"A Christmas Carol" characters

Seite 1

Scrooge

Cold-hearted- According to Dickens's description, Scrooge is cold through and through. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him, Dickens uses pathetic fallacy to represent Scrooge's nature. The weather is a metaphor for Scrooge's behaviour as he cannot be made either warmer or colder by it.

Miserly- Scrooge is stingy with his money and will not even allow his clerk Bob Cratchit to have a decent fire to warm him on Christmas Eve. ...as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. The indirect speech shows that Scrooge is threatening and in charge. He will not give permission for Cratchit to take more coal.

Ill-mannered - His nephew visits to wish him a 'Merry Christmas' and Scrooge is rude to him in response. "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's response is comical, but unpleasant. He cannot accept the generosity that is offered him and instead turns images of Christmas into images of violence.

Self-deluded - When he sees Marley's ghost, Scrooge tries to deny its existence by attributing the vision to something he has eaten. "You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese..." Although Scrooge is afraid of the ghost, he tries to maintain his authority even over his own senses.