Miser Scrooge example essay topic

The hyperbolic description of Scrooge in the early stages of the book is used to describe a large proportion of those who were better off in Victorian London. Scrooge is a 'squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner'. Dickens uses the present participle extremely effectively here as he is writing it in a way that he might describe Scrooge if he was talking aloud. Dickens also directly addresses the reader, such as 'Scrooge and Marley had been partners for as long I can remember'. This makes the character more believable as Dickens is implying that he once knew him and makes the novella almost biographical. The description of Scrooge is associated with weather, 'a frosty rime on his head' and 'the cold within him froze his old features'.

This is clever as no weather has affect on him. This also gives a good indication of his appearance. We can imagine he is very pale, has cold red eyes and thin blue lips. When we picture this we see someone who looks mean and, because of the inclusion of the red eyes, almost evil. It is common to associate blue with cold. So the blue lips help us to understand how cold this man is.

This is shown again by the fact that Scrooge has the coal box and so he can add coal to his fire but does not because cold does not affect him whatsoever. The association with cold is also effective as the story is set at Christmas time. Scrooge is alone in the world, married to his work. Business is more important than anything else in his opinion. This is shown by the fact that he was in the office on the day of Marley's funeral.

Jacob Marley is Scrooge's late partner in the business who died on Christmas Eve seven years before the setting of the book. We are also told that everybody knows Scrooge. Everyone knows him as the miserly old skinflint he is, 'even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him'. This quotation as a certain degree of comedy to it and allows us to imagine just how well known Scrooge is for his cold and horrible ways.

It is an effective description because blind-men have dogs to guide them, as they cannot see. So they need their dogs to make sure they never walk into Ebenezer Scrooge. There are also ideas about Scrooge given by what others both do and do not say about him. This is because early on we learn that 'nobody ever stopped him in the street to say "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" ' Dickens goes on to mention how no children ask him what the time was, no beggars ask of him to give them something and no one ever asks him the way to a place.

This tells us that everyone knows him. This is an effective description because out of all these people who know him, less than a quarter of them would have probably actually spoken to him and so his cold personality makes him known to complete strangers. In Stave Three, when Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Present, we see many people speaking of Scrooge. Comments are made by people such as, 'such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge'.

The family of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's clerk and the family of Scrooge's nephew Fred makes these comments. These people say these things because they are annoyed by someone as wealthy as Scrooge to be so miserable. In those days anyone who couldn't open their 'shut up hearts freely' at Christmas was someone who should not be alive, because there weren't national holidays, annual holidays from work and they did not have enough money to treat each other so Christmas was the only time of the year when everyone was an equal, when everyone was happy and everyone was allowed the day off work. We are given a good idea of what Scrooge is like by his words. At the start of the book on Christmas Eve, it is very noticeable that Scrooge doesn't take Christmas in the same way as most people do. He thinks that all the merriment and celebrations is ridiculous, especially as those happy are poor and have no reason to be happy.

When his nephew, Fred enters and wishes his uncle a Merry Christmas, Scrooge says that 'every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding' and says 'humbug's ever al times. This is one of his most used lines and he used to acknowledge something he believes is ridiculous and complete nonsense. He is also reluctant to give his clerk, Bob Cratchit the day off on Christmas Day. This also tells us something. In those days, Christmas was special because it was one of the few days of the year when everybody got the day off. Scrooge reluctantly grants his employee this privilege but does moan about it.

This suggests that he treats Christmas like any other day of the year. Scrooge also has feelings about the poor. He thinks they are idle and the reason they are poor is because they don't work hard enough and are generally lazy. He feels they should be in prisons and Union workhouses.

Scrooge wouldn't care if they were all to die suddenly as it would 'decrease the surplus population'. The picture of Scrooge is also well painted by what he does, what he says and so on and so forth. Early on we are told that he has a very small fire in his office even though he has the coal box at his disposal. Bob has a fire of just one coal but can't replenish it for he fears for his job, and he has an enormous family to provide for.

This basically means that Scrooge is one of the few people around that can afford certain luxuries but doesn't take advantage of it. He could live in a fairly large house, eat fine foods and basically live well, but he doesn't. He eats his 'melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern'. This is an epithet which we would expect Dickens to say in a flat, droning voice if he was reading the story out loud. The word 'melancholy' also says something. Scrooge can afford to eat fine foods and drink fine wine but instead he chooses to eat in cheap eating-houses.

He lives in 'a gloomy suite of rooms in a lowering pile of building up a yard. ' This is another description which helps us to imagine Scrooge. He could live in a nice large house, maybe with a hired housekeeper to keep it clean and tidy, but instead he 'lives in chambers that had once belonged to his deceased partner'. This tells us that he did not actually probably buy the chambers, but Marley left them to him.

This is another thing that tells us of Scrooge's miser characteristics. The fact that Scrooge doesn't go home until he has 'read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book' also tells us something. Most people like to go home as early as possible after work after a long day. Bob Cratchit is an example of this. After going down a slide 'twenty times in honour of it being Christmas Eve,' he then runs 'home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt'.

But Scrooge stays in his melancholy tavern until very late. Even when he is in his tavern eating his tea, to a certain extent he is still working, as he spends 'the evening with his banker's book'. This is another example of how work is Scrooge's life is work and a tactic Dickens uses quite often in the book. He is getting across the message that those who have a sufficient amount of money and wealth care for nothing but increasing that sufficient amount. In Stave Two, we learn how different he used to be.

True, he was unhappy at times. Such as, at Christmas when everyone else at his boarding school went home, but his parents left him there. This may contribute to his hatred of Christmas. But he had a fairly happy earlier life.

When he was an apprentice of Fezziwig he was bright and chirpy, perhaps because he had a nice employer. But, it was when he entered the world of business that he began to change. He was in a relationship with a girl called Bella, but because he was always working he didn't have time to spend time with her, so she left him. Bella was the person who noticed how he had changed. She notices that he is a different person.

She notices that he does not have time for her because he is spending most of his time behind his desk. This is also a way in which Dickens characterises Scrooge and makes him fairly believable. In Victorian times there were a lot of people who were poor in earlier life, but when they went into business and became better off, they changed and became misers. In Stave Three, we learn what others think of him. The Ghost of Christmas Present takes him to Bob Cratchit's house. Here we learn that Bob has to provide for his wife and six children in a four-roomed house on fifteen shillings a week.

We should also notice that they are a large but poor family eating a small goose for Christmas dinner with only potatoes on the side with a bit of gravy, sage and onion and apple sauce, but they are all happy. Scrooge has money to treat himself, more so at Christmas, in honour of the occasion, but he does not, whereas the Cratchits, a poor family of eight living in a four-roomed house, are all happy and content. Dickens uses this to characterise Scrooge, by what others say about him. It is in this scene that we meet Tiny Tim.

He is probably one of the most famous cripples in literature. 'Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame', but he is very brave and generous and the way he acts compared with Scrooge, it is likely that one may think that Scrooge is the cripple. Dickens uses this to comment on society as well. He is trying to tell the readers, whether they are upper, middle or lower class, that money does not necessarily equal happiness. He was perhaps also trying to tell his readers that cripples and blind people and so on are human beings, by making the reader like Tiny Tim, feel sorry for him and then make a link to cripples and blind people that they saw on the streets.

Dickens was clever in his choice of name for Tiny Tim. This is because if he were to call him 'Small Tim', it would sound discriminating and almost mocking, but the word 'tiny and also 'little', which Dickens uses to describe Tim and also the two other young children, give us a feeling of thinking Tiny Tim to be sweet. Towards the end of this scene, Bob declares a toast to Scrooge. The Cratchits accept in 'honour of the Day but it casts a dark shadow on the family'. It is mentioned that it is their 'proceedings with no heartiness in'. Scrooge is described as the 'Ogre of the family' and has caused the most lively and joyful party to die and lose its heartiness.

Dickens uses this to emphasise what a miser Scrooge really is, as one minute the family are joyful, lively and merry and then as soon as Scrooge's name is mentioned, the party dies. Later on, Scrooge and the Spirit go to Fred's house. Fred and the family are talking about Scrooge. We learn that Fred's relatives think the same of Scrooge as most other people, but Fred thinks differently. He admits to being sorry for his uncle. He thinks that the only person who 'suffers for his ill whims' is Scrooge himself.

We also see how happy a family is who are not as rich as Scrooge but are far more content. At the end of this stave, the Spirit shows Scrooge two children: Ignorance and Want. After introduction's, the Spirit says 'beware them both'. Dickens is trying to say to everyone that the reason that a lot of poor children will have a bad life is because they want a lot of things they cannot have and because they are uneducated. Dickens knew that if he was going to get anywhere in life, he would need education. When they first appear, Dickens describes them as 'wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable'.

He uses this because this is how most people would describe on first glimpse. The middle class did see poor children and look on them as vermin. Dickens is trying to say 'oh, they " re hideous, or are they?' He is trying to destroy the upper and middle class' reaction to the lower class. The Spirit then throws Scrooge's own words of 'Are there no prisons?' and 'Are there no workhouses?' back in his face. In Stave One, when the 'two portly gentlemen' enter Scrooge's office and ask him to donate some money so the poor can have somewhere to go at Christmas, he says 'are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses?' After being told that the poor would rather die than go to these places, Scrooge says 'if they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population'.

Scrooge has his question about the prisons and workhouses thrown back in his face when he asks the Spirit if there is nowhere for the children to go. He has is reference to decreasing the surplus population thrown back at him when he shows concern to Tiny Tim dying. This tells us that he is changing and showing concern to others. The addition of the two children and the entire general theme of change turn the story into an allegory, which is a story with an underlying meaning as well as the literal one. A main purpose of the novel is change. Dickens wanted to get across a message that upper class were quite often misers, but change was possible.

However the change is what makes both the character and the characterisation of Scrooge, to a certain extent, a hyperbole. Scrooge goes to bed on Christmas Eve a 'covetous old sinner' and wakes up on Christmas morning like he is everybody's favourite grandad. He wakes up and says, 'Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!' This is partly to relief that his curtains and bed sheets are not torn down and sold, they are still here.

Scrooge is therefore relieved and wants to be happy to be alive as the night before he had seen himself when dead. Dickens does this to say 'eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die' or 'you only live once'. Dickens also tries to emphasise how much happier Scrooge is after he changes. We can quite clearly see that Scrooge enjoys his wealth more when he uses it to make others happier. Such as buying an enormous turkey for the Cratchits or donating it to charity.

When Dickens does this he is trying to make real life misers consider becoming nicer and more generous people, as they will enjoy their life a lot more. Tiny Tim not dying emphasises how 'geniality brings its own reward' meaning a change to one single person can bring changes to many other people, in this case the Cratchits. By Jamie Crawley.