Question

Describe scrooge’s behavior towards others before his transformation. Mention any two incidents.

Answer 1

Ebenezer Scrooge is the protagonist of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novella, Scrooge is a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. The tale of his redemption by three spirits (the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday in the English-speaking world. Dickens describes Scrooge thus early in the story: "The cold within froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice." Towards the end of the novella, Scrooge is transformed by the spirits into a better person who changed his ways to become more friendly and less miserly. Scrooge's last name has come into the English language as a byword for stinginess and misanthropy, while his catchphrase, "Bah! Humbug!" is often used to express disgust with many modern Christmas traditions.Dickens describes Scrooge as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,… secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." He does business from a warehouse and is known among the merchants of the Royal Exchange as a man of good credit. Despite having considerable personal wealth, he underpays his clerk and hounds his debtors relentlessly, while living cheaply and joylessly in the chambers of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. Most of all he detests Christmas, which he associates with reckless spending. When two men approach him on Christmas Eve for a donation to charity, he sneers that the poor should avail themselves of the treadmill or the workhouses, or else die to reduce the surplus population.  Flashbacks of Scrooge's early life show that his unkind father placed him in a boarding school, where at Christmas-time he remained alone while his schoolmates returned home to loving families. He then apprenticed at the warehouse of a jovial and generous master, Fezziwig. He fell in love with a young woman named Belle and proposed marriage, but gradually his love for Belle was overwhelmed by his love for money. Belle realised this and, disgusted by his obsession with money, left him one Christmas, eventually marrying another man. The present-day Scrooge reacts to these memories with a mixture of nostalgia and deep regret. After the three visiting spirits warn him that his current path brings hardship for others and shame for himself, Scrooge commits to being more generous. He accepts his nephew's invitation to Christmas dinner, provides for his clerk, and donates to the charity fund. In the end, he becomes known as the embodiment of the Christmas spirit.