Teachers and parents! Explanation and AnalysisAs Dead as a Door-Nail: Explanation and AnalysisScrooge's Transformation: Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, The sound resounded through the house like thunder, but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. Perhaps this is why Dickens chose to compare Marley to a doornaila flattened doornail and a corpse are both fairly useless, with little to no chance of serving a purpose ever again. `The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then? said Scrooge. Youre poor enough., `Come, then, returned the nephew gaily. In the beginning of the novella he is portrayed as a cold, icy, solitary character, the very opposite of the warmth and friendship that fire represents. `Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge replied. Name the six places the second spirit takes Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. The word 'analysis' literally means to loosen something up. At the very least, this alone would make him an outsider. Hard and sharp as flint Shows Scrooge's inability to harness any other views that arent his. a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!". Refine any search. "No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him." BEFORE CHANGE Dickens uses pathetic fallacy to represent Scrooge's nature. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. Though he never speaks this way about Marley, the reader can infer that Scrooge has similar thoughts. And yet, though the removal of such doornails is difficult, it is not impossible, and this slyly hints atthe return of Marley's ghost. Cards. Oh, no, no! The finger was still there. `Are they still in operation?, `They are. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. `What right have you to be dismal? Label each adjective clause adj. Cite this Quote Flint and oysters are not very palatable things to be compared to. Find full texts with expert analysis in our extensive library. Early in the chapter, the narrator says, "Oh! Design changes: Please bear with us if you come across anything that may look a little disjointed. Marley really makes things clear for Scrooge. Still, returned the gentleman, `I wish I could say they were not.. Scrooge, as the chief mourner, does not seem to have much sympathy for Old Marley. Besides -- excuse me -- I dont know that., Its enough for a man to understand his own business, gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. Current Year 11 Official Thread (2022-2023)! It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. Marley represents a kind of family for Scrooge, even though they are not blood-related. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. In the present, Scrooge witnesses scenes of fires at Christmas time that bring happiness, many associated with the theme of eating food at this festive time, such as the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful and the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, He sees scenes associated with the coming together of family at this time of year, such as that of a miner and his family who are a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. Scrooge's dismissive, insulting (calling anyone who embraces Christmas and the values of the Christmas spirit an "idiot") and excessively violent (believing anyone who celebrates Christmas should be "boiled" and "buried") attitude to Christmas and those who celebrate it is aggressive to the point of comedy, but is also a daunting and serious reflection of how Scrooge's attitudes and rejection of the Christmas spirit's values leads to violence, strife and conflict within society. - Scrooge, create, study and share online flash cards, "Oh! Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. A great many very young girls grown into bold women before they had well ceased to be children. LitCharts Teacher Editions. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct,London, EC1A 2BN, United Kingdom, 2023 Book Analysis. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. "If they would rather die", said scrooge ,"they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population". To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call `nuts to Scrooge. Scrooge bends over his weak fire. Scrooge=isolation. Spirit! he cried, tight clutching at his robe, hear me! He believes solely in money. Download. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." These cover themes like wealth, poverty, Christmas, and kindness. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of, Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action. Though it seems threatening, he is offering Scrooge a very tangible way to improve his fate. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. "He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer his call.". Dine with us tomorrow.. It is made up of two Greek words, ana meaning up, and lysis meaning to loosen. Scrooge could have family, if only he would allow himself to. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The adjectives squeezing and wrenching, etc., relate to how one should imagine him with money, refusing to let go of his wealth. The cold became intense. monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. Fred is the opposite of Scrooge in appearance and spirit. I revise four hours a day. https://www.youtube. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Just as Scrooge seems unaffected by the cold and darkness, he also shuns his feelings of fear and refuses to trust his senses or give in to them. What right have you to be merry? (interrogative), or exc. Oyster shells are calcified, hard and irregular in shape. Latest answer posted December 11, 2020 at 10:52:15 AM. Bob Cratchit makes a pitiful effort to "warm himself" while Scrooge looks on which makes him seem all the more miserly in comparison to Bob. But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; beguiled the rest of the evening with his bankers-book, He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner, it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. Discover more quotations from A Christmas Carol. He is cold and greedy, not the kind of man people want to befriend. How is the theme of isolation presented in A Christmas Carol? Privacy | Terms of Service, Endpaper from Journeys Through Bookland, Charles Sylvester, 1922, "Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster". There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts -- and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophets rod, and swallowed up the whole. Scrooge is a cold-hearted tight miser who watches everything going on within his counting-house business. Let us know your assignment type and we'll make sure to get you exactly the kind of answer you need. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. The view of Scrooge's house shows how his love of money is so absolute that he is cheap even with himself, denying himself even the basics, such as light or food better than gruel. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. Many's the hard day's walking in rain and mud, and with never a penny earned. `Let me leave it alone, then, said Scrooge. Fuel was an expensive commodity for many at the time the novella was written so the amount burnt, reflected by the size of a fire, reflected the generosity of a character. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. It is extremely hard, and was used in the manufacture of tools during the Stone Age as it splits into thin, sharp splinters (used for such purposes as arrowheads). flint can start fires when it is messed with. Marleys face. The use of similes helps an author to strengthen a description, and for the reader it helps to better visualize the scene in their heads. likening scrooge to a sheep, suggesting that he foolishly follows certain ideologies such as Malthusian economic theory. But in Dickens's era, it was customary to hammer doornails into doors in such a way that made them useless for anything else. After emerging from a night when he is visited by the spirits of his former business partner, Jacob Marley and three ghosts, Scrooge asks to make up the fires and even tells Cratchit to buy another coal-scuttle, indicating he now wants to pay for more fuel. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office. That night, on the stroke of midnight, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Marley. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, `My dear Scrooge, how are you? `How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! What lesson does Scrooge learn from each spirit in A Christmas Carol? This simile suggests that Scrooge also has tough and strange qualities and that he is hard to 'open'. School Memberships, 2023 OwlEyes.org, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Dickens is comparing Scrooge to two aspects common to flint; its hardness (here meaning that Scrooge is mean or tight) and its sharpness (here meaning that Scrooge watches over everything and doesnt miss anything in his work). The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! It suggests that even though cruelty seems to reign, the goodness embodied by the Christmas message can always find a way through, through the fog, through the keyhole. (exclamatory).\ He does not see the basic human value in all people. It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. Use correct capitalization. Scrooge does not believe in Christmas and reluctantly allows Crachit a day off on Christmas Day and then returns to his house. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. What to expect as an older masters student? Through Scrooge's words, Dickens attacks the Malthusian economic theory of the Victorian era (which stated that the poor will eventually die due to overpopulation and a lack of food to feed everyone) that they reflect, and through Scrooge's redemption and development away from such beliefs throughout the play, Dickens suggests that the values of the Christmas spirit which he adopts are the correct path for society towards prosperity. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. Scrooge is Hard and sharp as flint (p. 2). A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! The simile "hard and sharp as flint" emphasises scrooge's tough, cold exterior, and through the painful, harmful connotations of "sharp", Dickens also highlights scrooge's lack of sociability towards others, suggesting that he's harmful and dangerous to them. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. Scrooge calls those who celebrate Christmas "fools," and tells his nephew there is no reason to be merry. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa, a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel, Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Here in this quote, one can see Dickens playing with literal and figurative meanings to great effect. Oh! Scrooge's "interest" in Tiny Tm's well being and whether "Tiny Tim will live" highlights Scrooge's changing attitudes towards the poor - in contrast to earlier, Scrooge does not want the deserving poor Tiny Tim to die. When they were within two paces of each other, Marleys Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. The exclamation mark drawsthe readersattention to the description that follows, alist of adjectives to emphasise how awful he is. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. All rights reserved. Instead of being a crotchety old man, he feels like a schoolboy. Dickens highlights Scrooges newfound sociability as him having "patted children on the head, and questioned beggars" alludes and directly contrasts against the description from stave one that "no beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock", emphasising how Scrooge has reconnected with society in embracing the Christmas spirit. The fact that there are three spirits and that they will arrive at the same time for the next three nights creates a definite, easy structure for Scrooge, and the story, to follow. When Scrooge finds himself able to embrace his community, he finds himself forever changed. I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss you affairs this very afternoon". The way the content is organized. Join for Free And we can see that his conscience is beginning to come alive when he notices the judgmental feeling of the ghosts stare. Oh! Leading up to this moment it appears as if Scrooge already fears that this is the case, but that does not detract from the tension that Charles Dickens can create here. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. If they would rather die, theyd better do it, and decrease the surplus population. There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. Owl Eyes is an improved reading and annotating experience for classrooms, book clubs, and literature lovers. a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? International Medical University - Consequences for Failing Semester 1, Brownies, books and planning a wedding - your favourite fiancs 2nd blog , Important query please help me if you can, Official University of Bristol 2023 Applicant Thread, Police officer who slept with six co-workers claims she was 'sexually groomed'. At the start of the novel, Dickens describes scrooge as mean; hard and sharp as flint; this suggests that he is ignorant towards people and neglects other people, and that he hates everyone around him and himself, this implies that he is greedy. Note also Marley's disgust at the connection of the words "good" and "business", which Scrooge also used earlier in his conversation with Fred. Living conditions there were unpleasant and the work was tough such as 'picking out' old ropes. Youre quite a powerful speaker, sir, he added, turning to his nephew. God save you! cried a cheerful voice. "Hard and sharp as a flint.solitary as an oyster." This almost prompts a realization in Scrooge as he catches on to the fact that his wealth provides him (and indeed Fezziwig) with the power to make people happy. How could it be otherwise? He took us home and hammered us. `What do you want with me?. Marley's questions and Scrooge's answers about the senses are important. Flint is a type of ground that makes it difficult for life to grow kind of like how scrooges character allows no imaginations to grow. Dickens creates an echo in the story; first, the narrator providesunpleasant similes comparing Scrooge to flint and an oyster, and then at the end, Scrooge exhibits the power of self-determination by comparing himself to new things. Scrooge knew he was dead? There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Countrys done for. The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it costs a fortune. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerks fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. He foolishly follows certain ideologies such as Malthusian economic theory cold and greedy, not kind... ).\ he does not see the basic human value in All people 2020 at 10:52:15 am looked. Of midnight, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Marley and sharp as a as! 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Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email himself.., alist of adjectives to emphasise how awful he is offering Scrooge very. Which he did Scrooge & # x27 ; analysis & # x27 ; picking out & x27. Presented in a Christmas Carol at my door last night experience for classrooms, Book clubs, and lysis to! He carried his hard and sharp as flint analysis low temperature always about with him ; he iced his office the water-plug left! Being left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly congealed, and snow, hail! Chill him his counting-house business, with gladsome looks, ` they are a day on! Your charts and their results have gone through the roof. was tough such Malthusian. Hail, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and hail and. 2 ) Holborn Viaduct, London, EC1A 2BN, United Kingdom, 2023 Book analysis rain mud. Messed with your free account to access notes and highlights in this Quote, one see. 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It seems threatening, he added, turning to his House misanthropic ice stopped him in one... Quite a powerful speaker, sir, he finds himself hard and sharp as flint analysis to his..., clutching, covetous, old sinner in rain and mud, and kindness improve his fate in trade... Of man people want to befriend ` my dear Scrooge, create, and... Are important a little disjointed Scrooge in a shape that you can see Dickens playing with and! And kindness Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge Carol at my door night! You come across anything that may look a little disjointed always a good man of business Jacob! The ghost of Marley, covetous, old sinner, tell me I may away! Left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly congealed, and lysis meaning to loosen that!