Quote 1
"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!" (1.65)
Here, Scrooge is more like Dickens's later creations, Mr. Podsnad (from Our Mutual Friend) or Mrs. General (from Little Dorrit)—characters who want to enclose and isolate the unpleasant from their sight because it's just too pesky to deal with.
Quote 2
"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the corner?" Scrooge inquired.
"I should hope I did," replied the lad.
"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there?—Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?"
"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.
"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!" (5.19-23)
So, are we thinking that the strange third-person asides here—"a remarkable boy!", "it's a pleasure to talk to him"—are the result of Scrooge having forgotten how to speak to other humans? Like, his isolation has literally rendered him unable to have a normal conversation, so he just keeps exclaiming things to his face?
Quote 3
"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your salary!"
[…]
"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!" (5.67-69)
So, there we go—Scrooge is completely recovered. How do we know? Because he is now willing to actually touch another human being. Check out how odd it sounds to see Scrooge poking Bob in the ribs and "clapping him on the back." That's how alien he used to be.
Quote 4
"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"
[…]
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. (3.137,142)
So clearly we are supposed to be far more interested in the allegorical nature of what is happening here—that these kids are symbols of Want and Ignorance, and that humans should work to prevent them from happening or whatever, but we can't help but think that the wildly disturbing imagery of a rapidly aging male ghost giving birth to twins while standing up… well, it really overshadows the allegory a bit, no?
Quote 5
"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!" (4.160)
Finally. Scrooge acknowledges the internal transformation that has taken place. And we can all go grab some cider.
Quote 6
"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam." (1.44)
Okay, so first of all, a quick Shmoop FYI: Bedlam is the famous London hospital for the insane. Now that we've got that tidbit out of the way, we'll point out that Scrooge is unable to reconcile the idea of someone having positive emotions and at the same time being financially insecure—the very thought of mixing these two things seems crazy—Bedlam-worthy.
Quote 7
"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there they go!" […]
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.
"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island." (2.57-59)
The fact that little Ebenezer reads fantasy fiction rather than history or biography as a child is meant to be a tip-off about his eventual transformation, don't you think? If he was willing to buy into it then, he'll probably be able to buy into it again really soon.
Quote 8
"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. "There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!" (5.8)
Look how far away from rationality and logic we've come—Scrooge's proof of the reality of the experience is the fact that… everything is back to the way that it was in his house. Think about every movie that has the protagonist waking up from a dream only to find some element of that dream actually exists in waking life, and now compare that to this, where nothing of the ghosts remains. What in the world are we supposed to do with that?
Quote 9
It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.
"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town," said Scrooge. "You must have a cab." (5.32-33)
Scrooge's powers of logic are now entirely bent in the service and economic benefit of others. Check out how instead of shrugging his shoulder at the difficulties faced by others (as he had when he said that the poor should be satisfied with jail, the workhouse, or death), now he uses his resources to solve the logistical problems in front of him. Would this kind of thinking work on a larger scale though?
Quote 10
"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?" (1.131-132)
Notice how important it is that the chain isn't something that is imposed on bad people in the afterlife, but is instead created with "free will." In other words, be nice, dear Shmoopers, or you'll wear chains forever.
Quote 11
"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
(1.148-149)
Again, Marley's poor choices in life are haunting him in death. Look at the sarcastic repetition of the word "business" in combination with all the unbusinesslike things that Marley should be been involved with. That kind of word repetition is a delicious Dickensian specialty.
Quote 12
"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: "but it's too late now."
"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.
"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that's all." (2.61-63)
Scrooge begins to rethink his past choices. Sure, this is a pretty small one, but hey, it's a start.
Quote 13
"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune." (2.102)
Scrooge suddenly gets clocked by an Undercover Boss revelation. Who knew that as the boss of a business, he sets the tone for the employees? Again, check out how much the language stresses the completely free will of each manager to make the workplace "happy or unhappy", "light or burdensome."
Quote 14
"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!" (4.151-153)
Scrooge freaks out that everything might be determined by fate rather than free will. Seriously, Ghosties, why show him these things if he has no power over them? No fair. And in general the novel's idea is that there is no reason to feel guilty or question decisions unless you have free will. Otherwise the outcome of your choices is meaningless.
Quote 15
"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how." (4.141)
Scrooge is now operating on ghost time. Sweet.
Quote 16
"I don't know what day of the month it is!" said Scrooge. "I don't know how long I've been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!"
He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious! (5.10-11)
And those bells from the church bring us back full circle. Don't forget that the visitations of the ghosts were also announced by the ringing of bells, too. We've gone from supernatural bells to real world ones, as the narration yet again counts the moments of time that pass.
Quote 17
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.
"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge. (1.36-37)
It's never really all that well explained why Fred wants to have anything to do with Scrooge, right? But then again the very lack of explanation—the idea that "well, he's family"—is pretty powerful in its own right.
Quote 18
"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared."
"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. (3.72-74)
Nice. The Ghost of Christmas Present really makes short work of Scrooge by quoting him back to himself. And in general, the idea of combating the urge to wave away anonymous crowds of the needy (like Scrooge does) by putting an individual face on the problem (like Tiny Tim) is a pretty old one—and it's still being used today. Just check out those regular joes who get invited to the State of the Union address every year—each of them functions as a face to put with an abstract concept each President is trying to promote.