Christmas Carol Essay Research Paper

Christmas Carol Essay, Research Paper

"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, is a story that is rich in

metaphors that ultimately questions the morals and ethics of the author.s

society during the time of hislife, the industrial revolutionized society. In

the story, the main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is a greedy, rich accountant

who is visited by his old business partner ghost, Jacob Marley. Marley’s ghost

tells Scrooge that he may face a penalty of becoming a lost soul if he continues

to value money more than anything else in his life. He also foretells that

Scrooge will be visited by three other ghosts that will give him the chance to

redeem himself, and he can break an iron chain of greed that he has woven. Each

time a ghost visits Scrooge, he will become more aware of the failures of the

society he lives in. The ghosts will also let Scrooge see his contributions to

those failures. As Dickens writes the story of the three visits, we are able to

out more about Scrooge.s inner self-character. We learn this about him as he

finds out about his own fellow man and his community. The crux of the story is

alluded to in the ingenious metaphors Dickens creeates to illustrate his own

reflection on Nineteenth Century society. In the beginning of the story, Scrooge

and his assistant Bob Cratchit are working at Scrooge’s counting house on a very

cold night, Christmas Eve. Scrooge.s offices are nearly freezing, because of

the dreadful weather. They depend on using coal to keep warm. Scrooge is

satisfied with a very small fire that he barely keeps going. More than that he

thinks is unnecessary warmth. On the other hand, Bob Cratchit’s fire is nothing

but one dying morsel of coal. "Scrooge had a very small fire, but his

clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal." The

irony in only using a small piece of coal is that they both had two entirely

different reasons for not using more coal. Bob Cratchit is Scrooge.s

impoverished assistant, who can’t afford to buy more coal to kindle up warmth in

his office. If he had enough money to improve his working condition, he would.

On the other hand, Scrooge had more than enough money to buy coal for his office

and Bob’s. He didn’t find that necessary. Dickens makes reference to this as he

shows how Scrooge doesn’t find it necessary to build up more warmth in his

office, or even to offer to keep his assistant’s office warm, when he writes

"But he (Bob Cratchit) couldn’t replenish it (the fire), for Scrooge kept

the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the

shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part."

The situation is much deeper than it appears. Dickens has not only created a

spiteful and stingy character, but he creates a Scrooge whose very body is cold.

The fact that Scrooge doesn’t mind that his office is cold reveals that he is

both physically and mentally a cold person. Throughout literature the use of hot

and cold plays as two basic metaphors for love and hate: loneliness. Scrooge

doesn’t need warmth as a result of being a malevolent and bitter person. He

doesn’t have family or friends to share his love and heart with, so he developed

into a person who was numb to his own warm feelings. The only emotions that are

left are the bitter ones he has for his society. Dickens uses Marley’s chains as

a metaphor as well. We should pay attention to what Marley and Scrooge were

known for. Scrooge and Marley were both concerned about their money more than

anything else that Dickens writes about. The two were so concerned about earning

money, that the two didn’t care how they got it. Each of them wanted to be

alone. The chains that were "forged in life" by Marley were chains of

guilt and sin. These chains were fashioned while Marley made money at other

people’s expenses, and were linked out of his lack of concern for what he did in

life. Marley, like Scrooge, knew well of the poverty most people suffered. Their

sins were that they showed no sympathy for unfortunate people. They both hid

their sympathy in order to repress their guilt. Dickens writes more about

Marley’s greed when he describes Marley. "His body transparent: so that

Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two

buttons on his coat behind." "Scrooge had often heard it said that

Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now." And

"the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin,

which wrapper he had not observed before." Dickens has illustrated a

phantom who one can see right through, has nothing let in his body, and needs a

handkerchief to keep his jaw from dropping "down upon his breast!"

When examining the different elements that made up Marley’s Ghost, it becomes

cl

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