The Ghost of Christmas past Free Essay Example

A Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens in the 1840’s, the novel was the first and finest of a series of Christmas books written by Dickens. Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol for one main factor, which was to try and assist the middle class individuals to understand the conditions that the bad individuals resided in. He desired them to be more charitable to the individuals less lucky than themselves. Middle class individuals were not mindful of the social conditions of their town and Dickens took it upon himself to make them understand what charity actually is.

Their concept of charity were the taxes that they paid which went towards workhouses and prisons for the poor, but conditions there, were no much better, so they needed to depend on charitable individuals. The book was written extremely merely using the idea of Christmas being a charitable time and Scrooge being a typical middle class businessman who never ever offered a penny to anybody.

Dickens utilizes Scrooge’s character extremely cleverly to educate the middle class about simply how selfish they often are. He assists them to realise that if you are charitable, individuals will respect you more and treat you better as they did with Scrooge.

Scrooge was a case in point of a middle class business owner who didn’t appreciate the poor people. Scrooge did not like to invest his money on other individuals to make them happy. He was a stingy male who counted every cent as if it were his last.

Scrooge operated in his counting home all day, and he didn’t pay his employee’s fair salaries. Dickens reveals how even the uncharitable middle class people could change and end up being generous people that care about individuals who are not as fortunate as them. Scrooge desired to make his clerk, Bob Cratchit, work on Christmas Day but as Cratchit asked him he might not refuse.

“A poor excuse for choosing a guy’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December! But I expect you must have the entire day. Be here all the earlier next morning.” He rationed the coal utilized for the fire in the counting home, as it was a waste of cash to utilize extra coal. Dickens wrote “Scrooge had an extremely little fire, but the clerk’s fire was so extremely much smaller sized that it appeared like one coal. However he could not replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so certainly as the clerk can be found in with the shovel, the master forecasted that it would be essential for them to part.

” Scrooge and the middle class people did not believe that charity was needed in their town, as they do not believe that poverty could be so bad that people would do anything for money. Scrooge refuses to give money to charity. When the men come round to his counting house collecting donations for charity Scrooge said “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. ” Scrooge’s only known relative was his nephew Fred and Scrooge wants nothing to do with his family.

Fred is an example of a middle class person who loves to celebrate Christmas, when he invites Scrooge to spend Christmas Day with his family, Scrooge said “Let me hear another sound from you and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. ” Scrooge thinks that Christmas is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard of, as it has not treated him well in the past. Scrooge says to his nephew “If I could work my will, 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.

” Scrooge was warned by his late partner Marley’s ghost. Marley warns him that on Christmas Eve he will be haunted by three ghosts, who will show him what the consequences of his actions will be if he doesn’t change. The Ghost of Christmas Past showed him his childhood and shadows of his life before his obsession with money. This ghost shows him things that have already taken place and events he cannot change. This ghost shows him that his fixation with money was the reason he had no friends. He even lost his one and only love for money.

His girlfriend says “I can release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were. ” He had changed into a different person and his girlfriend didn’t love the new Scrooge so she had to part with him. Scrooge never liked Christmas, not even when he was young. “What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him? ” His disgust of Christmas became more evident as he grew older because the bitterness of his childhood which was filled with bad memories of lonely Christmas after lonely Christmas seemed to be bottled up inside.

“A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still. ” Scrooge feels sorry for himself as the lonely schoolboy. “… Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be. ” With all the excitement of seeing his old school and his friends Scrooge became a different man, he was nothing like he was when he was working. “… to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city. ” The Ghost of Christmas Past seems to have a positive effect on Scrooge.

“There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to give him something: that’s all. ” Scrooge appears to be changing into a better person. Scrooge says to the Ghost of Christmas Present “I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now! That’s all. ” The Ghost of Christmas Past shows him a shadow of his one true love and what she really thought of him. “… you who, in your very confidence in her, weigh everything by Gain… ”

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