From Riches to Rags Jared Jageler 11th Grade

When a man’s name is synonymous with greed and misery, most readers would not associate him with the shining image of a hero. The hero’s journey is a classic literary pattern in which a character goes on an adventure, faces challenges, and comes through a changed person. It was first used during Greco-Roman times in Homer’s Odyssey but has endured through the years to be utilized in countless forms of fiction. A Christmas Carol details the events of one night in which Ebeneezer Scrooge transitions from an immensely dislikable old miser to a generous, joyous friend to many. Setting aside the individual steps, a hero’s journey is set in both a normal world and a special world, as Scrooge has London and the world of time with the spirits. This is the first of many instances that Dickens' timeless anti-hero aligns with the most popular method of crafting an iconic fictional figure. As a result of his thorough transformation, Charles Dickens portrays Scrooge as an archetype of the hero’s journey.

The beginning of the story represents Scrooge’s departure, the first step in a hero’s journey. Scrooge begins his path to heroism upon his first interaction with the ghost of Jacob Marley, “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet...