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Ebenezer Scrooge
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Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character in Charles Dickens' 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. He is a cold-hearted, tight fisted, selfish man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness. A quote from the book reads "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice ..." His last name has come into the English language as a byword for miserliness and misanthropy, traits displayed by Scrooge in the exaggerated manner for which Dickens is well-known.
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Encyclopedia
Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character in Charles Dickens' 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. He is a cold-hearted, tight fisted, selfish man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness. A quote from the book reads "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice ..." His last name has come into the English language as a byword for miserliness and misanthropy, traits displayed by Scrooge in the exaggerated manner for which Dickens is well-known. The story of his transformation by the three Ghosts of Christmas (Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, and Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday. Scrooge's catchphrase, "Bah, humbug!" is often used to express disgust with many of the modern Christmas traditions.
Origins of the character
Several theories have been put forward as to where Dickens got the inspiration for the character.
- One school of thought is that it stems from a grave marker for an Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie. The marker identified Scroggie as a “meal man” (corn merchant), but Dickens misread this as “mean man”.
- Others claim that Dickens based Scrooge's views on the poor on those of demographer and political economist Thomas Malthus.
- Yet others that the minor character Gabriel Grub from The Pickwick Papers was worked up into a more mature characterisation (his name stemming from an infamous Dutch miser, Gabriel de Graff.)
- Jeremy Wood (James/Jemmy/Jacabos), owner of the Gloucester Old Bank and possibly Britain’s first millionaire, become a nationally known figure for his miserly ways, and may have inspired Dickens in creating the character of Scrooge.
The story
The story of A Christmas Carol starts on Christmas Eve, with Scrooge at his place of business. The book says that Scrooge lives in London, England. It is usually assumed that he is a banker or professional money lender. Some recent versions portray him as a solicitor. Whatever his main business is, he seems to have usurious relationships with people of little means. These relationships, along with his lack of charity and shabby treatment of his clerk, Bob Cratchit, seem to be his major vices.
His nephew however, has great regard to Christmas and we are introduced to him early in the story.
Scrooge has only disgust for the poor, thinking the world would be better off without them, "decreasing the surplus population," and praise for the Victorian era workhouses. He has a particular distaste for the merriment of Christmas; his single act of kindness is to give his clerk, Bob Cratchit, the day off with pay. Done more as a result of social mores than kindness, Scrooge sees the practice akin to having his pocket picked on an annual basis.
After introducing Scrooge and showing his shabby treatment of his employee, business acquaintances, and only living relative, the novel resumes with Scrooge at his residence, intent on spending Christmas Eve alone. While he is preparing to go to bed, he is visited by the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley (who had died seven years earlier on Christmas Eve) spent his life exploiting the poor and as a result is damned to walk the Earth for eternity bound in chains of his own greed. Marley warns Scrooge that he risks meeting the same fate, and that as a final chance of escape he will be visited by three spirits: Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The rest of the novel acts as a biography and psychological profile, showing his evolution to his current state, and the way he is viewed by others.
As promised, the Ghost of Christmas Past visits Scrooge first and takes him to see his time as a schoolboy many years earlier. Here it is suggested that his father abandoned young Scrooge at his boarding school, even during Christmas. This is relevant to Scrooge, because it shows the beginnings of his lack of socialization and empathy. He does not socialize because he never experienced steady growth in a strong family unit. He does not empathize thanks to the way he was treated: as a child, he was the least of his father's concerns, and this in turn taught him not to feel for fellow humans. Furthermore, his mother died giving birth to Ebenezer, for which his father blames the boy. In some versions of the story, his father goes to jail for not paying debt. Later the ghost shows how his success in business made him become obsessive and develop a workaholic tendency. His money and work-obsessed personality traits eventually compel Scrooge's fiancée, Belle, to leave him, which further hardens his heart. The untimely death of his sister Fan, the one relative who had a close relationship with him, also injures him greatly enough that he loses any love he had for the world. Scrooge had only his nephew left but didn't care for him one bit.
The visit by the Ghost of Christmas Past also reveals the origin of Scrooge's neurotic hatred of Christmas – most of the events that negatively affected Scrooge's character occurred during the Christmas holiday season.
One of the sources of his negative ways is the pain he feels for losing his love, Belle. Engaged to be married to her, he keeps pushing back the wedding until his finances are as healthy as he would like; something that, given his insatiable lust for money, he would probably never have. Realising this, Belle calls off the engagement and eventually marries someone else, causing Scrooge to further withdraw from society and relationships.
The book (which was written in 1843) does not state how long ago all this happened, or even how old Scrooge is now. It does seem likely, however, that Scrooge is not nearly as old as he is sometimes assumed. At the time of Jacob Marley's death (seven years before the story takes place), Belle is married to another man and still has several young children. Even if Scrooge was somewhat older than Belle at the time they were betrothed, he was still a young (and poor) man when they met. Because of this, it seems the often elderly portrayals of Scrooge are somewhat wide of the mark.
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