A <span >Christmas</span> Carol Quote Analysis?
Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!
I was wondering what this is saying? I don't get how it relates to real life either.
Comments
The ghost of Marley visits Scrooge. Marley's ghost shows Scrooge the chains that he wears, and tells Scrooge he will wear even more chains in his afterlife. Scrooge replies that Marley had done nothing wrong, and always took good care of his business. What the ghost tells Scrooge is that the wellbeing of others is also their responsibility, and that unless Scrooge attends to this "business", he will be punished in his afterlife.
Our inner thoughts and feelings, our motives and our priorities contribute to making our lives an emptiness or a fullness. What we are in our whole being is so much grander than anything we can measure by surface values. In Goethe's words, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." From this standpoint our routine activities in themselves are but a drop of water compared to our total duty or business as innately caring and responsible human beings.
Yeah, well, Scrooge didn't get it either, at the beginning of the story. He sure as hell understood it at the end, though. Maybe you need to take a frightening trip with some ghosts and get the bejabbers scared out of you, too, as he did in the course of the story.