Quote Analysis

Question 1

“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” - Scrooge (Stave 1)

Answer 1

• [Are there no prisons?] - incredulous, shows how the rich see the poor
• [Prisons] - Dickens father was sent to a debtors prison
• Repetition of ‘no’ - numbers irrelevant, they should all go there
• ? - Sarcasm - uncaring, humour in poverty

Question 2

“If they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.” - Scrooge (Stave 1)

Answer 2

• [they had better do it] - imperative
• [decrease the surplus] - get rid of the extra, malthusian theory, Juxtaposition
• [population] - people, society
• ignorance, shows negative attitude of the middle class towards the poor

Question 3

“I am light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy, I am as giddy as a drunken man.” - Scrooge (Stave 5)

Answer 3

• Similes
• [light] - religion, weight of sins/burdens has been lifted, Ghost of Christmas Past = light within past, doesn’t wear the chains
• [feather] - freedom
• [happy], [merry] - emotive
• [angel] - innocence, religion
• [drunken man] - clumsy, free
• [merry as a schoolboy] - gone back to being a kid and enjoying himself like he has never done before. He is living the excitement of Christmas like he never did when he was a child. Opposite to solitary as an oyster

Question 4

“I will honour Christmas in my heart. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.” - Scrooge (Stave 5)

Answer 4

• [honour] - verb, respect, true to word
• [my] - pronoun, ownership
• [the Past, the Present and the Future] - learn from past, correct in present, learn for future
• Scrooge has learned his lesson, this idea is the opposite of “bah humbug”. He recognises the importance of Christmas and wants to honour it.

Question 5

“Hard and sharp as flint” - Dickens’s description of Scrooge (Stave 1)

Answer 5

• Simile
• [hard] - solid, unbreakable, cold
• [sharp] - dangerous, violent
• [flint] - stone which makes fire, maybe refers to fire in Scrooge
• It shows he is hard to break and had no emotion or temperature and is so lifeless that he is compared to a piece of rock

Question 6

“A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner”

Answer 6

• [squeezes] - squeezes money out of the poor, leaves them with very little
• [clutching] - clutching his money, his only priority, desperate to keep a hold of it.
• [sinner] - going to hell, juxtaposes the end (“happy as an angel”)

Question 7

“…tell me if Tiny Tim will live.” - Scrooge (Stave 3)

Answer 7

• [tell] - imperative verb
• [.] - not a question but a demand, desperation in his tone, worry, genuine care, turning point

Question 8

“I have always thought of Christmas as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.” - Fred (Stave 1)

Answer 8

• [always] - everlasting, unchanged, infinite, consistent
• [good time] - pure, foreshadow
• [kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant] - list
• Dickens message
• Fred is a mouthpiece for Dickens

Question 9

“‘A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.’ Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.” - Images shown by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Stave 2)

Answer 9

• [solitary] - alone, adapted
• [neglected] - invisible, ignored, abandoned, Trauma
• [Scrooge sobbed] - sibilance

Question 10

“Will you decide what men live, what men shall die?” - The Ghost of Christmas Present (Stave 3)

Answer 10

• [Will you] - accusatory
• [men] - humanity
• Scrooge questions himself

Question 11

“They are Man’s. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware for I see that written which is doom.” - The Ghost of Christmas Present (Stave 3)

Answer 11

• He says to Scrooge, about the children under his robe
• [Man’s] - humanity
• [Want] - desperation, greed
• [Beware] - warning, foreshadowing death
• [Doom] - death, end of days
• Children are symbolic of the suffering of the poor. Ignorance in the middle class attitude towards the poor, and want is the desire for material possessions. Dickens uses these characters to encourage social reform.