Description quoyes

Question 1

Stave 2, light, pureness

Answer 1

“Bright clear jet of light”
“purest white”

-motif of light throughout the novella.
“light” evokes images of hope and radiance, symbolising the ghost is a symbol of enlightenment

-“purest” celestial image. purity from sin.

-foreshadows Scrooges spiritual journey towards redemption emphasising theme of forgiveness

Question 2

Stave 3, redemption and regression

Answer 2

“If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

-ghost repeats Scrooges earlier quote from stave 1, emphasising his cruel neglect and ignorance towards the plight of lower classes.
-Through Scrooge’s adoption of Malthusian ideology, poverty and starvation are dismissed as inevitable outcomes of a “surplus population”

Question 3

stave 1, lack of identity

Answer 3

“clerk”

-symbolic of dehumanisation and marginalisation experienced by working class during the victorian era.

-the deliberate removal of his name shows the societal attitude that stripped the poor of their individuality, reducing them to mere cogs in the machinery of an industrialising society

-bobs anonymity highlights the motif of social inequality and the power dynamics between the upper and lower classes

Question 4

stave 1, juxtaposition of Scrooge and Fred

Answer 4

“his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled”

-Dickens employs a motif of light to signify hope in the novella, thus he becomes a beacon of hope for Scrooges redemption

-The juxtaposition emphasises Scrooges remarkable transformation by stave 5. Fred’s character serves as a benchmark for Scrooges moral rebirth, allowing reader to measure the extent of positive change