Jacob Marley

• Restless “ I cannot rest, i cannot stay, i cannot linger“ - shows the aftermath of what happens when you don’t live your life as you should
• Regretful - “Mankind should’ve been my business.”
• Responsible (afterlife) “ i wear the chains i forged in life”
• cares for scrooge as he visits him as a warning
• He was ignorant when he was alive
• “i wear the chains i forged in life, i made it link by link, yard by yard”- marley says this emphasising the idea of personal responsibility
• “your chain is as heavy as mine, but you can still escape it”- the chain symbolises guilt, responsibility and redemption (marley)
• first line of christmas carol begins with “and marley was dead to begin with”, beginning the novella like this can emphasise the finality of death and establishes key themes of transformation, also shows scrooge became a miserly old man after marleys death
• “mankind should’ve been my business”- marley expresses regret for his failure tk care for others
• “i cannot rest, i cannot stay, i cannot linger“- shows Marley is trapped and controlled and he is restless, rule of 3 and repitition
• “i cannot change the past but you can change your future”- marley says this warning scrooge
• “it was long and wound about him like a tail”- animalistic imagery in the simile ‘like a tail’ shows the effects of his sins on humanith and his chain beings tail like dehumanises him and the reptilian imagery could disgust readers
• marley is wound in chains - symbolic
• marley is a catalyst for scrooges transformation
• marley haunts scrooge
• marley is in purgatory - purgatory is often described as a state or place between heaven and hell. It is where souls undergo purification before they can enter heaven, distinguishing it from the eternal punishment of hell.
• marley is scrooges deceased business partner
• marley prioritised money > love
• marley embodies themes of regret
• marley is bound in heavy chains, face is gaunt and pale
• “marley was as dead as a doornail”- an old idiom that suggests something is unquestionably dead and it shows the finality of marleys death