A Christmas Carol Flashcards
“Decrease the surplus population”
(Scrooge, Stave 1, to charitable gentlemen)
- malthusian rhetoric, Scrooge reflects Victorian disconnect, the cold and mathematical language utilised in ‘decrease’ establishes a firm conformity to capitalist ideals.
- categorising the proletariat as merely numbers to subtract.
- tiresome and inevitable practice to those of the likes of Scrooge; the adjective ‘surplus’ embodies a sense of mere excess, an excess undeserving of society’s finite resources.
- idle populous seen solely as a burden.
- critique of materialism.
“Hard and sharp as flint”
“Solitary as an oyster”
“No beggars asked him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock”
“To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance”
“The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole”
“all in a glow”
“I can’t afford to make idle people merry”
“The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business”
“I wear the chain I forged in life”
“Deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE”
“desire to see the spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered”
“A solitary child, neglected by his friends”
“bright, clear, jet of light”
“glowing torch”
“Another idol has displaced me […] a golden one”
“forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is and where it is”
“Will you decide what men shall live and what men shall die?”
“but most of all beware the boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased”
“slowly, gravely silently”
“concealed its head, its face, its form”
“unwatched, unwept, uncared for”
“Oh tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone”
“glowing with good intentions”
“I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel”
“I’m quite a baby”
“churches ringing out”
“golden sunlight”
“And to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father”
