Key Quotations

• “Solitary as an oyster”

  SIMILIE

  • Suggests Scrooge is a lonely individual with no real friends, as oysters are often lonely at the bottom of the ocean.
  • Shows how he cancels his feelings like an oyster contains a Pearl, keeping it locked up and away.
  • Oysters have a hard outer shells that are hard to beak into.
  • Shows Scrooge has potential, as pearls often represent beauty, which means this quote could represent scrooges inner potential for redemption and foreshadows stave 5.
• “Marley was dead to begin with,”

  CONTRADICTORY STATEMENT

  • Novella begins with an end, showing a character has died, which peaks our interest in what happens.
  • Tells us the character is dead to set up the ghost haunting Scrooge later as without this quote it would seem random.
• “Sole executor, sole administrator, sole assign..., sole mourner and sole friend”

  REPETITION

  • Repetition of the adjective “Sole” emphasises Scrooges lonely nature which allows us to understand how isolated he really is.
  • Also shows up his Scrooge has reacted to the loss of Marley, business and assign first and friendship and mourning was mentioned at the end of the quote.
• “If they would rather die… they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

  CONTEXT LINK

  • Links to context of Malthusian ideas at the time. Scrooge is based off Thomas Malthus and this quote reflects his ideals.
  • The adjective “Surplus” implies that poor people are just extras to the world and scrooge does not see them on the human level.
  • Links to the idea of overpopulation at the time, there’s not much food to go around in the crowded city.
• “External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.”

  JUXTAPOSITION

  • The nouns “Heat” and “Cold” are juxtaposed in this quote which shows scrooge keeps himself at one temperature, he never gets warmer and never gets colder he’s just always that same cold temperature constantly.
• “Warning all human sympathy to keep its distance”

  PERSONIFICATION

  • The personification takes an emotion and tells it to keep its distance.
  • This quote emphasises we can’t sympathise with scrooge as he has chosen this life. Dickens wants us to be unsympathetic with the man, to help contrast with his redemption in stave 5.
  • The verb “Warning” implies we should take caution around Scrooge and gives us an idea of what others feel about scrooge, their intimidated.
• “Hard and Sharp as flint”

  SIMILIE

  • Implies Scrooge is tough and strong and not easy to break
  • But also implies Scrooge can cause a spark that can become a flame inside of him, becuase flint could be used as a source to create light, foreshadowing scrooges potential.
• “ ‘bah!’ Said scrooge, ‘humbug’ “

  PHRASE

  • Bah Humbug, means trickery or deceit.
  • Scrooge sees the spirit of Christmas and Christmas as a whole as a falsehood.
  • Shows his negativity and suspicious around anything to do with forms of community and generosity.