stave 1

• keywords:

  • Parsimonious (unwilling to spend money), miser (a person who hoards wealth), archetypal villain, frugal (costing little), ostracised (isolated), avaricious (greedy), apathetic, merciless, misanthropic (unsociable), cold
• The conceit (extended metaphor) of the relentless cold holds parallels to Scrooge's distant and cold attitude.

  • He willingly takes strolls in "easterly winds" - he yearns for isolation and misery as he favours going out in the bitter cold, rather than interacting with the community.
• The use of weather is exacerbated as "the cold within him froze his old features"

  • This reinforces his internal apathy and detachment is so omnipotent (unlimited power), it alters his physical appearance.
• Scrooge's internal cold-heartedness has created a "frosty rime" on his head.

  • Every inch of Scrooge's being, external and internal, is tainted by his distant attitude and want to be ostracised by society.
• Scrooge is presented as successful in his ostracization of himself as even elements of nature, typically uncontrollable, he has managed to intercept as even:

  • "External heat and cold had little influence" on him.
• Scrooge is repulsed by human interaction and affection as he warns:

  • "all human sympathy to keep its distance"

  As warn connotates to alert, this is used by Dickens as ironic as Scrooge's misanthropic (unsociable) and apathetic nature will imminently cause him to be alerted by the reality of his ways.
• Dickens creates Scrooge as an archetypal villain (someone who is seen as evil, typically self-centered and power-hungry) in the context of an impoverished (poor) society.
• Dickens aims to critique, from the offset, that social injustice is synonymous (linked to) with avariciousness (greed) from the upper classes.
• The asyndetic listing (a list that uses commas rather than the word 'and) of:

  • "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner" highlights Scrooge's frugality (conserving money).
• "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner"

  • The use of the 7 negative adjectives mirrors how there are 7 deadly sins - these are called cardinal sins and were seen in the bible as the root of all evil.
• As the foundation of Victorian morality was religion, the parallels between Scrooge and the 7 deadly sins are used by Dickens to highlight how the rich, symbolised by Scrooge, are more sinful than the poor. At the time, laws such as the 1834 poor law were put in place to combat the 'laziness' of the poor.

  • Dickens is inverting this idea that the poor are sinners, instead he highlights the rich are more immoral.
• "squeezing" and "wrenching" connote a struggle, reinforcing how Scrooge struggles to assimilate (blend) into society.

  • Alternatively, this is a criticism that Scrooge does not endure any struggles, yet creates a struggle for the poor.
• Interestingly, Scrooge recognises that poverty causes misery as he questions Fred:

  • "What reason do you have to be merry? You're poor enough"

  However, he continues to live in a state of ignorance, most significantly through neglecting others, without offering to alleviate (make suffering less severe) this misery of poverty.
• Scrooge's reaction to the charity serves as a microcosm (a person/idea representing a bigger group of people and ideas) for the upper classes' relationship with the rest of society.
• Scrooge questions why he is morally obliged to give.

  • This gives the Victorian reader an insight into the reason they lived in a destitute (extremely poor and lacking) society - the rich don't believe it is their duty to give.
• Scrooge's Malthusian views are prevalent when he questions:

  • "Are there no prisons?... And the union workhouses?"

  Scrooge is unable to see the poor with any humanity, instead, he sees them as numbers contributing to the "surplus population".
• The weather is a motif (recurring symbol) throughout the novella, typically changing alongside Scrooge.
• Dickens uses pathetic fallacy by describing the setting as having "fog and darkness thickened" to resemble the bleakness of the protagonist Scrooge.

  • Contextually, the fog in London from 1873-1879 killed hundreds of people.

  Dickens may be alluding to how, just as the weather has the ability to destroy lives, the rich possess this same power.

  • This is heightened through the conceit (extended metaphor) of the bitter weather.
• Dickens personifies the weather as it is "piercing, searching, biting cold".

  • The power of nature may be an allusion to the forthcoming supernatural powers to come.