MARLEY

• “dragging a heavy chain”

  • chain symbolises restriction and entrapment
  • conceit shows the restricting and eternal consequences of being parsimonious (stingy)
  • conceit foreshadows how scrooge will be subjected to the same punishment if he does not redeem himself
• “mankind was my business“

  • Dickens uses Marley as his first mouthpiece to explore the need for a collective social conscience
• “I wear the chain I forged in life“

  • metaphor represents the weight of Marleys actions
  • serves as a symbol for the consequences they cannot escape
  • alarming warning for Scrooge that if he does not change he will end up like Marley
• ”but you were always a good man of business, Jacob”

  • comma after ”business“ creates a pause, emulating Scrooges confusion as to why Marley is suffering despite his immense financial and business contributions
  • Scrooge cannot see the world without looking though a monetary lens
• ”the chain he drew was clasped about his middle”

  • marley is a physical and metaphorical for how if making money and materialism is the main purpose to your life, then it will be the main reason for your eternal suffering
• "I am here tonight to warn you...chance and hope of escaping my fate"

  • declarative sentence used is a construct for Marleys to voice the message that Dickens has of a wider upper class
  • "chance" "hope" and "escaping" have connotations of redemption and salvation which indoctrinate the Christian value which the novella is built upon