A Christmas Carol Flashcards
Narrator
‘He was solitary…’
‘He was solitary as an oyster’
-Like an oyster he keeps himself to himself, hidden beneath a hard shell that he uses to protect himself from the world
-Inside that shell, the oyster is soft and vulnerable
-Given time an oyster produces one of natures greatest changes, a pearl from sand
-Scrooge has great potential and Dickens reminds us of this from the start
Narrator
‘He was as…’
‘He was as hard and sharp as flint’
-Hard things are unbending, stubborn and become easily stuck in a single purpose
-He isn’t flexible or capable of change
-The sharpness also suggests he is dangerous and can hurt you if you get too close, or handle him without care
-Someone who is sharp is also art, quick witted and intelligent and this is something scrooge is also
-Flint is an interesting comparison, it is a rock which is cold and tough but also quite useful to ancient societies who used it to make hunting weapons, again, it is a reference to scrooge being dangerous
Marley
‘I wear the…’
‘I wear the chain I forged in life’
-Marley wears the chain he made
-No-one forced him to be who he was, he did it to himself
-The verb ‘forged’ for example refers to something crafted, intentionally
-He ‘chained’ himself during life - he actually worked hard to create the chain that now imprisons him
-Marley is physically trapped by the things he allowed to take over his life
-Scrooge is going to be in the same boat: he chained himself with money during this life and his existence after death will be marked in the same way, if not worse
Scrooge
‘The poor should…’
‘The poor should die if they want to, as it would decrease the surplus population’
-The most ruthless of all Scrooge’s sayings
-The poor people who don’t want to go to the workhouses should just hurry up and die
-He is referencing a famous essay, by Thomas Malthus who argued the same point, that there was a surplus
-Again, scrooge is being very harsh here, but the readers would’ve most likely secretly agreed with scrooge, making his change more prevalent to themselves
Scrooge + Fred
‘What right have you…’
‘What reason have you to be…’
‘What right have you to be dismal? You’re rich enough’
‘What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough’
-A brief exchange between Fred and Scrooge, we can see how different their perceptions of the relationship between happiness and poverty is
-Scrooge cannot see how anyone can be happy unless they’re rich enough while Fred can’t see how someone with Scrooge’s wealth be dismal
-The reason is that Scrooge’s wealth is not making happy, and Fred as he reveals in Stave 3, ‘pities’ him for it
Marley
‘If that spirit…’
‘If that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death’
-Jacob Marley confirms Dickens’ fictional theory for what happens after death: if we do not ravel amongst people during life, we are condemned to do soonce we’ve died, neither Marley nor Dickens elaborates on who actually ‘condemns’ us, but the idea is simple: Dickens believed that humans were deeply social creatures, as though socialising was as important to us as food or water, and that if we didn’t share our experience hen something within us died
-At the heart of this book is Dickens encouragement that we all share our world, and that we’’ enjoy ourselves much more if we do
Narrator
‘Scrooge wept…’
‘Scrooge wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be’
-It is one of the first time scrooge shows real emotion, the walls of his cage are beginning to come dpwm, but he first feels emotion for himself
-It makes us question: did scrooge first feel sympathy for himself because he’s innately selfish and learns to feel for others only by learning to feel for himself or does he feel this way because before we can learn to love others, we have to learn to love ourselves
-The other interesting thing is that he is described as ‘poor’ and ‘forgotten’, these two features are crucial because you got the feeling that somehow represents everything scrooge fears, poverty and ignominy
-Scrooge is afraid of being poor and forgotten, by the end of the book, he has managed to avoid being poor ever again, but when he sees the final ghost he is forced to face the fact that he will be forgotten and his grave ‘neglected’
Scrooge
‘I should…’
‘I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now’
-After re-living the fun at Fezziwig’s, Scrooge reflects that he would like to speak to Bob Cratchit, and perhaps do something similar for him
-The use of ‘able’, is interesting as he is remembering his past and so he isn’t able to change any of the things he is seeing but he is able to speak to Bob the next time he speaks to him
-The word reminds us of the difference between the things we can change and the things we can’t, this is central to Scrooge’s eventual lesson
Belle
‘You fear…’
‘You fear the world too much’ She answered gently
-Belle claims that Scrooge ‘fears’ the world ‘too much’
-She accepts that there are things to fear in the world - though fear is a very strong word to use in any circumstances
-She accepts that there are things to fear but he fears ‘too much’
-His terror of poverty is turning him into a monster and she advises him against it
-Like other characters, she tells him with good grace and patience
-She doesn’t rage at him, or scream, or shout, she defeats his selfishness with and compassion and speaks to him ‘gently’ almost like a patient parent talking to a child
Bob Cratchit
‘Tiny Tim…’
‘Tiny Tim is as good as gold - and better’
-Tiny Tim is described as ‘good as gold’ a phrase that has now become an idiom for describing a nice child, here, the language is defiantly loaded with references to Scrooge’s understanding of gold
-Bob is saying that the happiness Tim brings, is more important than Gold - he is better than gold, because he is a good person
Ghost of Christmas Present
‘The boy…’
‘The boy is ignorance. The girl is want.’
-Dickens highlights what he feels ate the two biggest ills in society - Ignorance of the problem, and the fact many children are in need of the bare necessities
-The spirit doesn’t just say that the children are poor and need help, he turns their presence into an almost apocalyptic warning
-The writing on the boys brow is a reference to the Biblical Revelations on their bodies
-Also the strange syntax of ‘I see written that which is Doom’ echoes the writing of revelations in the King James Bible, regardless, Dickens is saying that unless ignorance is erased - unless people wake up to, and understand what is happening around them - then humanity is doomed
Fred
‘I mean…’
‘I mean to give him the same chance every year, for I pity him’
-Fred embodies Dickens’s belief that families should always be there for each other
-Fred insists that he will give scrooge the same chance - the change of redemption - each year
-Scrooge can rant and rave all he likes, but Fred will e there, with open arms, offering him the chance to save himself
-Freed does this due to his ‘pity’ for scrooge, who is wild, as Fred if feeling sorry for the richest, most selfish person; a man so selfish his name has come to mean horrible and selfish
-Dickens wants to make something clear: he didn’t;t believe that people like scrooge were evil, instead, misguided or reacting badly to being hurt
-This makes us question ‘do bad people behave badly because they’re evil or because they’re damaged
-This question is important for anyone who wants to fix the problems in society, rather than complain about them
-Do people who behave badly need to be punished or supported?
The two bankers
‘It’s likely…’
‘It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral’
-The two bankers are discussing the death of someone, although we know it’s scrooge, Scrooge refuses to see that
-They mention that it is likely to be a very ‘cheap’ funeral, obviously gig at the fact that despite Scrooge’s wealth no-one feels the need to remember him with anything lavish
-It is interesting to link this back to the fact that Stave One tells us that Scrooge likes darkness ‘because it is cheap’
-Scrooge likes cheap things, because they’re cheap
-I think there is also somethings telling that Scrooge didn’t organise his funeral, due to him being able to spend a fortune on it
-This is because he never faced the fact he would die, and this is why he didn’t celebrate his life more passionately
-There is a case for saying that the Scrooge we met at the beginning would want a cheap funeral, and in fact the new Scrooge would have been happier donating his money to a charity rather than spending it on an expensive coffin for him to rot in
Scrooge
‘I hope to…’
‘I hope to live to be a better man from what I was’
-Scrooge hasn’t changed yet, but he has taken the most important step, he hopes to be a better man
-This humility is not something from pre-Scrooge who was set in his ways and incapable of showing anything like insecurity
-The old Scrooge wouldn’t have tried anything he didn’t already know he was good at, this one can have ‘jones’ because hopes are things you think might not happen, but might
-Until we can accept that we might fail at something, we can’t achieve anything new and we don’t have the right to hope or dream of anything
-At this point, Scrooge may be hoping to become a better man than he once was
Scrooge
‘I will honour…’
‘I will honour Christmas in my heart, and keep it all the year’
-Scrooge has decided to keep Christmas all year, but not that he will drape holly and ivy over his door, it’s that Christmas is a set of Christian ideals: kindness, forgiveness, compassion, charity and joy
-Things that Scrooge will honour, respect and venerate’
