A Christmas Carol Key Quotations Flashcards
This quote shows just how cold hearted Scrooge is. It implies that Scrooge doesn’t care for deep emotions at a tragic occasion, he only cares about the money. This also gives the reader a rough idea of how selfish scrooge is by saying ‘all the same’ implying that he doesn’t really care or pay attention to anything but his job.
‘it was all the same to him.’
This quote implies that Scrooge appears to be very cold hearted through a simile. However, it could also imply that inside, Scrooge has a soft spot where he keeps all his emotions instead of letting them all out. An oyster has a hard shell and a valuable thing inside it and maybe that’s the same with Scrooge.
‘and solitary as an oyster.’
This quote helps the reader to imagine how wide the staircase is. Dickens used a wide range of vocabulary to help create good imagery. This helps the reader to create a picture of what the scene looks like. This also helps show how much money Scrooge is in possession of by saying how much he is able to get through space in his house.
‘you might have got a hearse up that staircase’
This quote implies that Scrooge is alone and has no one living with him hence the repetition of the word ‘nobody’. This also implies that there is nobody there but there might not be nothing there. This helps create suspension and tension as the reader gets deeper into the novel.
‘nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa’
This quote has a lot of good vocabulary to help create good imagery. It also uses a simile to help add to the effect. It is also an example of anthropomorphism by saying ‘leaped up’ and ‘fell’. Dickens is giving the flame human characteristics by saying that.
‘the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, “I know him; Marley’s Ghost” and fell again.’
The spirit of christmas past saying this to Scrooge about his former self, from when Scrooge was a young boy. There is a dependent clause slotted in to the independent clause to help and imagery so the reader has a better idea of what Scrooge’s past was like.
A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.
Scrooge says this to men who have came around asking for money to help aid the poor and the homeless during the christmas season. This can be seen as Scrooge’s way of telling the charity men that he refuses to give any more money by listing a few establishments that he already helps fund.
‘“Are there no prisons?”[…]”And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”[…]”The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?”’
This quote shows how selfish and cold hearted Scrooge is. He is saying he gives enough money to places like ‘prisons’ and ‘workhouses’ and he says that he refuses to give out any more money because the places he mentioned ‘cost enough’ as it is.
“I help to support the establishments I have mentioned–they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”’
There is repetition of the word ‘melancholy’ to help emphasise the lack of joy in Scrooge’s life. By saying ‘in his usual’ could suggest plain Scrooge’s life is as he is repeating the same routine daily.
‘Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book, went home to bed.’
An example of the recurring theme of time throughout the whole novel. A contrastive pair that links to the theme of time. Saying something seemed like one thing but it was actually something else that was a lot less than the first thing.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour.
A simile right at the start of the novella-Stave 1
‘Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.’
An asyndetic list highlighting how lonely Scrooge is-Stave 1
‘… his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assing, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend. and his sole mourner.’
Describes the setting and alludes to Scrooge’s current state of mind and character during this part of the novella-Stave 2
‘it was dark […] opaque walls’
What does Scrooge say that shows he knows the place the ghost of Christmas past takes him?- Stave 2
‘I could walk this blindfolded.’
This highlights the poverty in Victorian England. Description of people - Stave 4
‘drunken, slipshod, ugly’
