Four Ghosts In A Christmas Carol

A ghost is a transparent figure of a dead person. In ghost stories we expect graveyards, the darkness, peculiar noises and scary figures/shadows. People are scared of ghosts because they are related with death. We don’t know what death feels like so we are scared of what it holds.

Dickens was trying to highlight the inequality and injustice of Britain at that time. Most of his novels are set in London and many of his characters are from underprivileged, poor backgrounds.

E.g. scrooge exploits Bob Cratchet by making him work for low wages and in bad condition.

In the beginning of the novel dickens leaves us in no doubt that scrooge is a very unpleasant man. Scrooge is described as “secret, self contained and solitary as an oyster.

Dickens describes Marley’s ghost as being transparent with death cold eyes he used these descriptions to scare the reader.

Christmas Carol Presentation

The ghost took off his bandages to get scrooges attention.

“I wear the chains I forged in life” this was a quotation used by Marley to try and make scrooge change his ways. This was intended to scare the reader and make them want to read on.

Dickens describes the ghost of Christmas past as “a strange figure”. Dickens writes contradictory descriptions ” like a child yet not so like a child as like an old man” Dickens continues, for example he writes “its hair which hung about its neck and down its back was white, as its with age and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it”.

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Dickens also writes “its legs and feet most delicately formed were like these upper members bare”. Scrooge is unnerved by this ghost because he is never sure at what he was looking at.

The ghost of the Christmas past shows scrooge some of his previous Christmases. The ghost shows scrooge’s memories of his school days of how he was a lonely boy and his only friends were characters from books. During this memory scrooge learnt his first bit of compassion. Scrooge learnt it’s awful to be alone at Christmas. The ghost of the Christmas past showed scrooge’s memory of a huge, happy and exciting Christmas party thrown by his boss. Everyone was invited to the party even poor people. Scrooge spoke very kindly and everyone was enjoying themselves. There were lots of food, drinks, music and dancing. Scrooge learnt from Fezziwig that you can enjoy yourself without a lot of money. The last memory scrooge was shown was his memories of Belle his lost love. Scrooge split up with Belle because he was more interested in love than her. Scrooge learnt that money can’t buy you love and money isn’t everything.

Dickens tries to convey you don’t have to be rich to have a good time.

The ghost of the Christmas present represents the Christmas spirit. This is first of all shown by his description because there are a lot of Christmassy elements for example “clothed in one simple deep green robe … on its lead it wore no other covering than a holy wreath” The ideas are reinforced more by when they are visited by poor people, the lonely and the ill. The spirit waved his torch as if sprinkling Christmas spirit everywhere which made everyone happier.

The spirit takes scrooge to see Bob Cratchet’s house and his nephew Fred. He learnt that Christmas is about happiness and love. Cratchit is shown he is very good natured because he did a toast called the founder of the feast. This makes scrooge feel guilty because even though he has been horrible to Bob, Bob still toasts him to say thank you for the money.

The ghost of the Christmas present shows scrooge ignorance and want. Ignorance represents a lack of understanding and want represents greed. These are both present in scrooge. The ghost warns scrooge that ignorance and want were present in him. Dickens gives a message out to the reader that