Annotations

• Ebenezer Scrooge: '"If they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population"'
• Scrooge's capitalistic thoughts

  Irony that he has no one, surely he needs more people to fill his void of emptiness
• "Hard and sharp as flint"


  Scrooge has many layers blocking others from seeing the real him (money, individualism). Spirits attempted to break the wall, but no one else did because his "sharpness" pushes them away, like how he hurts Fred.
• Jacob Marley: '"I wear the chain I forged in life"'
• Marley's chain

  Symbol of your actions, good and bad. Your chain can drag you down and weigh you down. It can be like a disease that torments you because of your doings in the past life.
• Ghost of Christmas Past: '"each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares, long long forgotten"'
• Scrooge's chains loosening

  Rather than regret and burdens being heavy on his shoulders, they have started to very slowly loosen and connect with joys and hopes - first sign of change.
• Fred: '"His wealth is of no use to him, he don't do any good with it"'
• Others' view of Scrooge's wealth

  In a capitalist society, wealth is viewed as for your own good. Other people believe your wealth can be used for other things.
• Ghost of Christmas Present: '"Mrs Cratchit made the gravy hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce"'
• Cratchit family

  Nothing can break their bond (socialism power), something that money can't buy is love.
• Ghost of Christmas Present: '"The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground"'
• Contrast between the rich and the poor

  "Smooth white sheet of snow" above is the rich just relaxing, and the reason for their relaxation is because of the hard working poor at the bottom represented as "the dirtier snow upon the ground".
• Ghost of Christmas Present: '"The boy is ignorance, the girl is want"'
• Symbols of society's ignorance and want


  The boy is a symbol of society's ignorance (especially the wealthy) of the lower class' suffering, turning a blank eye to it. The girl shows people who want the basic needs, water, food, shelter. This is purposefully done through children to make the feel empathy, pulling on Scrooge's heart chords, but also us.
• Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: '"A churchyard overrun by weeds, the growth of vegetation's death not life- a worthy place!"'
• Scrooge's future


  Scrooge realises he must change or his end will be of destruction in dark and gloom. "Overrun" no one is taking care of him like un-kept weeds. His time is coming to an end- where he snaps.
• Ebenezer Scrooge: '"I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man."'
• Scrooge's transformation


  Repetition of "I am" shows the constant affirmations since he has never experienced this feeling of self-freedom and true happiness. Simile "feather" shows how this burden has been taken off his shoulders and that he will not carry the chains like Marley did. And "angel" contrasts with how Scrooge was a sinner.