing that the Union work houses are still in operation”. Scrooge is a cold-hearted, harsh and tight-fisted member of society. Never compassionate, caring or courteous to others. Scrooge’s character starts to transform when the ghost of Marley visits him. Marley’s spirit appears in Scrooge’s doorway. His empty, unloved figure is captured within “cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds and heavy purses wrought in steel”. A reflection of Scrooge in time to come. He also cautioned him that if Scrooge continued on his present path, he could end up like Marley, an eerie shadow, chained and bound, destined to wander the earth for eternity. This is when Scrooge starts to realize his true character, a weak man caught tight into a web of money. Marley warns Scrooge about the future visits of ghosts.
The first ghost, the ghost of Christmas past takes Scrooge on a visit to his childhood school. Scrooge recognizes every gate, post, and tree. At first Scrooge is eager to see his school, but soon he is flooded with many lonely memories of his past. Scrooge soon sees the sad sight of a lonely, small school boy (his past self) sitting by a weak, feeble fire waiting for his unloving father to return. Scrooge cries, feeling sorry for himself, as he was a lonely boy, and realizes that he is like his father. Just as Scrooge turned away the caroler, Scrooge’s father turned him away at a young age. The ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge on a tour of his unpleasant childhood and his neglected feelings from his father. As well as showing Scrooge the bad times, Scrooge is shown how joyous and festive the Christmas time can be at Fezziwig’s party. Scrooge remembers the loss of his fiancée, Belle. This shows the readers that Scrooge had an emotional past, and buries his upmost feelings behind a harsh, mean figure. The second ghost, the ghost of Christmas present, represents charity and empathy. A majestic giant clad in a green robe escorts Scrooge on a tour of the present Christmas and holiday celebrations. The specter shows Scrooge the Cratchit household rejoicing the Christmas period; although poverty-stricken the family still are kind and gentle to one another. Bob Cratchit's youngest son, crippled from birth, sit happily amongst his other brothers and sisters. Tiny Tim is a highly sentimentalized character who Dickens uses to highlight the tribulations of England's poor and to elicit sympathy from his middle and upper class readership. Scrooge is shown a real family, caring for and loving one-another. In this case it shows that Scrooge has a chance of changing the near future, and saving Tiny Tim's life. The Cratchits represent a moral family. You don’t have to be rich to be happy, basically. Scrooge is rich but he’s lonely and isolated so consequently, he isn’t happy. But there you have the Cratchits, who are poor, do hard work, are burdened by the sadness of their son being a cripple, and are still happy. Because they are together, they have each other. When watching them, Scrooge realizes what he’s been missing out on, begins to understand why Christmas matters even to poor people, and starts to regret the stinginess and cold-nature he shows to his clerk.
The third ghost harrows Scrooge with terrible visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed. Most disturbing to Scrooge are visions of a pawnbroker bidding on Scrooge’s belongings, stolen from his home by his domestic servants. The third ghost only shows him the future and gives Scrooge the opportunity to draw his own conclusions. Scrooge doesn’t like what he sees and begs for the opportunity to change. He symbolizes that we can change if we change our choices.
A Christmas Carol, then, celebrates the potentiality for redemption in everyone, including Scrooge. He promotes the idea that it is never too late to learn to love, and elevates the importance of free will. Scrooge is then taken to his nephew Fred's house, where Fred tells his pretty wife and his sisters he feels sorry for Scrooge, since his miserly, hateful nature deprives him of pleasure in life. "Not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offenses carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him." This shows that although Scrooge is a mean and unloved man, his nephew still loves him and will not have a bad word said against him. Scrooge's niece plays a tune on the harp, which softens Scrooge's heart. Scrooge even joins in for some of their games, though they are not aware of his ghostly presence. Nearing the end of the Spirit's time, he revealed to Scrooge two child-like beings that clung to his robes. They were Ignorance, and want, and the Spirit warned Scrooge not to deny them.
Scrooges’ character is completely different. At the beginning he hates Christmas and does not like giving away lots of money to anyone, especially the poor. He also has no friends. But at the end of the book he says “Merry Christmas” to everyone he sees and gives some of his money to the charity people to give to the poor. He also buys the prize turkey from the butchers and takes it round to Bob Cratchit’s house and gives him a raise and a longer holiday. Scrooge has learned that if he is kind to people then they will be kind to him back and think about him even when he dies.
There are several ways to show how Scrooge changed his attitude about Christmas in A Christmas Carol. As his attitude changes, so does the language of the text. At the beginning of Christmas Carol, words establish Scrooge as an evil man, “a squeezing”, “wrenching”, “clutching”, and “covetous old sinner!” At the same time, there is a fair amount of humor as with the debate about what it means to be “as dead as a doornail”. This humor helps us to understand Scrooge’s attitude, and helps us to judge and respond to how Scrooge behaves. The words “Bah! Humbug!” are used in several instances by Scrooge to show his disgust for Christmas. He seems to think that the values of brotherhood and goodwill to all men are not real, that no-one can feel this way for his neighbor. We also get another hint of Scrooge’s hate of such affection when he says, “I wish there was no Christmas”. There is also evidence of how Scrooge is tight-fisted, “darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it”.
This paper discussed the four ghosts that have taught Scrooge four very important lessons. Jacob Marley had told Scrooge how to avoid his fate. The Ghost of Christmas past teaches him not to be greedy and to care for his loved ones. Christmas Present teaches him how to have fun. Christmas yet to come teaches him to be sympathetic to others. It’s then that Scrooge pleads for his life and at the end of stave four he states that he will live in the “past, present and future”.