GRADE 9 Essay on the Contrast of Bob and Scrooge in An Christmas Carol GCSE
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Course
English
Institution
GCSE
This essay focuses on the contrasting characters of Bob and Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, including context and detailed analysis of quotes from throughout the novella. This essay was marked as a Grade 9 and written for the Eduqas exam board but can be adapted for any!
Introduction: In the novella...
In the novella A Christmas Carol, Dickens presents the stark contrast between
Bob and Scrooge, using Bob Cratchit as a paradigm of the working class, Scrooge
as the more callous and affluent of society; able to treat those less fortunate
than them as inferior. Dickens portrays the misery and gloom that surrounds
Scrooge, juxtaposing it with the grateful, happy character of Bob.
At the beginning of the play, Dickens presents the contrast between Bob
and Scrooge through Scrooge’s cruelty. Dickens states: ‘keep his eyes on his
clerk who in a dismal little cell...’. The noun ‘eye’ demonstrates how untrusting
Scrooge is towards his employee, the use of the determiner ‘his’ illustrating how
due to Scrooge’s higher class he views Bob as his property. The noun phrase
‘dismal little cell’ evokes sympathy in the audience towards Bob, the adjective
‘dismal’ describing the misery and gloom that Bob works in, often the working
conditions for the poor in the Victorian Era. The noun ‘cell’ however is significant
when referring to the life of Bob Cratchit as a member of the lower class society,
conveying how trapped and imprisoned those in a position similar to Bob felt.
They were without help o support from the wealthier like Scrooge, therefore with
little chance of social mobility and hope for the future. The extract states:
‘Scrooge has a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller... it
looked like one coal.’ This emphasises how tight-fisted Scrooge is, the adverb
phase ‘very small’ showing how Scrooge does not even spend his own money on
his basic needs. This is then contrasted with the clerk’s ‘’smaller’ fire the
comparative perhaps indicating that the poor only received the bare minimum
from the wealthy, further proven by the determiner ‘one’ – Dickens displaying
the ill treatment of Bob. He then displays the contrast between Bob and Scrooge,
with the line ‘the master predicted it would be necessary for them part.’ This
refers to social structure of the Victorian Era, and the way in which the lower
class were kept in their places. This is further exemplified by the noun ‘master’ –
Scrooge has the authority over Bob due to his higher and so can dismiss him as
such. Bob then returns to his seat and: ‘tries to warm himself at the candle...not
being a man of strong imagination he failed.’ This illustrates how Bob has been
completely stripped of warmth. The verb ‘warm’ could alternatively refer to
happiness and hope, not just heat, indicating how Bob is unable to be joyful in
Scrooge’s presence. The use of the noun ‘imagination’ highlights how simply
being warm is something that the poor can only ‘imagine’, this plight in stark
contrast to the miserly ways of Scrooge who has more than enough money to
provide a fire, and yet refuses to even warm himself. Dickens effectively
demonstrates the contrast between Bob’s poverty but gratefulness and
Scrooge’s wealth and avarice.
Further on in Stave 1, Dickens presents the contrast of Bob and Scrooges
through Bob’s warm mannerisms. Though Scrooge is the more educated, he
treats people without respect, contrasting Bob: ‘As cold as he was, he was still
warmer than Scrooge, for he returned them cordially.’ The noun ‘cold’ indicates
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