A Christmas Carol Transformation Quotes Page 1
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| Quote #1 Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. 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. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. (1.7-8) |
Well, when you put it that way, even Scrooge himself has some supernatural qualities, no? Why is this description so overblown—why not describe Scrooge as a nasty old man, instead of the very personification of coldness? And pardon Shmoop, while we go crawl back under our snuggie.
| Quote #2 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. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. (1.67) |
See, Dickens, capitalism ain't all that bad. As long as everyone's in a good mood, at least. Here, the cruel coldness of economics gives way to the jolly good fun of everyone's favorite pastime: shopping. But not for Scrooge—his business doesn't produce anything jolly good, so he can never rise above the cold hard facts of buying and selling.
| Quote #3 It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. (2.20) |
You know what? We'd argue that surreal and hallucinogenic images like this one make this work actually unfilmable—or at least unfilmable in a way that stays true to the original. So stop trying, Hallmark Channel!
