Isolation and cold-heartedness

• "Oh! But he was tight-fisted at the grindstone,"

  1. Scrooge never stops working.
  2. Scrooge is a strong, relentless force and the 'hand' that forces the poor to work for the wealthy.
  3. 'grindstone' (a solid stone wheel used for shaping)- links to 1.
• "Hard and sharp as flint"

  1. 'flint' - used in making arrowheads, which suggests that Scrooge isn't only unpleasant, but also very dangerous.
  2. 'flint' - easily broken/chipped, which suggest that Scrooge can easily be broken emotionally and can be changed quickly.
• "Solitary as an oyster"

  1. 'oyster' - can produce pearls; precious, beautfiul products of the national world and growth takes 7 years. This suggest that Scrooge can take a long time to chnage for the better. The pearls can symbolise the glimmers of hope in Scrooge that he will change. Marley has also been dead for 7 years so may be time for Scrooge to grow into a new person.
• "It was cold, bleak, biting weather..."

  1. Personification - the weather is so bad that is impacting people negatively.
  2. Triplet, asyndetic list - the weather is progressively getting worse.
  3. Pathetic Fallacy
• "In a dismal little cell..."

  1. Metaphor - Scrooge's office is like a prison to Bob Cratchit as he is being treated poorly - Scrooge almost acts like a prison guard for the clerk.
• "it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again"

  1. His house is isolated, just like Scrooge with society.
  2. Personification - Scrooge's house is described as a kid who was playing hide and seek and forgot how to come out.