Understanding Old Age through the character of Ebenezer Scrooge: A Review

Abstract

Previously, many attempts to bring together Psychology and Literature were made and a similar attempt has been made in this paper.The main focus of this paper is to understand a famous literary character using theories of human development.The current paper is a review article that aims to analyze the character of Ebenezer Scrooge from the famous novella "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.The character analysis includes a psychological approach where three theoretical perspectives pertaining to old age were used to understand the character of Scrooge.The theories included are-Erikson"s Psychosocial Stages of Personality Development, Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and Disengagement Theory versus Activity Theory of Successful Aging.The transformation of the character of Scrooge has also been traced using these theories.Scrooge is seen as an individual who at the beginning of the novella is in a state of ego integrity, but slowly moves to a state of despair as it progresses and then slowly begins to attain ego integrity at the end.From being disengaged, he starts becoming active in life as the novella progresses.He begins to take an interest in situations that are emotional in nature.

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