stave 1

• even though Scrooge is the main character, he's the protagonist but exhibits features of an antagonist
• throughout the novella, the reader finds themselves gradually supporting Scrooge, hoping that he will realise the error of his ways and wanting him to become a good person
• scrooges main role in the play is to show that its possible to change your ways, no matter how miserly you are
• when first meeting scrooge, we are introduced to him as being obsessed with making money - on the funeral day of his only friend (Jacob Marley), Scrooge goes back to work straight away.
• "Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone"

  -shows the narrator seems to dislikes scrooge - Scrooge's only concern (and his obsession) is making money, and he works hard for it – he also makes other people work hard for him in an attempt to gain even more money
• “Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him”

  -Scrooge lives his life by himself, no one greets him in the streets, beggars dont ask for money. he is pessimistic and spiteful
• scrooge treats his employee, Bob Cratchit, harshly. he uses his powerful position as Cratchit’s employer to intimidate him into behaving how he wants. He abuses his upper-class role to threaten Cratchit.
• “Are there no prisons?” “Are there no workhouses?"

  -malthusian views- doesnt regard the poor with any humanity, except as numbers contributing to the surplus population
• Dickens uses Scrooge to highlight the attitudes of the rich in Victorian England – many of them did not really consider the lower classes to be human beings with feelings.
• Scrooge has a miserable routine – he eats alone, checks his banking book alone and heads home alone. He decides to eat “gruel”, instead of spending his money on nice foods.
• • A common theme for Scrooge is his disbelief in good things – he does not believe in love, family, generosity or Christmas spirit, just as he does not believe in Marley, who (ironically) causes him to believe in all of these by the end of the story.
• At the end of Stave 1, Scrooge’s role as a representative of all sinners is clear – he watches as the ghosts of hundreds of people float through London, chained down by their bad deeds.
• Dickens uses Scrooge (and the wider story) to plead with people to consider their role in society and to make more of an effort to help one another.
• "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching covetous old sinner" - 7 adjectives alike to the 7 deadly sins - the rich are real sinners, not the helpless poor
• dickens intention was social injustice is synonymous (linked to) with avariciousness (greed) from the upper classes