How dose Dickens show the changes in Ebenezer scrooge though out the novel?
The initial protrayal of him is quite harshly drawn. As the spirits take him through past, present and future, we see him in a different light, and start to become slightly more sympathetic towards him. Scrooge is not a bad man, just embittered by all that life has thown him. He is not really greedy – he doen’t benefit himself by his wealth. He fears poverty and tries to insulate against it by avarice. The theme is underscored by the spectres of want and ignorance concealed beneath the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present, and he despises the poor who remind him of the ever present reality of poverty, even though he profits from their misfortune. The softening of Scrooge’s character only goes so far though – Dickens, of course saves the transformation for the end , the final redemption of the old miser, in keeping with the magical quality of the story.
