A_Christmas_Carole

In this assignment, I am going to describe the Victorian England living conditions. I will then look at Scrooges character in chapter one and compare this with his nephews charter. Next I will analyse how Dickens uses narrative techniques in the opening chapter to hook the reader. Lastly I will look at the supernatural side of the novel and explain how this has a effect on scrooge. In conclusion I will explore the reason why Dickens wrote the novel. In Victorian England the air around London was heavily polluted by industrial smoke and factory pollution. The smog made the city a very dark and unhealthy place to live in. http://www.hidenlives.org.uk/articles/poverty-4.html. At this period of time there was very little state pension and no safety net to ensure everyone a minimum standard of welfare. There were many cases of death caused by starvation and destitution. In 1850 an inquest was held on a 38 year old man whose body was reported as being more than a skeleton, his wife was described as being the very personification of want and her child as a skeleton infant. (The Times, 20th November 1850). The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 ensured that no abled body person could get poor relief unless they went to the special workhouses. Families were split up and punished if they spoke to each other and many children were sold to work in coal mines and factories with dangerous machinery. These statements showed how dark dim and gloomy it was in those days. I can imagine how bitter cold it was when breathing in the dirty dreary fog. As Dickens states in the novel It was cold, bleak bitter weather; foggy withal........... Wheezing up and down. The city clocks had just gone three, but it was dark already. Dickens is very good at capturing the reader particularly in the first chapter. He starts off with Marley was dead. Straight away you want to know what, when how did this happen. When describing scrooge he uses a lot of metaphors to describe Scrooge for example Hard and sharp as flint. When you read this you think of someone with no emotion and the word flint it made me feel that if he looked at me with his eyes they would pierce right through me. He has used a lot of In chapter one of the novel, Dickens describes Scrooge’s character, in chapter one as a squeezing, wrenching, grasping ----To show his cold personality Dickens states ---The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his potential nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gate, made his eyes red, his then lips blue and spike out shrewdly in his grating voice. Scrooge saw Christmas as an annoyance an excuse for people to take time out of their duties even when times are hard. In chapter one Scrooge meets his nephew. His nephew says “A merry Christmas uncle, god save you! And Scrooge replies “Bah Humbug” This is a phrase that Dickens created to represent Scrooges annoyance and bad temper. Scrooge tends to respond to all feelings and requests that reflect a sign of happiness with “Bah Humbug” in order to avoid how he really feels. Scrooge is resentful of anyone who is in a good spirit and states ‘If I could work my will --- every idiot who goes around with merry Christmas in his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holy through his heart. It is as if Scrooge does not want to let down his guard because it will remind him of the times when he could have had happiness. Scrooge is also stingy and disrespectful towards his clerk Bob Cratchet. He shows his attitude towards Bob Crachet in the first chapter where Bob is threatened with dismissal when he tries to add some more coal on the diminishing fire. Crachet “couldn’t replenish it, 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”. Scrooge would rather keep a shilling than pay for coal that could keep his unhappy clerk warm in his office. Scrooge, Keeps the door of his county house open so that it can keep his eye on him. This generally pessimistic attitude is expressed by his statement “---my clerk with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. “ I’ll retire to bedlam” So Scrooge sees a poor person being happy as insane. However if we look at the contrast between Scrooge and his nephew it is totally different. Even though Scrooge is negative towards his nephew, the nephew tends to continue to be in good spirit.’ A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you cried a cheerful voice. From this statement you can tell his nephew is always in a joyful merry, mood. When Scrooge is very negative with the nephew about attending the Christmas dinner, the nephew tends to ignore him and come back with another question for his uncle in a challenging but nice way. ‘Come then, returned the nephew gaily......... I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good, and I say God bless. His nephew Fred is actually very fond of his uncle and finds him very amusing. He explains that he is sorry that his uncle is so resolute and even though the uncle carries on being negative the nephew does not leave the room with a angry word. Unusual events in the novel makes you very scared, such as the door knocker coming to life and looking like Marley who is now dead. The appearance of Marley in the house, Scrooge cannot really believe it is him so uses the word ‘its humbug still