There are many reasons to admire and enjoy Dickens's writing, and this passage from A Christmas Carol reveals this. To establish the jollity of this Victorian Christmas, Dickens likens chestnuts to "the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen" who, because of the Christmas spirit, go "tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence."
The jollity is clearly revealed in the phrase "apoplectic opulence." Apoplectic means a sudden loss of bodily function due to rupture or occlusion of a blood vessel. However, Dickens doesn't use it denotatively; the true meaning is in its connotation to a sudden fit of laughter and jollity brought on by the Christmas spirit. And the noun "opulence" can mean wealth or abundance; so either would fit in interpreting the amount of jollity that is being felt during Christmas.
Therefore, the meaning of this passage is found in the imagery of the chestnuts that represent the effects of the Christmas...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
spirit, which we see so vividly by the Ghost of Christmas Present; when we first meet him, he is sitting on a throne of food. And guess what? One of the items of foods is chestnuts.
I think that you can not understand this quote if you do not understand what "apoplectic" meant in Dickens' day. In those days, one of the major meanings of the word was to refer to strokes (the medical condition). If a person was "apoplectic" he was likely to have a stroke. This was likely to come either from being angry or from being too fat.
Look at the rest of the sentence about the chestnuts. It is comparing them to rich men in their vests (waistcoats are vests worn under a jacket like in a three piece suit) and with their potbellies.
So, to me, what this is saying is that the chestnuts were so round and plump that they looked like fat old men who were likely to have strokes.