BELLE

character summary

• belle, scrooge’s former fiancée, is introduced to the reader in stave 2 of the novella.

• the ghost of christmas past takes scrooge to see the final moments of his relationship with her

• her character is used to show the effects scrooge’s fixation with money. she refers to their relationship as an ‘unprofitable dream’, illustrating scrooge’s obsession with the financial gain of his relationships

key quotes

“another idol has displaced me ….. a golden one”

• the word ‘idol’ is an interesting choice from dickens due to its connotations. an idol is often associated with a god-like figure that people worship, illustrating the extent of scrooge’s fixations with money

“can even i believe you would choose a dowerless girl”

• dickens uses a lexical field of money and gain during his description of scrooge and belle, exemplified here by the adjective ‘dowerless’. this is significant as t shows scrooge’s misanthropic and miserly attitude. it shows the reader that scrooge does not hold any meaningful relationships with people as he looks at things through a financial viewpoint

Belle is presented as a virtuous and earnest character and is contrasted to scrooge:

• she represents the contented life that scrooge could have had and underscores the corrosive consequences of greed