Since A Christmas Carol is a novel, it would be an arduous task to list every time Dickens uses figurative language. However, here are some examples that give a sense of how the author uses figurative language to create the mood and characterization in the novel.
In the first paragraph of the novel, using a simile, Dickens writes, "Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail." Describing Marley, he uses pathetic fallacy: "No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty." By attributing human emotions to the weather, and then comparing those harsh and obdurate feelings with those of Marley, Dickens gives readers insight into Scrooge's dead partner's character. When the charitable men call on Scrooge in chapter 1, much verbal irony ensues. For example, they state, "We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," meaning to say that Scrooge is as generous as Marley was. It is true, but not in the way the men think: Scrooge is as tight as his partner was.
When Marley's ghost confronts Scrooge, Scrooge dismisses him using metaphors and a pun: "You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"
Dickens uses a humorous hyperbolic simile to describe the sound of the fiddler at Fezziwig's party: "[It] tuned like fifty stomach aches." Bob Cratchit uses a simile that is also a cliche to describe the way Tiny Tim behaved: "As good as gold."
The creatures that hide beneath the robe of the Spirit of Christmas Present are symbols, as he explains: "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want."
The businessmen at the Exchange in Scrooge's future use an epithet when referring to Scrooge: "Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?" Joe, the man who purchases the goods Scrooge's attendants steal from him, uses hyperbole and colloquialism when he says, "I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it." Certainly when Bob Cratchit mourns over his dead child, Dickens means the following statement as irony or understatement: "He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy."
Finally, at the end of the story, Dickens piles up similes to emphasize Scrooge's change of heart: "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man."
These examples show Dickens' skill at using figurative language to further the mood and characterization of his story.
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