scrooge stave 1

• ostracised from society - “easterly winds”

  • Conceit of relentless cold hold parallel to Scrooge’s cold attitude
  • Willingly stroll in “easterly winds”
  • Yearn for isolation & misery
  • Favour going out in bitter cold rather than interacting with community
• ostracised from society - “the cold within froze his old features“

  • Use of weather exacerbated - “the cold within froze his old features“
  • Internal apathy and detachment is omnipotent
  • alters physical appearance
• ostracised from society - “frosty rime on his head”


  • Internal cold-heartedness created a frost “frosty rime on his head”
  • Every inch of Scrooge - external and internal - is tainted by his distant attitude
  • Successful in ostracization as even elements of his nature have been intercepted
  • “external heat & cold had little influence”
• emblem of victorian upper class topic sentence

  scrooge is an archetypal villain in context of an impoverished society, from the offset dickens critiques that social injustice is synonymous with upper class greed
• emblem of victorian society - “squeezing, wrenching”

  • “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner”
  • asyndetic listing highlights frutility
  • 7 negative adjectives mirror cardinal sins the root of evil in the bible
  • foundation of victorian society was religion
  • parallel between scrooge and sin highlights sinful nature of the rich
  • 1834 poor law to combat the ‘laziness of the poor’
  • dickens inverts the idea that the poor are sinners and highlight the rich are immoral
  • “squeezing” and “wrenching” connotes a struggle
  • scrooges struggle to assimilate into society
  • criticism that scrooge doesn’t endure yet inflicts struggle
• emblem of victorian upper class- “what reason do you have to be merry? your poor enough?”


  • recognises poverty is synonymous with misery
  • continues to live in a state of ignorance without operating to alleviate the idea of poverty
  • serves as a microcosm for malthusian ideologies
  • questions why he is morally obliged to help the poor
  • gives the victorian reader insights to reasoning for destitute society
• the setting - “fog and darkness thickened“


  • weather is a motif in the allegorical novella
  • reflective of scrooge
  • pathetic fallacy resembles bleakness of protagonist scrooge
  • fog in london in the 1870s killed hundreds
  • alludes to how rich and weather possess ability to destroy lives
  • heightened through conceit of bitter weather
  • personifies weather ”piercing searching biting cold” - allusion to forthcoming supernatural