Themes Of Greed In A Christmas Carol

A timeless theme is a perception about the human existence that will always apply to human nature no matter what time in history. The audience will always understand the theme as a timeless theme will always utilize the human experience. One of the many timeless themes frequently explored in literature is the theme of greed. Rapacity has been relevant to human life for thousands of years and will continue to be applicable for all the years to come. Greed is an excessive self-centered desire to possess more than one needs, especially in relation to money. No one can deny the dangers of wielding gluttony in your heart as it contains the capability to corrupt even the kindest of souls. We witness a tremendous amount of greed in Charles Dickens’ …show more content…
More importantly, we are shown how Scrooge’s love of money has stripped him of his love for his family and his appreciation for the world. In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the theme of greed is explored. The first time we are exposed to greed is when Ebenezer refuses to give his long-term clerk, Bob Cratchit the Christmas Day off to spend with his family, specifically his disabled son Tiny Tim. He proves himself to be a penny-pincher as he pays his clerk a very insubstantial wage and insists that Bob is trying to rob him of his money by requesting the one day off of the year. Along with this, despite noticing how numbingly cold it is in his office, Ebenezer Scrooge does not grant his employee the gift of warmth. Scrooge is already astonishingly wealthy, but it becomes apparent that he is blinded by his hunger for money as he refuses to pay for coal, claiming it is too expensive. We realize that he will go to extreme measures simply to hold on to as much of his wealth as possible. As a result, the hearth remains empty along with his heart. This vastly illustrates the theme of miserliness. A second time the audience is exposed to greed in A Christmas Carol is when the Ghost Of Christmas Past visits Scrooge and we see witness how his covetousness first became. When Ebenezer visits the past, we see that he was engaged to a woman named Belle. Easily, we are able to establish …show more content…
This seed grew, ultimately filling up the whole of Ebenezer Scrooge’s heart. In the end, Scrooge’s fiance Belle left him as she realized that there was no place left in his heart for his family. Through the Ghost Of Christmas Past’s visit, we experience a vast extent of greed and learn how it too much of it can consume you. One final example of greed presented in this play is when two ladies come to his door in search of donations for the poor. Without hesitation, Scrooge refuses to aid the poverty-stricken. In the past, those who we incapable of paying off their debt had to go to what is called a debtors’ prison. When the man of a family was assigned to go work in a debtors’ prison, their families often had to follow along as women had no other way