A Christmas Carol

Humbug!

"Humbug!" These famous words said by Ebenezer Scrooge, which means nonsense, describe the conditions of the poor during the early industrial society. The wealthy during the industrial revolution didn't care at all for the state of the poor. Charles Dickens uses Ebenezer Scrooge in the movie A Christmas Carol, to signify what was wrong with early industrial society, how Scrooge transforms into a new man as the story progresses, and uses his transformation to represent hope for industrial society.

Charles Dickens portrays Ebenezer Scrooge as a cheap, old man to signify what the wealthy were like in the early industrial age. In the movie, Scrooge's worker, Bob Cratchit, asked Scrooge if he wanted to take off his old partner's name off the sign at the front of the store, who died a few years ago. Scrooge responds by saying "No, time will erase it at no cost to us."

Scrooge's third visitor, from Charles Dickens: A C...

English: Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit, Omagh ...

Reproduced from a c.1870s photographer frontispiec...

This shows how Scrooge is so cheap that he doesn't even bother to remove his dead partner's name off of the sign outside. Another example of how cheap Scrooge is at the beginning of the movie is when two men arrive at Scrooges work asking for donations for a charity for poor men and women and Scrooge says, "If they would rather die, they should do, and decrease the surplus population." When a young carol boy starts caroling at the front of Scrooge's work, Scrooge opens the door and says, "Err, get away with you!" Charles Dickens portrays Scrooge as a cheap, old, crusty man to describe what people were like back in the Industrial Revolution. Dickens is saying that the problem with the early industrial society is that the rich people do not care at all for the poor and thought poor people brought on their own misery from...