Scrooge

• "Hard and sharp as flint...no steel had ever struck"


  Stave 1

  Fire imagery shows his hesitancy to spend money, cold personality, sibilance links to snakes - sinners in the Bible
• "Solitary as an oyster"


  Stave 1

  Shows his loneliness and isolation but also that there could be something good within him that's hard to reach (like a pearl)
• "A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner"


  Stave 1

  Asyndetic list of continuous verbs make him seem unchangeable
• "A frosty rime was on his head"


  Stave 1

  Shows his cold personality as well as reluctance to spend money (light fires)
• "The cold within him froze his old features"


  Stave 1

  Shows his complete lack of love and warmth
• "I'm quite a baby" vs. "covetous old sinner"


  Stave 5

  Presents Scrooge as innocent, alludes to the cycle of rebirth to show his transformation
• "Are there no prisons?...And the union workhouses?"


  Stave 1

  Scrooge views the poor as guilty, that poverty is a crime

  Links to hard labour of workhouses that was exchanged for food and shelter - horrible conditions
• "Decrease the surplus population"


  Stave 1

  Accountancy language - only have value if they bring profit

  He looks down on the poor and doesn't view them as individuals - Malthusian idea
• "Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it"


  Stave 1

  Miserly tendencies, also shows how he enjoys isolation
• "fell upon his knees"


  Stave 1

  Religious, repenting for sins - shows change already
• “A lonely boy was sat reading near a feeble fire”


  Stave 2

  Invokes sympathy - he never experienced love or friendliness
• "I am a mortal...and liable to fall"


  Stave 2

  Mortals make mistakes but can, like Scrooge, learn from them
• "Scrooge…wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be."


  Stave 2

  We see he is capable of empathy in the form of witnessing the traumatic past
• "His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self"


  Stave 2

  He is capable of change as he used to be better
• "Another idol has displaced me"


  Stave 2

  He worships money and his life revolves around it
• "You fear the world too much"


  Stave 2

  Links to his childhood, money is his safety - its dependable which juxtaposes his childhood
• "Why do you delight to torture me?"


  Stave 2

  He is overwhelmed by regret
• "Quite alone in the world"


  Stave 2

  Complete isolation, money can destroy love
• "Ogre of the family"


  Stave 3

  Scrooge brings darkness and disgust to the family - he doesn't fit in
• "He resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw" vs. "I wish to be left alone"


  Stave 4

  Shows his change and resolution to listen out of regret for his actions
• "that dark chamber...will be forever present to me"


  Stave 4

  Scrooge will forever be haunted by the future, makes his change more important
• "I am not the man I was"


  Scrooge 4

  Shows the change Scrooge has gone through
• "scrambled out of bed"


  Stave 5

  Like a child at Christmas, changed attitudes
• "making a perfect Laocoon of himself"


  Stave 5

  Laocoon - statue of a man in agony

  Scrooge is so flustered he's struggling with his socks
• "I am light as a feather"


  Stave 5

  Contrasts Marley's chains and similes at the start
• "I am merry as a school boy"


  Stave 5

  Contrasts similes at start and his unhappy childhood
• Repetition of 'chuckle' and 'laugh'


  Stave 5

  Shows his overwhelming joy
• "in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it"


  Stave 5

  He can't go back to his old self as he's seen the errors in his ways
• "Make up the fires" vs. "very small fire"


  Stave 5

  Literal - he feels he can spend money, he's changed

  Metaphorical - he's full of warmth and love now
• "He was a second father"


  Stave 5

  He's able to live the life he never achieved because of his love for money