How does Dickens use pathetic fallacy in A Christmas Carol?

Pathetic fallacy is a literary technique similar to personification. The former is a narrower term than the latter, however, and refers specifically to inanimate objects and nature, most notably, the weather. At the beginning of A Christmas Carol Dickens employs pathetic fallacy to highlight Scrooge’s miserly and self-interested nature. For example, Dickens shows the reader that Scrooge’s obstinate self is such that he is routinely unaffected by weather and that ‘no warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.’ Similarly, Dickens’ narrator asserts that ‘no wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.’ Pathetic fallacy is used effectually in this instance because Dickens is allocating human emotions to wind, snow and rain to further emphasise that Scrooge’s character at this stage in the novella is acrimonious, inflexible and uncharitable, respectively.