Marley Flashcards
‘Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner’
Anaphora (the use of a word referring back to a word used earlier in a text or conversation, to avoid repetition) of sole represents how scrooge was the person in Marley’s life to look after his affairs after his death. The business terms coming before friend and mourn could symbolize the order of importance in Marley’s life business over all else. This leads the reader to interpret the cause of his lack of friends or mourners . This is also highlighted in “scrooge wasn’t so dreadfully cut up about it” this further highlights Marley’s isolation, the one person whom he was close with was not that phased by his death. homophone soul could foreshadow Marley’s role as the executor of scrooges soul, tasked with making it better.
dead as a doornail
A doornail is something useful for one purpose but its importance doesn’t extended particularity after that.
‘Marley had no bowels’
in a biblical sense no bowels means no feeling or emotion where they believed to have originated from. This presents Marley as an unkind and unsympathetic character.
spectre being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own
explicitly links Jacob Marley to hell. the word infernal suggest that Jacob Marley is experiencing eternal heat and suffering. Warning to business men like Marley of the consequences they may suffer and the image would’ve been quite frightening for religious Victorians.
It was long and wound around him like a tail.
long suggests the extent of his sin and wound suggests he cannot escape this punishment he’s been inflicted with. Dickens presents that Marley’s punishment manifests itself through the items he dealt with in life symbolic of his greed and avarice.
I wear the chain I forged in life
A powerful symbol of how many can be weighed down by greed and lack of compassion. Marley is aware that it was through his actions that lead him to this punishment and he admits he deserves it . Through this Dickens presents that people like Marley can repent but by the time they do it is already too late.
“Mankind was my business”
This quote is Dickens talking through Marley to try and show the miserly upper class that other people are more important than money. He should’ve prioritized his fellow man rather than the pointless acclimation of wealth. Wringing - inner turmoil.
but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!
exclamation shows extent of vocalization of his regret. dickens presents the ides that the gain of wealth is utterly insignificant compared to the treatment of ones fellow man. caring for each other not just what can be gained from it.
Marley
Dickens uses Marley to create parallels between him and scrooge, they’re both presented in the same way in life as mean uncaring and obsessed with money. Dickens portrays Marley’s eternal hellish existence and turmoil despite showing remorse in the afterlife as a potential future for scrooge perhaps even worse “chain was as long as this seven eves ago” and warns business men against miserly attitudes and the lack of looking out for mankind.
