Theme and Quotes for Isolation

• Themes in A Christmas Carol


  • Loneliness and isolation
  • Use of time
• Scrooge rejects offer from Fred to spend Christmas with his family


  Returns to his cold house all on his own
• Scrooge chooses his own isolation
• Scrooge: '"It's enough for a man to understand his own business and not to fear with other people interfere with other people's"'
• Scrooge has isolated himself


  Not that others have constantly pushed him away
• Fred is determined to invite Scrooge to Christmas dinner every year even if Scrooge refuses</b>
• Scrooge meets the ghost of Christmas past


  Taken back to his childhood and days at school when he was a lonely child
• Scrooge's memory of his lonely childhood does affect him emotionally
• As the novella progresses


  Scrooge learns that love and compassion rather than money brings people happiness
• Self-inflicted loneliness and isolation is not a good thing
• Jacob Marley's visit at the beginning makes the structure clear - the three spirits were told to follow Marley's appearance
• The spirits


  Time travelers who enable Scrooge to be reminded of his past and warned about his possible future
• The pace is increased by the threat of Tiny Tim's death and Scrooge's own death


  If Scrooge doesn't change his ways soon, Tiny Tim will die and Scrooge will die a miserable and lonely man
• The clock strikes to emphasise how little time is left for Scrooge to change
• How time is manipulated by Dickens

  1. Spirits visit at 1am

  2. Scrooge goes to sleep at 2am

  3. Wakes up at midnight again
• Scrooge is initially concerned with time being linked to money


  Learns that time with family and friends is what is most important for a happy life
• as solitary as an oyster: 'Dickens uses this simile to describe Scrooge's lonely and isolated existence, comparing him to an oyster living alone at the bottom of the seabed.'
• scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern: 'The repetition of "melancholy" emphasizes Scrooge's loneliness, and the personification of his meal as "melancholy" shows how miserable his isolated state is, in contrast to the Cratchit family's joyful meals.'
• a solitary child neglected by his friends is left there still: 'This quotation about young Scrooge's lonely childhood at school evokes sympathy for him and suggests his isolation has followed him into adulthood.'
• another idol has displaced me, a golden one: 'Scrooge's former fiancée Bell uses the metaphor of an "idol" to describe how Scrooge's love of money has replaced his love for her, leading to the loss of valuable relationships.'
• who suffers by his ill whims, himself always: 'Scrooge's nephew Fred points out that Scrooge only harms himself through his miserly behavior and isolation, foreshadowing Scrooge's later realizations.'
• he frightened everyone away from him when he was alive to profit us when he was dead: 'Mrs. Dilber's condemnation of Scrooge highlights the irony of how he refused to give to the poor while alive, but now they can profit from his possessions after his death.'
• plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwed, unwept, uncared for was the body of this man: 'The list of adjectives describing Scrooge's body after his death emphasizes his lonely, isolated end, in stark contrast to the mourning of Tiny Tim's family.'
• the noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues: 'The simile comparing the grieving Cratchit family to "statues" after Tiny Tim's death highlights the stark contrast to their earlier joyful Christmas celebration, emphasizing the importance of family and unity.'
• I am as light as a feather: 'This quote from the final stave shows how being kind and generous has lifted the "heavy burden" of Scrooge's miserly existence, emphasizing the joy that comes from overcoming isolation and selfishness.'