Greed

• “Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.”

  • Metaphor for miserliness: “Darkness” symbolises not only physical frugality (he won’t light candles) but emotional coldness
  • Irony: Most people fear darkness, but Scrooge is comforted by it because it saves money
  • Short sentence structure: Emphasises his blunt, practical obsession with cost over comfort
  • Effect: Dickens uses setting and symbolism to reflect Scrooge’s greed — he chooses loneliness to protect his wealth
• “What right have you to be merry? You're poor enough.”

  • Rhetorical question: Implies that joy is only deserved by the wealthy — revealing Scrooge’s materialist mindset
  • Tone of contempt: Scrooge cannot understand value in anything that doesn't involve money
  • Misplaced priorities: Fred values love and company; Scrooge values profit — a clear moral divide
  • Effect: Dickens shows how greed warps Scrooge’s worldview, making him blind to emotional or spiritual wealth
• “I can’t afford to make idle people merry.”

  • Word “idle”: Suggests he sees the poor as lazy and undeserving — a common Victorian justification for greed
  • Refusal of charity: Shows Scrooge’s belief that wealth should not be shared — even at Christmas
  • Cold tone: Reveals a lack of empathy and social responsibility
  • Effect: Dickens critiques the capitalist view that success excuses selfishness, exposing how greed dehumanises the poor
• “A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”

  • List of aggressive verbs: "Squeezing", "wrenching", "grasping", etc., suggest violent, selfish hoarding of wealth
  • Alliteration: The harsh 's' and 'c' sounds reflect bitterness and severity
  • “Covetous”: A biblical word meaning greedily desiring what belongs to others — links Scrooge’s greed to moral sin
  • Effect: Dickens paints Scrooge as almost monstrous, consumed by greed and cut off from human warmth and generosity