Scrooge is the protagonist of the story as he is the
main character. He represents all of the negativity of humankind at Christmas
Scrooge never
painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the
warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley.
But he was a
tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching,
grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,
from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and
self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old
features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait;
made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating
voice.
External heat
and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry
weather chill him.
Nobody ever
stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, ‘My dear Scrooge, how
are you?
‘Merry
Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry?
You’re poor enough.’
What’s
Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for
finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing
your books and having every item in ‘em through a round dozen of months
presented dead against you?
‘Every idiot
who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his
own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
I don’t make
merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.
‘If they would
rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus
population.
Scrooge took
his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the
newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book, went
home to bed.
‘Remember it.’
cried Scrooge with fervour; ‘I could walk it blindfolded.’
‘Why, it’s Ali
Baba.’ Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. ‘It’s dear old honest Ali Baba’.
To hear
Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most
extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and
excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city,
indeed.
Then, with a
rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity
for his former self, ‘Poor boy.’ and cried again.
During the
whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and
soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything,
remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest
agitation.
Assure me that I yet may
change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life.
‘I will honour Christmas
in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the
Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I
will
not shut out the lessons
that they teach.
Marley represents the horror that awaits Scrooge if he
does not reform his ways. He explains that the chains he wears are the chains
he forged in life by treating people poorly.
Old Marley was
as dead as a door-nail.
‘I wear the
chain I forged in life,’
‘In life my
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and
weary journeys lie before me!’
‘No rest, no
peace. Incessant torture of remorse.’
‘Mankind was
my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a
drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’
‘At this time
of the rolling year,’ the spectre said ‘I suffer most. Why did I walk through
crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that
blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!
‘No rest, no peace. Incessant
torture of remorse.’
Not to know that no space of regret can make amends
for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!’
Without their visits,’ said the Ghost, ‘you cannot
hope to shun the path I tread.
The air was filled with
phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they
went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might
be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.
Bob Cratchit symbolises poor working conditions,
especially long working hours faced by the poor in Victorian times. He
represents inequality in society.
The clerk in
the Tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the
impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.
in came little Bob, the
father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging
down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look
seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder.
‘Mr Scrooge.’ said Bob;
‘I’ll give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast.’
Tiny Tim is important symbol of the consequences of
Scrooge’s actions. When Scrooge finds that Tiny Tim has died when he is visited
by The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, this leads him to reform his ways.
Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore
a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.
‘God bless us every one.’
said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
‘I see a vacant seat,’
replied the Ghost, ‘in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner,
carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child
will die.’
Fred is the foil to nasty Ebenezer
Scrooge and represents the joy and happiness of Christmas
‘A merry
Christmas, uncle! God save you!’ cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of
Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first
intimation he had of his approach.
His face was
ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled…
‘Come, then,’
returned the nephew gaily. ‘What right have you to be dismal? What reason have
you to be morose? You’re rich enough.’
[Christmas is]…’a
good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know
of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to
open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they
really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures
bound on other journeys’. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap
of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do
me good; and I say, God bless it!’.
‘Don’t be angry,
uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.’
‘I want nothing
from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?’
‘Because I fell
in love.’
‘I am sorry, with
all my heart, to find you so resolute.
I’ll keep my
Christmas humour to the last.
His nephew left
the room without an angry word, notwithstanding.
‘He’s a comical old fellow,’
said Scrooge’s nephew,’ that’s the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be.
However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say
against him.’
‘He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,’ said
Fred,’ and it would be
ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our
hand at the moment; and I say, ‘Uncle Scrooge.‘‘
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