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A Christmas Carol Themes Analysis
A detailed grade 9 analysis of themes within GCSE text 'A Christmas Carol'. Includes all relevant themes and varied characters.
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A Christmas Carol Quote AnalysisScrooge and Greed
‘a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, covetous old sinner’
Repetition of action verbs in an asyndetic list emphasises just how much Scrooge
wants to extract worth from others. Uses harsh vocabulary in order to present
Scrooge’s greed and influence the reader to dislike him. Scrooge is averse to
charity, demonstrating him as a ‘sinner’ as he possesses one of the seven
deadly sins, and also has broken one of the 10 commandments as he is
‘covetous’.
Scrooge represents the attitude of the wealthy in Victorian times. He believes the
poor should die to ‘decrease the surplus population’ – a view pioneered by
Thomas Malthus, who was an economist who believed that poverty was a natural
product of population growth and there was nothing that could be done to help
the situation.
Scrooge and Greed
‘a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone’
Metaphor for how Scrooge is a miser and a stingy employer who loathes
spending his money and is extremely ungenerous. Scrooge is presented this way
as to influence the Victorian readers to dislike Scrooge in an attempt to stop the
rich from emulating his actions, as they do not want to be a self-centred and
uncharitable person.
‘the grindstone’ is a metaphor descripting hard, unpleasant, and mundane
work. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is shown to make others, like Bob Cratchit
work intensely whilst paying them meagre wages.
Scrooge and Greed
‘I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the
master-passion, Gain, engrosses you’
‘nobler aspirations’ indicates how Scrooge used to aim to help others, but his
desperation to escape poverty started the ‘fall off’ of his goals. Verb of ‘fall’
and ‘one by one’ emphasises the slow avaricious descent – which suggests
Belle’s disappointment. ‘Master-passion’ implies Scrooge is controlled by
greed, and his ambitions have made him selfish.
The capitalisation of ‘Gain’ emphasises the important of material assets to
Scrooge, and ‘engrosses’ further demonstrates how consuming it is.
Marley and Greed
‘I wear the chains I forged in life’
, Dickens uses the imagery of supernatural chains as a metaphor for mental
imprisonment and torture in the afterlife as a consequence of being a miser and
succumbing to greed. Scrooge observes Marley’s chain is made of ‘cashboxes,
keys, padlocks, and ledgers’, which is an asyndetic list used as a metaphor
for Marley’s sins. Dickens uses the symbolism to warn Scrooge, and the readers,
that your sins in life will be shackled to you for eternity.
Scrooge and Loneliness
‘secret, and self-contained, and as solitary as an oyster’
Simile to present the initial characterisation of Scrooge as isolated, oysters have
a hard exterior, which implies how Scrooge is shut off from the world. Scrooge
lacks love, family, and a sense of community. An alternative interpretation is that
oysters can contain pearls, which could represent how there is a possibility of
redemption for Scrooge.
Sibilance makes the description more vivid to the reader, and makes a hissing
sound like a snake, which could link to the garden of Eden, and how Eve was
tempted by the Snake, which represents how Scrooge is tempted by wealth.
Scrooge and Loneliness
‘the fog and frost to hung about the black old gateway of the
house
In Stave 1, Dickens describes the melancholy atmosphere that lingers around
Scrooge’s home. Pathetic fallacy is used here to associate Scrooge’s house with
misery to show how his vision of humanity is distorted and blurred. The verb
‘hung’ personifies the weather as miserable and depressed as it is fated into
lurking around Scrooge’s joyless home, strangling any sense of happiness and
light. The fog also adds a supernatural element to prepare the reader for
Marley’s arrival. The adjective ‘black’ reinforces the sense that old-fashioned
Scrooge is living in ignorance by shutting himself away from society.
Scrooge is presented as a caricature of isolation and greed to make his
transformation more miraculous and prove anyone can change.
Scrooge and Loneliness
‘a solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still’
Adjective ‘solitary’ mirrors Stave 1’s ‘as solitary as an oyster’ and shows
Scrooge’s isolation in the past, perhaps influencing the reader to become
sympathetic for Scrooge. Verb ‘neglected’ is harsh and negative, showing how,
as a child, Scrooge was ignored by his friends and peers. ‘Still’ implies ongoing
sadness, so Scrooge’s isolation as a child could be a motive for becoming
miserly.
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