Stave 1 Flashcards
“Scrooge was his sole…”
sole executor before sole friend: money was a priority above all else for both of them.
Scrooge was all Marley had and the opposite was also true. Now that Marley is dead, Scrooge is completely alone and friendless.
Clear link between them… emphasising they were all each other had - so much so that Scrooge is willing to answer to either name.
This implies that Marley’s fate will certainly also befall Scrooge if he is unwilling to change.
“squeezing, wrenching… covetous old sinner!”
Asyndetic list of verbs emphasises how much and how continuously Scrooge takes and wants to take from others - he is consumed by it.
Sibalance is employed to accentuate how sinister and cold Scrooge can be at his worst. Furthermore it enhances the atmosphere of the ghost story.
1 of the 7 deadly sins = greed. It is almost prophecised that if Scrooge doesn’t change he will die alone and be punished in the after life as Marley was.
“Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire”
Simile:
“hard and sharp” could be mirroring the way in which Scrooge is defensive and has weaponised himself - this could be because he was alone and vulnerable as a child and due to his greed and desire for wealth, he failed to keep his loved ones close. Due to this, he has grown even more callous and distant from people, and perhaps since it has been so long since he has been loved and been included in community, he is now scared to do so, protecting himself with his cold and mean nature, purposefully acting hard and sharp against people who show compassion in order to preserve himself.
You need another object to create fire with flint through friction and heat - fire represents togetherness and community - Scrooge doesn’t have anyone else to create fire with.
“generous” obviously hints at the lack of thereof in Scrooge.
“solitary as an oyster”
extended metaphor - Scrooge is shut tight and closed off to the world.
The pearl within him:
1. he does have beauty and kindness inside just like everyone (Dickens believed that everyone had the power to do good) but he hides it - foreshadows that he has a chance to change.
- perhaps it is the “solitary child” within him that he is trying to protect with his hard outer shell.
- the pearl could symbolise wealth since pearls are rare, valuable and expensive… Scrooge is covetous and keeps all his wealth to himself and does not share.
“No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him”
Use of anaphora:
He is so unfeeling and cold that the weather does not affect him just as the plight of the poor doesn’t. Since it is inhumane to not feel warm or cold, Dickens could be suggesting that it is inhumane to not feel emotion towards the suffering proletariat.
Repetition of ‘no’ emphasises how ostracised Scrooge is from society - to the point that weather doesn’t affect him like a normal person.
“To edge his way along the crowded paths of life”
Dickens believed it to be very important for everyone in society to rub shoulders in life in this case visualised as a ‘crowded path’ that is no matter your class.
At the start of the novella, Scrooge does the very opposite of this.
A path can only lead to one place - in this case the one place being ‘death’. If Scrooge continues to edge his way alone, he will die a sad and lonely death + no matter how much money you have you walk the same path as everyone else to death: money and material things do not make you superior in a spiritual sense - togetherness, community and compassion does.
“The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole”
The fog is symbolic of Scrooge’s inability to see the good around him + in Victorian literature, fog was a symbol for evil - this could be hinting at the evil living in and invading London.
“dismal little cell”
Almost like a prisoner of Scrooge - but also a prisoner of society - no matter how hard Bob works he doesn’t even have the smallest chance to move up the class system, and certainly has no chance to save his children from poverty.
“The clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal”/”Scrooge kept the coal-box”
The coal box is metaphorical for the capitalists’ control over poor people’s means.
Their lives not only depended on how much money they had but also the rich people’s sympathy and allowance.
Bob knows that if he replenishes his fire, Scrooge will threaten to terminate his job. So he tries to warm himself as best he can without angering Scrooge. Despite the poor working conditions, Bob cannot afford to lose his job as he has a family to support. Bob suffers in silence for his family’s sake.
This evoked sympathy for the poor people showing the reality that existed for poor people - published around Christmas time - where the rich were surrounding themselves with food and gifts, having fun with their friends and family the poor were struggling to put food on the table - evoking sympathy for Bob at this point enhanced the effectiveness of the novella in showing the rich how to live their lives caring for the community - allows readers to reflect.
Fred’s initial description
Fred’s physical warmth reflects his warm heartedness. The word ‘glow’ seems to suggest that he radiates heat and light like a fire - the motif of fire represents community and togetherness - therefore, Fred embodies these values within society.
“What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough”
From Scrooge’s perspective, people who aren’t rich have no reason to be happy - due to his isolation for most of his life, he does not understand what makes other people happy. He contradicts himself really - he says that Fred has no reason to be happy since he has no money, though, Scrooge is unhappy even though he is rich. This is not to say that money makes people unhappy but rather basing your happiness on material things only will. Fred’s good will is based on non-material things, like his marriage and Christmas.
Fred’s view of Christmas:
“shut-up hearts”
Indicates that one needs to be emotionally cold in order to be a good businessman or at least rich, since like Scrooge you need to be like a closed oyster - However, opening their shut up hearts suggests that mankind naturally wants to be a part of a wider community and it is only unnatural not to - not only do some only do this at Christmas, which means that they should always be like this, but people like Scrooge never open their hearts.
Fred’s view of Christmas:
“fellow passengers”
Serves to emphasise the transcience of life and therefore wealth - we are all fates to have the same end no matter what, regardless of our class or wealth (more similar than different) link to “to edge his way along the crowded paths of life”
Fred’s view of Christmas:
“race of creatures”
reinforces the view that the wealthy see the poor as inhumane - however this is contradicted by the word ‘race’ - we are all one - society is all one and cannot function well in seperate parts i.e. with the rich pretending that the poor are seperate from them and should not mix with them.
The poor law is thus inefficient since it does essentially treat the poor like another race. Through Fred, Dickens expresses that he disagrees with this - all people should have the right to food and shelter without working in awful conditions to keep themselves alive.
“Good-afternoon”
The extremely repetative Scrooge become monotonous - reflects the unchanging and stubborn nature of Scrooge.
He is completely defiant towards others and at this point, it seems there is not hope for him to change.
Scrooge’s first ‘good afternoon’ is both dismissal and repudiation of the foolishness of love. The second utterance marks a dismissal and a refusal of human affection. The final 3rd and 4th are his dismissal of Christmas and the Christmas spirit.
