A Christmas Carol Quotes

Misanthropic Scrooge without redemption

• ‘as solitary as an oyster’

• ‘covetous old sinner’

• ‘iced his coffee’

• fire ‘looked like one coal’

• ‘edge…the crowded paths of life’

• ‘die…reduce the surplus population’

• ‘golden’ ‘idol’

• ‘solitary child’

• ‘lonely boy’ ‘neglected by his friends

Philanthropic Scrooge achieves redemption

• ‘long line of brilliant laughs’

• ‘light as a feather’

• ‘merry as a schoolboy’

• ‘happy as an angel’

• ‘second father to Tiny Tim’

• ‘his own heart laughed’

• ‘good a master’ ‘good a man’

• ‘I will honour Christmas in my heart’ ‘knew how to keep christmas well’

Fred- a foil to Scrooge / his antithesis

• ‘all a glow’

• ‘his eyes sparkled’

• ‘ill keep my Christmas humour’

• ‘full of extraordinary kindness’

• ‘will you let me in?’

Fezziweg- the omnibenevolent employer (antithesis of Scrooge)

• warehouse is ‘warm’ and ‘bright’

• ‘has the power to render us happy’

• ‘fuel heaped upon the fire’

• ‘organ of benevolence’

Jacob Marley- Scrooge without redemption- symbol of warning / guilt

• ‘i wear the chains i forged in life’

• ‘my spirit’ never went beyond the

• ‘narrow limits of our money changing hole’

• ‘mankind was my business’

The ghost of Christmas past (symbol of memory- evokes pity for what is lost)

• ‘unearthly visitor’

• ‘strange figure…like a child…like an old man’

• ‘branch of fresh holly in its hand’

• ‘out of its head a bright clear jet of light’

• ‘purest white’

The ghost of Christmas present- an omni-benevolent figure- symbol of Christmas/charity/joy

• ‘a jolly giant’ with a ‘glowing torch’

• in a room of ‘living green’

• gives to ‘a poor one most’

• ‘they are man’s’ ‘ignorance’ and ‘want’

• ‘no sword in it’

The ghost of Christmas yet to come- symbol of death and fear for the future without redemption

• ‘shrouded in deep black garment’

• ‘Scrooge feared the silent shape’

• ‘it seemed to scatter gloom and misery’

• ‘slowly, gravely, silently’

• ‘read upon the neglected grave’

The Cratchits- the symbol of family and the resilient poor ( a challenge to the Victorian view of the poor)

• ‘brave in ribbons’

• ‘twice turned gown’

• ‘a small pudding for a large family’

Bob Cratchit- the symbol of the hard-working poor

• ‘dismal little cell’

• ‘the clerk’s fire so much smaller’

• ‘comforter’ as he ‘boasted no great coat’

• ‘Scrooge, founder of the feast’

• ‘nobody said it was a small pudding’

Belle (symbol of lost love and family)

• ‘another idol has replaced me’ ‘a golden one’

• you ‘fear the world too much’

• ‘gain engrosses you’

• ‘to bring you home’ ‘she had large heart’

• little fan (saves school as boy- but Scrooge rejects her son)

Isolation

• ‘solitary as an ‘oyster’

• isolation as a gateway ‘solitary child’ ‘happy in the life you have chosen’ ‘golden idol has replaced you’

• ‘solitary lighthouse’

• ‘nobody ever stopped him in the street’

• and then becomes its antithesis ‘a second father to Tiny Tim’ ‘will you let me in Fred?’

Charity

• ‘are there no prisons? are there no workhouses’

• ‘die and reduce the surplus population’

• AFTER REDEMPTION SCROOGE GIVES

• ‘a great many back payments’

• ‘prize turkey’

Poverty

• ‘want’

• ‘a small pudding for a large family’

• ‘feeble fire’

• ‘surplus population’ ‘no prisons, no workhouses’

• ‘they are mans’

• setting- ‘fog and darkness’ ‘misanthropic ice’ ‘obscure’ ‘wretched’

• despite this- ‘air of cheerfulness’ ‘laughed heartily’

Setting

• Start: ‘fog’ ‘cold’ ‘darkness’

• Miners: ‘bleak moor’ ‘desolation’

• ‘gloom of darkest night’

• End: ‘no mist’ ‘no fog’ ‘bright’ ‘golden sunlihgt’

Light and dark (symbols of benevolence v malevolence)

• ‘glowing v ‘fog came pouring in’

Motif of fire- symbol of human warmth and benevolence

• ‘feeble fire’

• ‘fuel heaped upon the fire’

Family- shows importance of family during festive time

• positive- Fred- ‘heated himself in a glow’ compared to ‘external heat and cold had little influence’

• if Scrooge experienced family ‘years ago’ could have ‘cultivated the kindness of life’

• Bob- shows reader family more important than money

• Belle- obsession over money damaged relationships- could have ‘called him father’

materialism + wealth- compassion and kindness are more important

• Fred to Scrooge- ‘no use to him’ ‘do any good with it’

• ‘misery within them’ wanted to ‘intefere for good’ ‘lost power forever’ - Marley about spirits

• ‘cash, boxes, keys, padlocks’- shows negative effects of wealth ‘gain engrosses him’

• positive- Fezziwig ‘own heart laughed’ working conditions cause ‘pleasure’

Tiny Tim- the symbol of the consequences of the Victorian’s lack of compassion and ‘surplus’

• ‘tiny Tim upon his shoulder’

• ‘god bless us, every one’

• ‘my little, little child’

• ‘second father’

• ‘as good as gold’

• ‘who made lame beggars walk’

Redemption

• initially unchanging ‘covetous old sinner’

• foreshadows change ‘solitary as an oyster’

• ‘external heat and cold had little effect on Scrooge’

• change- ‘quite a baby’ ‘good intentions’ ‘long line of brilliant laughs’

• weather- ‘cold, bleak, biting weather’ to ‘golden sunlight’

• ‘cold within him’

Morality

• being good and kind is change in behaviour ‘good a friend, as good a master and as good a man’

• Marley shows consequences of immorality, GOCYTC shows effects of not being moral

• ‘spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death’

• ‘phantoms wander hither in restless haste’

Regret- show how we can use regret to create actions to change our ways

• thematic tool to initiate positive emotion ‘leave me, take me back’ ‘golden idol has replaced you’

• ‘overcome with penitence and grief’

• ‘may sponge away the writing on this stone’

• ‘no space of regret can make amends for ones life of opportunity missed’

Marley- a deterrent for repercussions of Scrooge, catalyst for Scrooge’s change

• ‘I wear the chains I forged in life’

• ‘incessant torture of remorse’

• ‘mankind was my business’

• ‘long and wound around him like a tail’