| Ebenezer Scrooge | |
|---|---|
| A Christmas Carol character | |
 Scrooge encounters "Jacob Marley's ghost" | |
| Created by | Charles Dickens |
| Based on | John Elwes, Jemmy Wood |
| Portrayed by | See below |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Businessman[a] |
| Significant other | Belle (fiancée of Scrooge) |
| Relatives |
|
| Nationality | English |
Ebenezer Scrooge (/ˌɛbɪˈniːzər ˈskruːdʒ/) is the protagonist of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novella, Scrooge is a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. The tale of his redemption by three spirits (the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday in the English-speaking world.
Dickens describes Scrooge thus early in the story: "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice." Towards the end of the novella, the three spirits show Scrooge the errors of his ways, and he becomes a better, more generous man.
Scrooge's last name has entered the English language as a byword for greed and misanthropy, while his catchphrase, "Bah! Humbug!" is often used to express disgust with many modern Christmas traditions.
Charles Dickens describes Scrooge as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint... secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." He does business from a Cornhill warehouse and is known among the merchants of the Royal Exchange as a man of good credit. Despite having considerable personal wealth, he underpays his clerk Bob Cratchit and hounds his debtors relentlessly while living cheaply and joylessly in the chambers of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. Most of all, he detests Christmas, which he associates with reckless spending. When two men approach him on Christmas Eve for a donation to charity, he sneers that the poor should avail themselves of the treadmill or the workhouses, or else die to reduce the surplus population. He also refuses his nephew Fred's invitation to Christmas dinner and denounces him as a fool for celebrating Christmas.
That night, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost, who is condemned to walk the world forever bound in chains as punishment for his greed and inhumanity in life. Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits, hoping that he will mend his ways; if he does not, Marley warns, Scrooge will wear even heavier chains than his in the afterlife.
The first spirit then visits Scrooge, The Ghost of Christmas Past, who shows Scrooge visions of his early life. These visions establish that Scrooge's unloving father placed him in a boarding school, where at Christmas he remained alone while his schoolmates returned home to their families. When his beloved sister Fan came to take him home one Christmas, this became Scrooge's one happy childhood memory. She later died after giving birth to Fred. Scrooge then apprenticed at the warehouse of a jovial and generous master, Mr. Fezziwig. He fell in love with a young woman named Belle and proposed marriage, but gradually his love for Belle was overwhelmed by his love for money. Belle realised this and, saddened by his greed, left him one Christmas, eventually marrying another man. The present-day Scrooge reacts to these memories with nostalgia and deep regret.
The Ghost of Christmas Present arrives next. It shows Scrooge that his greed and selfishness have hurt others as well, particularly Cratchit, who cannot afford to provide his desperately ill son Tiny Tim with medical treatment because of Scrooge's miserliness. The Spirit tells a horrified Scrooge that Tiny Tim will die unless something changes, and throws back at Scrooge his own heartless words about the poor and destitute. Finally, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge where his greed and selfishness will lead: a lonely death and an overgrown grave, unpaid servants stealing his belongings, debtors relieved at his passing, and the Cratchit family devastated by the loss of Tiny Tim.
Scrooge asks this Spirit if this future can still be changed, but the Spirit does not reply. Scrooge then begs this Spirit for another chance, promising to change his ways – and wakes up in his bed on Christmas Day. Overjoyed, Scrooge commits to being more generous and compassionate; he accepts his nephew's invitation to Christmas dinner, provides for Cratchit and his family, and donates to the charity fund.
In the end, he becomes known as the embodiment of the Christmas spirit and as a "second father" to Tiny Tim.
Several theories have been put forward as to where Dickens got the inspiration for the character.
Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie (1792–1836) was supposedly a merchant from Edinburgh who won a catering contract for King George IV's visit to Scotland. He was buried in Canongate Kirkyard, with a gravestone that is now lost. The theory is that Dickens noticed the gravestone that described Scroggie as being a "meal man" (grain merchant) but misread it as "mean man."[1][2] This theory has been described as "a probable Dickens hoax" for which "[n]o one could find any corroborating evidence".[3] There is no record of anyone named Scroggie in the Edinburgh census returns of the period.[4] Jemmy Wood, owner of the Gloucester Old Bank and possibly Britain's first millionaire, was nationally renowned for his stinginess, and may have been another model for Scrooge.[5] The man whom Dickens eventually mentions in his letters[6] and who strongly resembles the character portrayed by Dickens' illustrator, John Leech, was a noted British eccentric and miser named John Elwes (1714–1789).[citation needed] Another suggested inspiration for the character of Scrooge is Daniel Dancer, who Dickens mentions, along with Elwes, in Our Mutual Friend.
It has been suggested that he chose the name Ebenezer ("stone (of) help") to reflect the help given to Scrooge to change his life.[7][8] Commentators have suggested that the surname was partly inspired by the word "scrouge", meaning "crowd" or "squeeze".[8][9][10] The word was in use from 1820.[11]
Kelly writes that Scrooge may have been influenced by Dickens' conflicting feelings for his father, whom he loved and demonised. This psychological conflict may be responsible for the two radically different Scrooges in the tale—one a cold, stingy recluse, the other a benevolent, loving man.[12] Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, a professor of English literature, considers that in the opening part of the book portraying young Scrooge's lonely and unhappy childhood, and his aspiration to rise from poverty to riches "is something of a self-parody of Dickens's fears about himself"; the post-transformation parts of the book are how Dickens optimistically sees himself.[13]
One school of thought is that Dickens based Scrooge's views of the poor on those of political economist and demographer Thomas Malthus, as evidenced by his callous attitude towards the "surplus population".[14][15] "And the Union workhouses? ... The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" are a reflection of a sarcastic question raised by the reactionary philosopher Thomas Carlyle: "Are there not treadmills, gibbets; even hospitals, poor-rates, New Poor-Law?"[16][d]
There are literary precursors for Scrooge in Dickens's own works. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens's biographer, sees similarities between Scrooge and the title character of Martin Chuzzlewit, although the latter is "a more fantastic image" than the former; Ackroyd observes that Chuzzlewit's transformation to a charitable man is parallel to that of Scrooge.[18] Douglas-Fairhurst sees that the minor character Gabriel Grub from The Pickwick Papers was also an influence when creating Scrooge.[19][e]
Scrooge's character, particularly how it changes throughout A Christmas Carol, has been the subject of several analyses.[21][22][23]
