REFLECTION TASK:
In Stave One and the extract of ‘A Christmas Carol’, Scrooge is represented as a parsimonious, isolated and
misanthropic character who is very closed minded and has only started to show any change at the end of
the stave, but it was not severe change.
Scrooge is represented as a parsimonious character that does not share any money when he’s described as
‘But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone,’, this suggests that he underpays his clerk Bob Cratchit at
the ‘grindstone’ which symbolises his workplace. The metaphor ‘tight-fisted’ implies how greedy he is,
implying that his hands are very closed and is not open to help others. Additionally ,across stave one, his
conversation with the charity workers reinforces this idea of avarice that Scrooge possesses when he says
‘I can’t afford to make idle people merry’, this suggests that he is ironic because he can indeed afford to
make poor people ‘merry’ but he chooses not to. The use of the adjective ‘idle’ which is a synonym for
‘lazy’ to describe the ‘people’, symbolises the Victorian misconception that most of the wealthy had about
poor people, they thought the poor were lazy, and Dickens hated this misconception and his intention may
have been to show that this perceived idea about the poor was wrong and brutal, because the reason why
the poor were in these conditions was because of the dismissive attitude of the rich towards them. ]
Scrooge is represented as an isolated character when he is being described as being ‘solitary as an oyster’,
this highlights that Scrooge is alone and does not interact with people at all. The use of the simile in this
description suggests that Scrooge to compare him with an oyster shows how Scrooge is hard to open just
like an oyster, due to his greed, he does not share and also he is very isolated and doesn’t let anyone into
his life. However, another interpretation may be that since oysters contain pearls sometimes inside them
that Scrooge has potential to change and be a more benevolent person to society. Additionally in Stave
One, when Scrooge says to Fred ‘keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep mine.’, reinforces the
idea of isolation and solitude that Scrooge keeps himself in, he is not show any compassion towards
others.
Scrooge is depicted as a misanthropic character when he is described as ‘warning all human sympathy to
keep its distance’, this suggests that he wants to appeal to society as intimidating so no one approaches
him. Additionally in Stave one, when he says ‘every idiot who goes about ‘Merry Christmas’ should be
boiled with their own pudding.’, this shows how graphic and grotesque he is because he thinks that every
person who embodies the Christmas spirit is an ‘idiot’ and should be ‘boiled’, which is disrespectful to
social norms. Furthermore, when Scrooge says to the charity workers when he was talking about the
overpopulation of the poor ‘they had better do it and decrease the surplus population’ this suggests how
resentful he is to people and that he is not diligent about others, he thinks poverty in inevitable and cannot
bother to help the poor by sharing any of his wealth, this is after the charity worker says ‘Many would
rather die.’, talking about the workhouses introduced by the Poor Law Amendment. This shows that
Scrooge has a Malthusian view, originated from Thomas Malthus who was an economist and believed that
poverty is inevitable, it also shows that Scrooge supports the Poor Law Amendment which was introduced
to the British legislation in 1834 to ‘help’ the poor, however it was the complete anthesis of that and made
their lives worse by living in very appalling conditions. Dickens opposed this Malthusian view because he
thought the wealthy in the Victorian era had an abundance of resources, however the dismissal of the
wealth didn’t help. Dickens’ intention may have also been to show the Victorian era that many would
rather die than go to the workhouses, and it’s not as everyone thought it was.