A Christmas Carol Passage Analysis

In this passage, from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a key development to the plot of the story is depicted through the appearance of the Ghost of Marley, Scrooge’s past business partner. In the quote, Marley is telling Scrooge that he wears chains on his foot for his poor choices in his life. Earlier in the story, Marley is explained to be a businessman alongside Scrooge, thus persuading readers to believe that Marley is a selfish, money-crazed man in his past life, similar to Scrooge. So, by stating how Marley creates his chains for himself through his past actions, asking Scrooge whether he is aware of this “pattern”, Marley conveys Scrooge's future to readers, foreshadowing that Scrooge will end up “fettered” like Marley if Scrooge does not change his greedy, selfish attitude.

This is because I perceived Scrooge to be a selfish man and, thus, expected him to be cold, tough, and emotionless, too. However, Scrooge shows emotion by expressing anxiety regarding his fate in his afterlife, defying my past assumption. In addition, I did not expect someone like Marley to have so much of an influence on Scrooge’s reactions. However, after reading the entire book, I came to the conclusion that it should be expected that Marley affects Scrooge as much as he does in this passage, since Marley is once Scrooge’s business partner for a long period of time. Moreover, this quote caught my attention for its depiction of the first time Scrooge shows awareness of his poor choices in life through observing the consequences of Marley’s actions, which defies my personal belief that people cannot see the wrong in themselves.We can all learn from Scrooge’s first glimpses of change that it is possible to alter oneself for the better and, thus, we should never give up while trying to accomplish