Scrooge experiences a number of situations in which his character begins to undergo a change, and the main reason these changes occur is because of his guilt and sympathy. He visited his younger self, the Cratchits, and the time Belle broke up with him. He felt regret over things he said, did, how he acted, and pity for his former self. He realises that how he treated his clerk was wrong when he saw his old boss Fezziwig. This all leads to his character changing from the cold and isolated Scrooge to someone much kinder and like his former self.
Scrooge’s first visit with The Ghost of Christmas Past is to see his younger self when he was just a boy. Upon seeing his old childhood town, he started to cry, with which he dismissed his tear as being “a pimple”. They visited the school he used to attend, and Scrooge, knowing that “a solitary child”, being himself, “is left there still”, started sobbing. He saw himself as a boy, and “he said, in pity for his former self, “Poor boy!” and cried again”.
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Dickens describes the Cratchits as “not a handsome family; they were not well-dressed... but they were happy”. Despite the small dinner, everyone was happy and grateful. Scrooge becomes attached to Tiny Tim, and is told that “the child will die”. Scrooge begs the Ghost to “say he will be spared”, and the Ghost quotes his own words, “if he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population”. This moment is the start of another change. Scrooge “hung his head… and was overcome with penitence and grief”, because he realises that what he previously said and believed is wrong. He started to feel sorry for Tiny Tim and the Cratchits, seeing that the family is happy despite being poor, and Tiny Tim is loving and kind despite his disability. Feeling this guilt and “penitence” changes him to start become a little more sympathetic and kind towards poorer