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Scrooge's Change in A Christmas Carol Essay

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Scrooge's Change in A Christmas Carol

Dickens combines a description of hardships faced by the poor with a heart-rending sentimental celebration of the Christmas season. The novel contains dramatic and comic element as well as a deep felt moral theme. In the beginning of the novel Ebenezer Scrooge is portrayed as a hardhearted and unsociable man. However at the end of the novel we see dramatic changes in him as a trio of ghostly visitations causes a complete change in him. Scrooges transformed from an unpleasant and penny-pinching character to a charitable kind man. The following essay focuses and examines the life of Ebenezer Scrooge, delving into his past, present and supposed future.

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Scrooge angrily replies that there are prisons and workhouses and they leave empty-handed. Scrooge is greedy and sees no reason in donating money to the poor. He thinks of them as idle and he states that if they would rather die than to go to the workhouse "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." Scrooge confronts Bob Crachit and complains about Bob's wish to take Christmas day off. "What good is Christmas," Scrooge snipes, " that it should shut down businesses?" he reluctantly agrees to give Bob a day off, providing he arrives earlier to work the next day.

Later that evening Scrooge returns home through dismal, fog-blanketed London streets. Just before entering his house, the doorknocker catches his attention. He sees a ghostly image that gives him a momentary shock; it is the peering face of Jacob Marley his dead partner. When Scrooge takes a closer look the image disappears. With a disgusted "Pooh-Pooh," Scrooge opens the door and enters his hose. He makes no attempt to brighten his home, "darkness is cheap, and scrooge liked it." Whilst he is in his room he hears the deafening sound of bell chimes and footsteps. A ghostly figure floats through the closed door of Jacob Marley, transparent and bound in chains. Scrooge shouts in disbelief, refusing to admit that he sees Marley's Ghost. The ghost

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