He’s just as frugal when it comes to his own comfort. Not much more than that single coal he gave his assistant. He could definitely do with a little more light and warmth in his life. Sigh...
I was super confused by that too! So I asked my friend (a Dickens expert) what that meant. She said that a lobster decays with a certain sickly glow and due to the fact that very few things “glowed” in Dickens’s time period, this would have made a lot of sense to people.
Plus, it really adds suspense to compare the light to a dying lobster rather than the moon or the morning light or something like that! I’ve never read Dickens before but this guy is good!
The Marley door knocker is also the point at which I realized that all of my mental images for this story come from the Disney cartoon version. Goofy-as-Marley's face in the knocker popped into my head *so* clearly at this point!
Same, except my formative movie was The Muppet Christmas Carol, so I picture the knocker turning into one of the theatre critics. (Statler or Waldorf, I'm not sure which is which.)
Even though Scrooge quickly dismisses it, the fact that he goes so far to check under the bed and in his closet shows how spooked he really was by Marley's ghost. I almost feel bad for him.
He’s just as frugal when it comes to his own comfort. Not much more than that single coal he gave his assistant. He could definitely do with a little more light and warmth in his life. Sigh...
"but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar" WHAT XD
I was super confused by that too! So I asked my friend (a Dickens expert) what that meant. She said that a lobster decays with a certain sickly glow and due to the fact that very few things “glowed” in Dickens’s time period, this would have made a lot of sense to people.
omg thank you so much for that explanation! it makes way more sense c:
Plus, it really adds suspense to compare the light to a dying lobster rather than the moon or the morning light or something like that! I’ve never read Dickens before but this guy is good!
"and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless."
The Marley door knocker is so creepy!! 😧
The Marley door knocker is also the point at which I realized that all of my mental images for this story come from the Disney cartoon version. Goofy-as-Marley's face in the knocker popped into my head *so* clearly at this point!
Same, except my formative movie was The Muppet Christmas Carol, so I picture the knocker turning into one of the theatre critics. (Statler or Waldorf, I'm not sure which is which.)
The muppet version is the best!!!!
There's such an art to building up suspense, and Dickens loves it
Even though Scrooge quickly dismisses it, the fact that he goes so far to check under the bed and in his closet shows how spooked he really was by Marley's ghost. I almost feel bad for him.
dickens definitely knows how to build an atmosphere