Belle

• Belle is used to show how money breaks relationships
• Scrooge's ex-fiance
• Values family and love over money
• scrooges reaction


  'I can bear it no longer'

  'pressed down with all his force, he could not hide the light'
• 'A golden one'


  money has replaced her in Scrooges life

  Scrooge = greedy

  he doesn't love Belle anymore, he loves money
• 'Our contract is an old one'


  'our' - pronoun - shows relation

  'contract' - formal agreement - there is no love in there relationship anymore - connotates to women getting married off for money (their fathers agree contracts with their future husband)

  'old one' - shows how the contract has expired - they are no longer in love / need each other / fulfil each others wishes
• 'What wouldn't I have done to be one of them' - narrator


  Dickens personally speaking - shows the desire to be in a family

  this emphasises Scrooge's isolation

  'I' - pronoun
• 'There he sat alone, quiet alone' - Belle's husband


  'alone' - repeated to emphasise Scrooge's isolation

  'he' - dissociates Scrooge from them
• 'mourning dress'


  what you wear when people have died

  this marks the death of old, loving Scrooge, and the birth of greedy Scrooge

  Queen Victoria wore a mourning dress everyday after her husband died
• 'fair young girl... whose eyes there were tears'


  'fair' - adjective - attractive

  'young' - adjective - ideal age for marriage

  'tears' - noun - shows emotions - women = emotional = weak
• 'until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter'


  'her' - italics - this shows Belle's impact on Scrooge

  'matron' - noun - shows her age and how she is married

  'daughter' - noun - isolates Scrooge - he missed the opportunity to have a family with Belle - greed strips your chances of having a family