A Christmas Carol Essay Example

A Christmas Carol Essay Example A Christmas Carol Paper A Christmas Carol Paper Essay Topic: A Christmas Carol With reference to the themes of wealth and poverty, what lessons do you think Charles Dickens wanted his audience to learn from the story of Scrooges changing character? Charles Dickens was using A Christmas Carol as an attempt to challenge his audience of rich contemporaries into action to combat the problem of the mistreatment of the poor in London at that time. Poverty at this time was rife in London. The penny-pinching, tight-fisted, upper and middle classes exploited the poor and underprivileged around them. Charles Dickens wished to change this with his novella A Christmas Carol. He wished to communicate to them the problems that the poor were facing and that they should be helped and not just put in poor houses and prisons to decrease the surplus population. He felt that the poor were being grossly mistreated and that his work will be able to get through to people as nothing else would. He hoped it would be widely read and would influence people especially at the time of Christmas as people tend to be kinder to their fellow human beings at that time of year. He wished to bring relief to the problems that the poor face day on day. Scrooge treats everyone disrespectfully and he is a misanthropist which is someone who hates people in general. The way that Dickens creates Scrooge brings the problem that Dickens is trying to solve to the attention of the reader and they immediately understand what Dickens is describing the problem as because of Scrooge. In the first stave the first person that Scrooge comes into contact with is his clerk Bob Cratchit who was a very under paid worker that Scrooge had employed. From the moment dickens describes the relationship between Scrooge and the clerk it is clear to the reader that Scrooge thinks he is superior to Cratchit because of the money that Scrooge has. Dickens quotes Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerks fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal, but he couldnt replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room this is just one example of how Scrooge treats his clerk as he could not find the simple generosity inside him to give his hard working clerk some coal. Also when the clerk is leaving for the night on Christmas Eve he has a conversation with Mr Cratchit. Cratchit asks for the day off tomorrow which is Christmas Day and Scrooge is very reluctant to let him have the day off. Scrooge quotes; A poor excuse for picking a mans pocket every twenty-fifth of December! But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning! This is an example of how badly treated Mr Cratchit is by Scrooge not only is he underpaid for how much hard work he puts in he also has only one holiday a year that even then his boss is reluctant to let him have the day off. This is Dickens being clever and using Cratchit to his advantage by making the reader feel sympathy for Cratchit by how Scrooge treats him so that Dickens can tell the reader through there relationship that the poor needed to be treated better or with more compassion. During the first stave Scrooge is visited by two charity collectors when he is at his place of work. This scene in the book is a key one because Scrooges actions during this scene are to some extent evil. The charity collector is asking whether Scrooge could donate some money to those who are not as wealthy as himself. Scrooge becomes tense during this scene and quotes; I wish to be left alone. Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I dont make merry myself at Christmas, and I cant afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there. This quote is showing the reader how shockingly tight Scrooge is with his money and how unkind he is during a festive season of the year. The charity collector says that Many cant go there, many would rather die. This quote is supposed to make Scrooge feel a fragment of sympathy for these poor people but no Scrooge replies. If they would rather die they had better do it and decrease the surplus population. Besides excuse me I dont know that. This is an example of an evil quote from Scrooge and this is probably as dreadful as it gets. This quote is a key quote as it describes exactly how cold Scrooge is but also later on in the novel is used against him successfully. Also in the first stave Scrooge has a conversation with his nephew who is one of his only living relatives. The nephew is described as very warm and light an example of this is: He has so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooges, that he was all in glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again The words heated, glow and sparkled are key in this description as they work with the novel as the novel works through symbolism. Scrooge is associated with: Cold, Hard and Dark and his nephew is a contrast of this as he is described as Warm and Light.