Key Themes of the Christmas Carol

Furthermore, Dickens uses effective language to give us a vivid picture of what the character of Scrooge is like. Firstly, he uses present participles to show the reader how important money is to him. Scrooge is described as a ‘squeezing, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner. The verbs all emphasise that money means everything to Scrooge by associating with hands and thereby showing his desperation he is a money grabber. The rhythmic use of these verbs which are repeated could also imply that the list does not stop and that Scrooge is even crueler than depicted.

This already makes the reader think negatively about the character from the beginning of the story, because it gives him the idea that he does not value important things in life, like family and friends, but that money takes precedence for him. Furthermore,Dickens uses cold words when describing his character to emphasise that he is not a kind person ; ‘a frosty rime was on his head and his eyebrows…  and he carried his own temperature about with him.

It tells us that he is a cold-hearted person, and that there is nothing warm or friendly about him.

It also allows us to picture his features- they are cold and sharp, making him appear unapproachable. He does not care about what state other people are in he only cares about himself and money. Dickens also makes use of pathetic fallacy to describe Scrooge’s character. In the first stave he again uses weather to give the reader insight into his character: “The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect”.

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The harshness of the weather reflects Scrooge’s character it’s as though wherever Scrooge goes, the atmosphere becomes cold and harsh. Scrooge’s character can be explained through his past as when he was young he had a tough life because he grew up without any love from his father. These descriptions of Scrooge reflect his unforgiving, unwelcoming and heartless personality. Lastly, Dickens used similes to demonstrate to the reader how unsociable and cold-hearted Scrooge is.

They encourage interpretation as they let the reader imagine Scrooge in his own way. The first simile he uses is: ‘as solitary as an oyster, which shows how unsociable he is. An oyster lives in a shell in its own little world Scrooge is the same- he likes to be isolated away from the rest of the world and he avoids contact with other people as much as he can. It could also imply that he is a good person inside, but has a hard shell around himself and does want to get close to anyone.

His enjoyment of isolation can be explained through his past as he was abandoned by his father when he was young, so he got used to being on his own. This brings in the theme of change, as the reader sees that Scrooge is like this because that is how he grew up and he didn’t know any different, not necessarily because that is how he wants to be. It shows the reader that if Scrooge learned how much better it is to socialise with other people he would want to change and spend more time with his nephew.

Moreover, the simile ‘hard and sharp as flint tells the reader how heartless and uncaring Scrooge is. Flint is a piece of rock that is very sharp and hard and nothing can get to it. The characteristic hardness of flint links to Scrooge’s character, showing how Scrooge is just as unchanging: nothing will make him feel sympathetic towards poor people, and nothing will make him a nicer, more caring person. It emphasises that he is very callous and only cares about how he is doing and how much money he has, but he does not care the slightest about other people.

You can tell a lot about a character by observing the way they behave and by other people’s attitudes towards them. Firstly, we get to know that Scrooge does not like to socialise and be pleasant to people. We get to know this as we see that he is miserable towards his only relative- his nephew. When he invites him to Christmas dinner, Scrooge repeats Good afternoon to show that he is not interested in socialising and he does not wish to discuss it. He is infatuated with money, so on Christmas he wants to be in his office working.

He also thinks that love is ridiculous, and he criticises his nephew for marrying for love: “Because you fell in love’ growled Scrooge, as if that were the only thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas”. Scrooge thinks love is ridiculous because when he was younger, his fianci e Belle left him because he became obsessed with money and started to love it more than her. He now does not have any time for love because it gets in the way of making money.