christmas carol

• "i wear the chain i forged in life...i made it link by link and of my own free will i wore it" - Marley

  
  

  • i - taking responsibility and admitting actions
  • forged - behaviour in life led to punishment in death
  • link by link - many selfish acts, multiple times
  • free will - chose to wear and haunted by bad choices, regretful
• "hard and sharp as flint...as solitary as an oyster" - Scrooge

  • hard - scrooge's outer shell doesn't let people in
  • sharp - his personality as people shouldn't get too close - danger of getting hurt
  • flint - grey, old stone like scrooge
  • simile - scrooge is lonely and isolated, lifeless and cold
  • oyster - precious pearl inside, foreshadowing sense of hope
• "they were not a handsome; they were not well dressed; their shoes far from waterproof...but they were happy, grateful, pleased and contented with the time" - Cratchits

  • were not - repetition of structure building a picture of a poor family
  • well dressed - semantic field of poor appearance - scrooge assumes poor are idle
  • but - structural parallelism
  • happy - educating victorians idle not poor
  • contented - satisfied with what they have & money doesn't determine happiness
• "he bore a little crutch and had a his limbs supported by an iron frame" - Tiny Tim

  
  

  • bore - sympathetic towards Tim: symbolic of surplus population
  • crutch - metaphor for poor needing support from rich
  • supported - reinforces victorian society
• "spirit of tiny tim, thy childish essence of God" - Tiny Tim
• "are there no prisons? are there no workhouses? if they would rather die, they'd better do it and decrease the surplus population" - Scrooge
• "the chain...was clasped about his middle...it was made of cashboxes, keys, padlocks and heavy purses" - Scrooge

  • chain - lack of freedom, consequences of life he lived
  • clasped - held on to money tightly, chains hold him as punishment
  • asyndetic listing - reinforces weight of chains
• "the phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached" - GOCYTC
• "its mysterious presence filled him with solemn dread" - GOCYTC
• "laughed all over himself...organ of benevolence" - Fezziwig
• "is that a foot or a claw?...from the folding of its robe it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful" - ignorance and want

  • lack of knowledge and education
• "yellow, meagre, ragged, wolfish; but prostate too in their humility" - ignorance and want

  • prostate - means lying down, metaphorically lying down due to low opinions of themselves
• a christmas carol is an allegorical novel
• "i am as light as a feather, as happy as an angel, as merry as a school boy. a merry Christmas to everybody" - Scrooge
• "another idol has displaced me...a golden one" - Belle
• utilitarianism - benefit majority, Dickens saw as immoral
• poor law = workhouses - bad conditions & Dickens split up from family
• • worship of wealth
  • belief in redemption for all
  • addressing issue of social injustice
  • rich's responsibility to help poor
• "the spirits of all three shall thrive within me" - Scrooge
• scrooge is parsimonious (selfish)
• plight of the poor
• Dickens uses conceit of cold to exacerbate Scrooge's internal apathetic nature
• ostracise = isolates himself
• Scrooge has a transformation - metamorphisis