curtains

INTRODUCTION

violation of private sleep-space / sudden exposure

The curtains enact revelation by being forcibly drawn aside, transforming Scrooge's bed from a sealed private refuge into an open threshold of supernatural encounter.

the curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand

ESCALATION

concealment and anticipated dread / domestic warmth versus spectral intrusion

The curtains oscillate between concealment of domestic joy and the threat of further supernatural revelation, as Scrooge's dread of who will draw them next signals the object's entrenched symbolic charge.

finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hand

CLIMAX

desecration of the dead / moral threshold crossed

The bed-curtains, torn from a corpse's bed and sold for profit, crystallise the climax's crisis by making Scrooge witness the ultimate degradation of the private death-space the curtains once guarded.

"Bed-curtains!" "Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms.

RESOLUTION

survival and redemptive self-possession

Scrooge's embrace of his intact bed-curtains closes the arc by transforming the object from a symbol of violation and desecration into proof of his own living continuity and reformation.

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here: I am here"