ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
British Literature Videos 176 videos
Meet Charles Darnay, the nobleman who spends more time on trial and in prison than attending balls and drinking expensive wine. Don't feel too bad...
Written in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries, Beowulf is an epic poem that reflects the early medieval warri...
Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...
A Christmas Carol 33104 Views
Share It!
Description:
How did Scrooge go from being naughty to nice so quickly, and why? (Hint: contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with the ghost of Santa Claus...thank goodness.) Just one question to think about in Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol .
Transcript
- 00:01
A Christmas Carol, a la Shmoop. At the beginning of every year, many of us
- 00:09
sit down and jot down our New Year’s resolutions.
- 00:14
While snacking on our plate of nachos, we vow to lose weight…
- 00:18
…or while throwing our pen across the room because it’s out of ink, we swear we’re
- 00:23
going to exhibit more patience. The fact is that it is simply hard for human
Full Transcript
- 00:29
beings to change.
- 00:32
So what makes Ebenezer Scrooge, the hero—of sorts—of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol…
- 00:37
…suddenly go from awful, curmudgeonly grump…
- 00:40
…to upbeat, generous, heck-of-a-great-guy? The short answer, of course, is that he is
- 00:49
visited by three spirits who don’t feel he has enough…spirit.
- 00:54
But what changes inside Ebenezer to… turn his frown upside-down?
- 00:59
Does his transformation take place because of fear?
- 01:02
After all, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him his own grave…
- 01:07
…you’d think that would be enough to scare the crankiness out of Oscar the Grouch.
- 01:09
Scrooge isn’t ready to join Marley and company in the hereafter…
- 01:11
…and he seems pretty upset about his corpse being robbed.
- 01:15
So…does he just turn things around because he feels that’s the way to change history’s
- 01:22
course…
- 01:23
…and avoid an untimely—and horribly depressing—demise? Or… maybe he genuinely regrets hurting the
- 01:30
people he once cared about.
- 01:34
When visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present...Scrooge witnesses firsthand the plight of the Cratchits.
- 01:41
And how his penny pinching habits affected the life of Tiny Tim.
- 01:45
It could be that it just took this drastic measure to wake Scrooge up…
- 01:48
…to shake him by the shoulders and make him turn an eye to the people he was injuring
- 01:52
with his actions. Or maybe it isn’t about fear or regret at
- 01:59
all…but love.
- 02:00
Yeah, yeah, we know… bah humbug.
- 02:03
But maybe we have a Grinch situation going on here. Maybe Scrooge’s heart grew three
- 02:08
sizes.
- 02:09
He used to be that kind, loving lad back in the day… perhaps he simply…got back in
- 02:14
touch with his old, happy self?
- 02:16
Since this is a Christmas story, it sure would be nice if love had a little something to
- 02:20
do with it. So, what drove Scrooge to…be less Scrooge-like?
- 02:25
Fear?
- 02:26
Regret?
- 02:28
Or love? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
Related Videos
This video defines utopias and dystopias, and investigates how a utopia might become a dystopia. Can a seemingly perfect world actually be a dystop...
We may all be fools when it comes to love, but thankfully none of us will accidentally switch places with our twin brother and fall in love with ou...
Picking a theme for a party is pretty easy—always go karate party, because they come with nunchuck egg rolls. Themes in writing are a little diff...
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...