write few lines on Ebenezer Scrooge as Marley’s sole executor,
his sole beneficiary, his sole friend and his sole mourner.
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Answer:
This is an example of the literary techniques Charles Dickens uses in his works, here using repetition. Repetition is a technique involving the repeating of a word, phrase or statement, often several times within a passage of text. It adds to emphasise and develop a certain idea. In this quotation, the word sole is repeated six times within the sentence to emphasise the solitary nature of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley. Both are mean spirited businessmen who only had each other as friends. When Marley dies, its leaves Scrooge as the sole, or only, person who would have taken care of anything to do with his affairs and mourn his passing.
Jacob Marley.
In life, Jacob Marley was the business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge. Together, as the firm of Scrooge and Marley, they became successful yet hard-hearted bankers, with seats on the London Stock Exchange. Seven years to the day of his death, on a Christmas Eve, Marley’s ghost visits Scrooge. Bound in chains and tormented, the ghost is doomed to wander the earth forever as punishment for his greed and selfishness when he was alive. Marley visits Scrooge to offer him redemption from his own fate, in the hope of changing his mean ways. He tells Scrooge that three spirits will visit that night. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner‘ is a quotation from A Christmas Carol (Stave 1).
A Christmas Carol is a novella, or short story, written by Charles Dickens and first published in the Christmas of 1843. The allegorical tale tells the story of the transformation of the mean-spirited Ebenezer Scrooge through the visits of the spirit of his former business partner and three ghosts over the course of a Christmas Eve night. It remains a much-loved traditional Christmas tale.
Context.
This quotation is a description of Jacob Marley, the former business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge. It shows that Scrooge and Marley only had each other as friends. When Marley died, Scrooge was the only person who mourned his death and took care of his affairs.
Jacob Marley died seven years prior to the setting of A Christmas Carol, on the same day it is set, Christmas Eve. His ghost visits Scrooge but this quote is used by Dickens to confirm to the reader at the outset of the story that he is definitely dead.
Dickens introduces the character of the ghost of Marley into the story to warn Scrooge of the consequences of his selfish life, for example how Marley says he is condemned to wander the world bound by chains, chains he says he forged in life (suggesting to Scrooge that he has a choice).