Scrooge Stave 5

Question 1

‘Yes!’

Answer 1

Opening of stave 5 with exclamative- contrast to the opening of stave 1 which is shrouded in death- ‘Marley was dead’.

Question 2

‘His broken voice’

Answer 2

Allusion to the harshness is his tears, perhaps the coldness in his past voice has been broken to let heat and compassion through.

Question 3

‘I am as light as a feather’

‘As merry as a school boy’

Answer 3

• Contrasts the simile utilised in stave 1 ‘solitary as an oyster’ ‘sharp as a flint of steel’.
  ‘School boy’ Dickens’ reference to youth accentuates Scrooge’s capacity to be reshaped, links to the ‘Tabula rasa’- the theory that individual are born without built in mental content and therefore all knowledges comes from experience or perception.

Question 4

‘No fog, no mist, clear, bright, jovial’

Answer 4

Pathetic fallacy, the fog has cleared, it is no longer ‘thick and dark’ but had been replaced by ‘golden sunlight’.
‘Golden’ interestingly connotes riches, suggesting that perhaps Scrooge has found a new time of wealth, an intangible one.

Question 5

‘Intelligent boy’ ‘remarkable boy’

Answer 5

Dickens utilises youth incessantly to show Scrooge’s profound metamorphosis. His attitude to this young boy starkly contrasts the carol singer in stave 1.

Question 6

‘It’s a wonderful knocker’

Answer 6

Again prime example of Scrooge’s almost hyperbolic metamorphosis. The knocker serves as a constant reminder of the ghosts’ lessons.

Question 7

‘Chuckled till he cried’

Answer 7

Constants the silences that pervades stave 1.

Question 8

‘A merry Christmas to you’

Answer 8

This new found refrain contradicts ‘bah humbug’ starkly.