Literary Analysis: Christmas Carol

1. Christmas Carol is a novella by Charles Dickens which was first published December 19, 1843. The story revolves around the main character, Ebenezer Scrooge who is stingy and sour all around. It portrays his ideological, ethical and emotional transformation resulting from unusual occurances and visits from Jacob Marley who is his former business partner and the Ghosts of Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The story begins exactly seven years after the death of Jacob Marley, where he is warned that he needed to change his attitude and out take on everything or else he will live a bad afterlife as well. He is then visited by the three ghost prompt to the appearances of Jacob Marley. He first meets The Ghost of Christmas Past, where he is shown the day where he was more innocent and happy.v Memories and feelings start to swirl around his mind and body which shows his tender side. Then he meets The Ghost of Christmas Present, and he his shown a scene of people buying food and getting ready for the holidays. Most of this part cirlces around Scrooge's clerk, Bob Cratchit's family. The spirit shows him Cratchit's youngest son, Tiny Tim, who is severely ill but cannot attain treatment due to Scrooge not paying his father enough. The third ghost, The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Scrooge visions his future, of him not taking action, nor changing his ways even after he has witnessed all of the things the spirits have shown him, including the death of Tiny Tim. It shows what happens after Scrooge has pasted away, where his employees take some of his belongings and his grave is left unattened, with no one to visit him. He realized what is happening around him and what may come and states he will change his ways. He then wakes up the next morning, which is Christmas, feeling, different, full of happiness and love. He spends the day with his nephews and send the Cratchits a turkey. Overnight, he has changed entirely and has realized the greatness of what may come.

2. The theme of Christmas Carol is that it is important to be able to help others and not be selfish in a way that you prioritized wealth and your own social status. Scrooge is at first unwilling to be nice, not willing to pay more than the minimum, not willing to help. He then transforms into a warm hearted, caring human being who realized the sadness and darkness of being alone forever.

3. There were imagery, personification, similes and different diction used throughout the story, which made characters and the story flow.

Imagery:
- "...Candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air."
- "Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold!."

Similes:
- "Old Marley was as dead as a doornail."
- "Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire."

Personification:
- "To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale."

Diction:
- "Bah. Humbug."

4. Characterization:
-  "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!"
- "a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!"
- "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his his cheek, softened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice."