Kimo's In Class Essay

Kimo Gray
12/04/08
English 9
Hamilton Salsich

Do you believe in ghosts? Or rather, do you believe in the eternal punishment that enfolds and tortures those whose lives had brought not but cruelty? Jacob Marley, a former, now deceased, bank teller in Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol,” gave his get exponentially cruel partner Ebenezer Scrooge a glimpse of life after death. Marley, a truly evil man who cared nothing but for the money and suffering of all who owed him presented to Scrooge his spirit, of which carried a grand change of deeds, chain boxes, and symbolic trinkets now solidified in iron that gave Scrooge a glimpse of what awaits him after death.
It is said that the good man, be as he is, will always fall behind those who cheat, those who care more about the end than the getting there. This can be said of Ebenezer Scrooge, a rather wealthy man whose only concern was collecting the day’s profit. At first it seems he is above life itself, he feels no need to fall into the silly “humbug” they call Christmas. In fact, he lives in a mansion, lives in wealth, and lives only with himself and his cold heart. “Now Marley was dead,” Dickens makes sure to make that very clear. But even in their eternal rest, there is eternal restlessness for those, such as Marley, who have shown no kindness to humankind, has not “[Gone] forth in life” and given all he had taken. He appears to Scrooge with that chain, that chain of greed, of guilt, of remorse, and of eternal pain. Now seven years ago to the night Marley died, and he promises that Scrooge’s was as long and laborious as his chain seven years ago. Marley travels the Earth, seeing for himself what it was like to have been happy, to have seen the kindness that he could never share, could never feel. Nobody condemned Marley to this fate; rather Marley had condemned himself, and swears that Scrooge’s chain is waiting for him. Though “Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat” (anonymous) doesn’t mean that those cheaters shouldn’t get a second chance, and Marley offers to Scrooge a way to change all that, and to experience kindness before it is to late.
Jacob Marley was a man, just like any of us, who just didn’t lead the life that would lead to salvation. It makes people wonder what is on the chain they bear, a vial of tears, a purse of greed, or perhaps, no chain at all. Jacob Marley was a man, but in death, he was eternal despair. But poor Jacob, be it as he is, still took the time to go to Scrooge and offer his only friend the life that he never lead, and in doing so, brought a little more kindness into the world.


Purposful Repetition: Italics

Chiasmus: Bold