On first glance, the miserly, Ebeneezer Scrooge, and his creator, Charles Dickens, are very different types of people. There are, however, some parallels between the two men and, in particular, their life experiences.
Firstly, both Scrooge and Dickens had some difficult times as children. Scrooge, for example, is described as a "solitary child" who is "neglected by his friends" and rarely sees his family. Dickens, too, had his own share of bad experiences. His father,...
On first glance, the miserly, Ebeneezer Scrooge, and his creator, Charles Dickens, are very different types of people. There are, however, some parallels between the two men and, in particular, their life experiences.
Firstly, both Scrooge and Dickens had some difficult times as children. Scrooge, for example, is described as a "solitary child" who is "neglected by his friends" and rarely sees his family. Dickens, too, had his own share of bad experiences. His father, for instance, was imprisoned for debt in 1824, forcing the young Dickens to take a job in a blacking factory in London. He worked long hours for poor pay and missed out on several years of education. Dickens never forgot this experience and it inspired many of the characters in his stories.
Secondly, both Scrooge and Dickens came to care strongly about the plight of poor children. For Scrooge, this takes place at the end of the book and is evidence of the strength of his transformation. He gives half-a-crown to the young boy who fetches him the prize turkey, for example, and becomes a "second father" to Tiny Tim. Dickens, too, cared deeply for poor children. In fact, he wrote A Christmas Carol after reading the Scriven Report of 1843 which exposed the terrible conditions of children working in the potteries of Staffordshire. Dickens was also heavily involved in the Ragged School Movement, to provide education for children in poorer districts, and dedicated much of his adult life to speaking out on behalf of the disadvantaged and deprived of Victorian England.
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