In Dickens A Christmas Carol how do the Spirits and Marley reform Scrooge and in your
Ebenezer Scrooge is, at the beginning of the novel, a selfish, egotistic, miserly, stingy, voracious, greedy, tight fisted, cold hearted, reclusive, bitter, callous, harsh, heartless, unfeeling, cruel man who cares only about making money. ... " He thinks of Christmas as a "humbug", "Out upon merry Christmas! Whats Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer", "if I could work my will, 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". ... He was so set in those ways, that the spirits had a difficult challenge ahead of them. When the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley, who had been dead for seven years, appears to warn him of his fate, Scrooge argues with him, and refuses to believe in ghosts, or indeed, him. ... At first, Scrooge argues with Marley, and angers him. ... " Marley scares Scrooge, and he starts to listen to what he is saying, and takes it in. ... " Scrooge was, eventually, polite to Marley, and it almost looked as though he had undergone a transformation, but of course, that was only because he was afraid. The fear may have slightly reformed him for a few minutes, but fear, alone, was not enough to completely reform him. The thing that daunted Scrooge most of all, was the lumbering, oppressive chain, that the ghost bore around him. ... "Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable". ... " When Marley informs Scrooge about the three spirits, who, one by one, would visit him, he is reluctant and unwilling. ... " "I - I think Id rather not," said Scrooge". Marley convinces him, by referring to the spirits as his only hope to "shun the path" he treads. He is very insistent, and Scrooge dares not argue too much. ... Scrooge was ready to do anything to escape such a fate, but was still dubious. ... " Marleys purpose was to convince Scrooge that ghosts do exist, and warn him of the chain he bore, and he half-succeeded, but, it took the first spirits visit to clarify everything. When he wakes up, Scrooge is very confused. ... " "Why, it isnt possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. ... " He is also unsure whether Marley really did visit him, or whether it was just a dream. ... " Then, Scrooge remembers how Marley warned him of three spirits, who were going to visit him, and that the first of the three, would be at one oclock exactly. ... " An hour later, the clock finally reaches the hour, and Scrooge feels thoroughly relieved that no spirit has appeared, for he didnt at all like the idea. "The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and nothing else!" But he spoke too soon, and when the hour bell sounded, and the first spirit did, in fact, appear, Scrooge was shocked. ... The ghost of Christmas past is both young and old. ... It is young, and like a child, because Scrooge was a child in his past, which he will be shown, and it is old because his youth is in the past, and Scrooge is now old. The ghost is dressed in white, "It wore a tunic of the purest white", because it is angelic, and pure, and symbolises the innocence of childhood; something which Scrooge has lost. ... This is to symbolise Christmas, as one of the aims of the spirits is to help Scrooge to re-discover the joy of Christmas. ... The flowers are to symbolise growth and youth, because the spirit is going to take Scrooge to look back on his youth. ... " The extinguisher is to do with Scrooge forgetting what it was like to be young, and therefore, extinguishing the spirit of his youth and childhood. Scrooge learns a lot with the first spirit, who takes him to his past Christmases. ... They come to a boy, left there on his own, while all the others have gone home for Christmas. ... " Scrooge said he knew it. ... "At one of the desks, a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self, as he had used to be". ... "It fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence". ... One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. ... ", Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy". Scrooge speaks very enthusiastically, on a topic that he wouldnt have dreamed of so much as pondering over, before the spirit came to him. "To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordianry voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed". Scrooge begins to reflect upon his most recent mean actions. "There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. ... The ghost, and Scrooge, then observe a later Christmas. ... Scrooge looked at the ghost; and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door." Scrooge feels relieved and joyful for his past self, that his younger sister rushes in, to take him home, with her and their father. She promises him that he will be a man, and never return to the lonely place he was in, and that they would spend Christmas all together, and have a wonderful time. Scrooge is then taken to a warehouse, in which he was apprenticed. "At sight of an old gentleman in a Welch wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement". ... " They watch, as Scrooge is apprenticed there, and is full of Christmas spirit at Fezziwigs party. "During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. ... The ghost talks to Scrooge as Scrooge would have foolishly talked himself, not so long ago. ... " Scrooge responds the way the spirit hopes, proving that he is on the verge of learning that the gesture is more important than the money behind it. "It isnt that, said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. ... " Once again, Scrooge contemplates the way he has treated people, and is remorseful. ... Finally, the ghost of Christmas past takes Scrooge back to the prime of his life, where he had begun to turn into the man he was then, and Belle, his old love, rejected him for the final time, because of it.