A Christmas Carol

In my book, A Christmas Carol, the main character is Ebenezer Scrooge or known as Scrooge. Scrooge is a dynamic character. In the beginning he was someone you would not want to meet. Nobody liked Scrooge and Scrooge didn’t like people. In the end Scrooge learns how to be generous and compassionate to others.

            Scrooge is described as “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!”(Page 8) Scrooge is always hunched over in disgust of everything he sees and hears. Scrooge is so brutally cold it makes others seem twenty below is like a balmy seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Scrooge has a wiry neck, his skin is as shriveled as a raisin, his eyes are always blood shot red, and his lips curl up when their blue and cold. If you ever saw him open his mouth to say something, it would always be something that would make you shrivel away and never want to see him again.

            Scrooge’s personality is cold as ice. The book says that, “External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintery chill him. No wind that blew was bitter than he…” (Page 8) If Scrooge ever spoke to someone it would make them freeze up into an ice cycle.

            Scrooge is the definition of inconsiderate. In the book there’s a part where there are two gentlemen going around asking for charity. When they ask Scrooge for some money for the homeless he says to them, “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”(Page 18) All Scrooge has for a heart is a lump of coal.

            There is one thing that Scrooge says to people and that is, “bah humbug!” Scrooge’s respond is “bah humbug” because he thinks what everybody says to him is rubbish and ludicrous. He says “bah humbug” to his own nephew when he says to him, “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!”

            At the end Scrooge learns to be compassionate to others. The book says that, “He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call.”(Page 147) He was so compassionate after he woke up he went out and bought a big turkey for Bob Cratchit’s family. He also gave a lot of money to the two gentlemen going out for charity. At the end of the book Scrooge’s heart melts from ice to love.

In the book A Christmas Carol, there are flashbacks. An example of one in the book is on page 64 and 65. In the flashback Scrooge’s fiancé breaks up with him on Christmas. The reason they showed this flashback in my book was to show maybe why Scrooge hates Christmas.

            In the book there is also foreshadowing. An example of foreshadowing is on page 94. In that foreshadowing moment what happens is that Scrooge is at Bob Cratchit’s house with the Ghost of Christmas Present, and he tells Scrooge this “with unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”The reason I think that they showed this in my book was to show that by Scrooge being the way he is, this child will die because of him.

            Some stories have different impacts when flashbacks or foreshadowing are used in novels or books. In the book, A Christmas Carol, the foreshadowing in it has an impact on the book because it shows that if Scrooge behaves the way he is, bad things will not only happen to him but bad things and good things in a bad way will happen to others. What I mean by “good things in a bad way” is that in the book is that the people were happy that Scrooge died.

            In other books or novels it can have an impact on it too, but in a different way. In the book, Whale Rider, in the beginning it says that Kahu saved them. In the book, A Christmas Carol, it had an impact on Scrooge because he changed. In the book, Whale Rider, it had an impact on the book because Koro changed his ways of believing that girls should be treated the same as the boys.

So having these foreshadowing or flashbacks can impact a book in different ways. Like Scrooge from being malicious and self-centered to sympathetic and cheery. Also it changed Koro from sexist to being able to understand that girls should not be treated differently than boys.

Having foreshadowing and flashbacks can make the book more interesting. They could also make books and novels more understandable, because in the book, A Christmas Carol, I learned why Scrooge is so melancholic and cantankerous towards people and the holiday season.

The biggest impact in the book, A Christmas Carol, was that when Scrooge went into the Future. The reason that had the most impact was that Scrooge saw how his attitude affected a lot of people. After Scrooge saw the Future he changed his ways and made his life and other people’s lives better.

Foreshadowing and Flashbacks can have an impact in the book or novel. I also think that if you read this book it’ll have an impact on you. It’ll make you see that if you change one thing, like your attitude, it affects not just yourself but multiple people. And that is what I think the whole book, A Christmas Carol, was about.