Stave 1 Flashcards
(18 cards)
‘secret, and self-contained and solitary as an oyster’
- pearl within him is the capacity of him to change
- sibilance emphasising sharp and unforgiving nature
‘had and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire’
- metaphor for how he has never been moved to generosity
- motif of fire again
- fire symbolising generosity and compassion
- lacks empathy and warmth
- ‘sharp’ implying pain inflicted on others- no mercy shown
‘to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave’
- everyone shares something in common
- common responsibility as a human to care for each other
‘if they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population’
- malthusian ideas at time
- unsympathetic ideas at time
- haunts scrooge throughout the novella
- doesn’t see how this directly affects people (later visits tiny Tims death)
‘a time of year for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer’
- measures everything in financial gain and figures
- no regard for human connection or joyfulness
‘no warmth could warm’
- reflects his inability to change
‘squeezing wrenching grasping scraping clutching covetous old sinner’
- extreme desperation that scrooge will go to hold every penny
- microcosm of upper class treatment towards lower classes
- asyndetic listing converts overwhelming abundance of negative qualities
‘Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern’
- repetition of melancholy
- loneliness and isolation
- parallel to stave 5 remotion of dinner at Freds as ‘wonderful’
‘cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrieked his cheek’
- his lack of human warmth has a corrosive affect on him infecting his body
- symbolism of cold as lack of generosity and compassion having an active affect on his body
‘a small fire but the clerks fire was so very much smaller’
- miserly nature
- typical wealthy miser
- microcosm for rich
- antithesis for fezziwig
‘the treadmill and poor law are in full vigour?’
- cynical and dismissive response to charity workers
- no concern for others welfare
- selfish
- unsympathetic attitude
‘I wear the chain I forged in life’
- powerful metaphor of consequences of actions
- particularly those who are driven by greed and lack of compassion
‘but you were always a good man of business Jacob’
- scrooge measures everything in figures and numbers
- no regard for human emotions and generosity and compassion
‘I am here to warm you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate’
- catalyst for change
- start of metamorphosis
‘I made it link by link and yard by yard’
- repetition shows each action lead to his fate
- spent his time in the pursuit of wealth rather than doing good for his fellow human beings
- His actions forged an invisible chain meant to bind his soul to the earth, and the greedier he became, the longer and heavier the chain grew
‘meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened’
- lack of moral visibility
‘his face was all in a glow; his face ruddy and handsome’
- radiates heat and warmth
- his goodness radiates, touches those around him
- antithesis of scrooges ‘own low temp.’
‘darkness is cheap and scrooge liked that’
- miserly character
- adds to gothic atmosphere of his house
- links to victorian interest in gothic literature at the time (popular genre)
- fitting for ghost story
