Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come

Question 1

“outstretched hand”

Answer 1

1 → hand may be an allusion to the hand of time - Scrooge has little time left to make ammends

2 → helping hand - forgiveness

3 → takes away the semantic field of fear - future is not scaring Scrooge but trying to guide him - same for Victorian Society.

LINK : “You are the spectre I fear the most” - most victorians fear the future, perhaps Dickens is trying to pleasantly scare the reader

Question 2

“shrouded in a deep black garment”

Answer 2

1 → employs gothic symbolism - black garment functions as a grim foreboding - links to funeral garment - scrooge cannot change his actions after he is dead. mementro mori ( death)

2 → mystery of the future - unrevealed and nobody knows what will come - perhaps why it is so scary. Scrooge knows, yet still fears it the most, what is to come is the scariest due to his actions.

LINK → tiny tim death reversed by redemption of Scrooge