Scrooge’s Purpose in Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens as written to tell people to take responsibility for your actions and helping the poor. Scrooge is portrayed as a very miserable old man who does not have any Christmas spirt throughout this novella scrooge is taught three lessons by four visitors by the end this rich old. inhuman mas has changed his ways.
In stave 1 of A Christmas Carol Scrooge is portrayed as someone who is theoretical inhumane he is also shown as a very miserable man; a way to highlight this is “if they would rather die they better go and do it and decrease the surplus population’ this may show that Scrooge does not care about anyone but himself; this also shows that Scrooge has very strong capitalist views and that he wants all the poor people to go off and die. The verb die has connotation to die, death, heaven/hell, anger, hatred, envy, old, deathbed, disease, soulless foreshadowing is used here when speaking of Tiny Tim’s death later on in the novella .This may make the reader feel disgraceful of Scrooges behaviour. This links back to reason why Dickens wrote tis novella which was taking care of the poor.
Dickens also shows theme of charity through Scrooge when his third lesson has been taught by the jolly giant in stave 3 when he quotes Scrooge ‘are there no prisons [] are there no workhouses; this quote suggests that Scrooge should not of said something which he will later regret. Again this quote uses foreshadowing when as Scrooge had Said tis before as well when the charity collectors came to his house and asked for a contribution towards a children’s charity and Scrooge replied and said ‘are there no prisons are there no workhouses’. This quote also uses rhetorical questions. The words prisons and workhouses has connotations to theft, fraud, felony, kids, poor, money, and accommodation. This is included in the novella because dickens father was sent to work in the work houses as well. Dickens mother had also move seven of her children in to prison to work with their father whereas Dickens was sent to live on his own.
In stave one Scrooge is met by two charity collectors at his front door asking to contribute for a children’s charity. When asked what he will give he replies ‘nothing’ the charity collectors then say ‘you wish to be anonymous’. These two quotes tell us that scrooge may be very wealthy but he does not like to give to anyone but himself. A quote to suggest this is ‘I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. A technique used in this quote is personal pronoun the effect of it is to make how selfish Scrooge is standout. This is used because Scrooge and the charity collectors are talking about how to help the poor and the poor kids and yet again Scrooge is being rude and talking about himself. This links back to the moral message of why Dickens wrote this novella which was helping the poor.
After the last spirit has left Scrooge is met by the charity collectors on the way to Fred’s house. Scrooge reacts in a cheerful way. He tells them to come around his house so that he can write them a cheque he does this because he doesn’t want to be who he used to be. He wants to change into a good man. This is only because of the 3 spirits without them nothing would have changed; because of them the memories will remain with him to remind him who he is. Scrooge is now willing to change into a better man so he could live a better life I the present and future. I think the story gives a good message to everyone who doesn’t like to give rather than take. It teaches them to treat other people well and not to be selfish.
