I am going to describe my first impressions of Scrooge and explain how Dickens uses language to present him.

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 Katie Rourke                                                                                            Tuesday 22nd September 2009

Scrooge Coursework

For my English coursework, I am going to describe my first impressions of scrooge and explain how Dickens uses language to present him.

 First of all, Scrooge was described as a ‘tight-fisted at the grindstone,’ this suggests that Scrooge was tight with his money, and didn’t let people push him over when it came to wanting money. Dickens described Scrooge’s appearance with powerful adjectives, an example of this was ‘nipped his pointy nose’ this suggests that Dickens describes Scrooge like this, so the reader gets the full image of the character.  Another quote that describes Scrooges image is ‘ made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke shrewdly in his grating voice’ this quote was put in the novel, for effect and to catch  the reader’s attention, to see how they would react to the use of strong verbs and adjectives put in. Another quote describing Scrooge is ‘a frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin’ this means Scrooge wasn’t a nice person to be around and his appearance scared a lot of people. Scrooge is described as ‘hard and sharp as a flint,’ flint is a type of sedimentary rock with a glassy and waxy appearance and inside its usually dark grey. Dickens has used this quote, to describe Scrooge as an inanimate object, and get the effect what he was like, it also describes the same appearance to scrooge that he was hard on other people and wouldn’t show people his true emotions.

Another example of Scrooge being described to an object is ‘self-contained, and as solitary as a oyster’ this suggests Scrooge was a secretive person, who kept himself to himself and didn’t show others how he felt or what problems he was going through. ‘ As solitary as an oyster means that he was closed up inside and out and nobody could communicate or get through to him, it also suggest  that he was very private and never liked to share things with people, just the same as a oyster. Dickens used such powerful verbs to describe Scrooge in one sentence , this quote that shows this is ‘ Scrooge, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner,’ Dickens used the strong verbs because they describe was scrooge was like  and what he did. The effect of the words in a sentence, gives the reader the whole appearance of the vile character, so the reader gets the full impression of scrooge.

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In the novel, Scrooge is compared to the weather, an example of this is ‘foul weather didn’t know where to have him ,’Dickens used this quote to show Scrooges personality and some personification in the novel, this suggests that the weather couldn’t cope with him because he was more duller and gloomier than the weather. Another quote that compares him to the weather is ‘no warmth could warm him’ this gives the full effect that scrooge was a cold hearted man that didn’t care about anyone but himself, also he had no feelings because he was so cold inside and ...

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