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Rhetorical Devices In Scrooge

Decent Essays

In this extract Dickens begins with an exclamatory sentence. The exclamation ‘Oh!’ tells the reader that the writer is shocked by what he is about to say. This is how he starts his diatribe of defining Scrooge’s demeanour, with intent to surprise the reader. The exclamation mark draws the reader’s attention to the description that follows. Dickens calls Scrooge ‘a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, old sinner!’ the use of this alliteration shows the reader how overwhelmingly bad Scrooge’s character is. Each adjective is also linked with the hands. This could suggest that he holds tightly to everything he has due to his stingy character. Dickens uses so many adjectives to give a cumulative effect on the reader. It is as if …show more content…

This is similar to Scrooge’s approach to life as he seems like he would just have the ability to hurt anyone if he deemed it necessary. Dickens also uses the simile ‘solitary as an oyster’ to portray Scrooge’s character. This analogy influences the reader to think that although Scrooge is a ‘covetous, old sinner’, there could still be a pleasant character hidden beneath this horrible façade. It could also suggest that Scrooge is prone to keeping things to himself and scarcely would you hear him expressing his feelings. An oyster shell is also hard and irregular in shape. This simile suggests that Scrooge has these tough and strange qualities and that he is hard to 'open'. This could be related to how Scrooge was a misanthrope and was hard to convince in many ways. However, he was hardest to convince in giving away some of his vast quantities of wealth. When illustrating the features of Scrooge’s face as ’pointed noise, shrivelled cheek...grating voice’, Dickens forms it in a long sentence. This device slows down the pace of a previously quick tempered extract. It puts emphasis on every description made so that the reader can create a very detailed image in their head. In this long sentence there is also a glimpse of colour imagery, such as ‘eyes red...thin lips blue’. This tells the reader that Scrooge has such a cold hearted personality, that it is reflecting in his exterior. He was also detailed as a tight fisted hand at the

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