Why did Ebenezer Scrooge become crotchety and selfish?

Was Scrooge just a bad seed? Was Scrooge simply emulating his own cold-hearted father? Was he just oblivious? Did he really have to be dragged out into the snow in his nightgown, to figure this out?

Is this what it would take for Donald Trump to figure it out, or is he too far gone?

I didn’t mean for the question to be a political Q, but after I posted it, I realized that Donald Trump is a lot like Scrooge, so that’s why I mentioned it, but I truly am curious about the literary character, and how he ended up so different from Fezziwig.

He picked up a copy of The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition and was enlightened.
Too bad he lacked the moral fortitude to resist the bullying, underhanded scare-tactics, and ultimately, brainwashing of those communist ghosts.

He was abused as a child and had a drunken father.

He suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder after being abducted by aliens on Christmas Eve 1843.

One man’s meat is another’s poison. Point of view. Happy pauper—wasteful fool. Which description is appropriate and how would you argue that a smiling beggar is sane, let alone to be admired or tolerated? To Scrooge and his ilk, the poor are by definition defective and the choice to exhibit that defect is solid proof of the matter. All that begging is merely an effort to render those assaulted as destitute as themselves. Good luck in disproving these arguments.

^^ But he wasn’t always that way. He was happy when he was a poor apprentice working for Mr. Fezziwig, and he could see how that kindness affected everyone, including himself at the time.

That’s the part I’m trying to figure out. What happened to him after he left Fezziwig’s employ, and why didn’t he try to emulate Fezziwig’s example, when he became financially successful?

Because he drove the loved ones of his life away with his greed for wealth. It had become everything for Scrooge. The more they turned away from him, the more he turned away from them until money was the only important thing in his life.
Fezziwig wasn’t as concerned about money like Scrooge became. For Fezziwig, people and their happiness was paramount to the money, but Scrooge came to see only the money, not what the money could do to and for the happiness of others.

Yes, but you notice that Scrooge was happy BUT poor. Fezziwig was kind and perhaps mildly prosperous, but he was not rolling in wealth, nor likely to ever be filthy rich because he was both kind and generous. Attention to and compassion for the needs of others—-idealism itself is hell on the bottom line.

So would you rather be rich and despised or content well loved and broke? The parable is that by the time Scrooge became successful he had discovered the priceless lesson that you can’t grow richer by giving it away, and he should be the patron saint of penny-pinchers everywhere.

While he did enjoy the ways of Fezziwig, there is the ever present, overwhelming pressures from his dad to prosper, and to measure up. Nothing paralyzes a young man like the expectations of his father.
Then there was his final business partner, who was miserly, and much like Scrooge’s dad.

He lost focus & became too money orientated, losing the love of his life as a result left him bitter & filled with self loathing which ate away at him.
Classic case of willfully hitting the self destruct button as a form of punishment for a lost life.

@Kardamom Great question. Did you get your answer? Just curious.

I think ucme had the most likely answer. He lost focus. Then is when everything went bad. It wasn’t the money itself that caused the problem. He lost focus, and then because of that, his fiancee grew weary of his new obsession, and when she left, he didn’t have any other reason (that he could see, because his focus was gone) to be a good guy, even though many people could have been helped by his generosity, including his own nephew.

Being poor doesn’t make one happy, being rich doesn’t make one happy (although it does afford you many more opportunities) but having good intentions and decent priorities (like Fezziwig did) can make yourself, and others, a little bit happier.

Thanks @ucme : )

Not a problem :)