A Christmas Carol: Revision Notes

A Christmas Carol: Revision Notes for Eduqas GCSE Literature

Key Aspects of A Christmas Carol

Character: Scrooge

  • Scrooge is initially presented as a "tight-fisted hand at the grindstone," emphasizing his miserly nature.

  • The novel focuses on Scrooge's redemption from a miserable, miserly existence to a saved, generous life.

  • Miserliness Examples:

    • His name evokes negative words: screw, grudge, gouge.

    • Physical description: twisted and cold.

    • Continued business on Marley's funeral day.

    • Terrible working conditions for Cratchit.

    • Resentment of paying Cratchit on Christmas Day.

    • Calling Christmas "a humbug".

    • Rejecting his nephew's Christmas dinner invitation.

    • Seeking solitude.

    • Suggesting prisons and workhouses for the poor.

    • Suggesting the death of poor people benefits society by decreasing surplus population.

    • Living in a gloomy suite of rooms.

    • Being left by his fiancée, Belle, for loving money more than her.

    • Giving nothing to a Christmas carol singer.

    • Being mocked and disliked by others.

  • Path to Redemption Examples:

    • Marley's Ghost has an immediate impact.

    • Difficult childhood, sent away to school.

    • Enjoyed stories and was close to his sister as a child.

    • Happy and sociable as Fezziwig's apprentice.

    • Delighted to see happy moments from his past.

    • Ghost of Christmas Past's immediate impact.

    • Pain while watching Belle's family life.

    • Trying to join Christmas games at his nephew's house.

    • Pained by Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come's visions.

    • Spending Christmas dinner with his nephew and family.

    • Giving Bob Cratchit a pay rise.

    • Becoming "a second father" to Tiny Tim.

    • Learning how to keep Christmas well.

The Four Ghosts

  • Marley’s Ghost:

    • Quote: “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.”

    • Quote: Raises a frightful cry and shakes his chain.

    • Quote: Describes wearing the chain forged in life.

    • Distinctive features: Restlessness, chained, conveys horror and regret. Represents the consequences of a life lived without compassion.

  • Ghost of Christmas Past:

    • Quote: "It was a strange figure – like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man…".

    • Quote: Sprung a bright clear jet of light from the crown of its head

    • Distinctive features: Childlike yet old, light emanating from head. Offers clarity and shows Scrooge his past to evoke reflection.

  • Ghost of Christmas Present:

    • Quote: It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur.

    • Quote: ‘Touch my robe.’

    • Quote: Dark brown curls were long and free: free as its genial face, its sparkling eyes, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air.

    • Quote: Brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable

    • Distinctive features: Wears a green robe, generous, joyful. Shows Scrooge the present and the harsh realities of the world, prompting empathy.

  • Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come:

    • Quote: moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

    • Quote: the spirit neither spoke nor moved.

    • Quote: The kind hand trembled.

    • Quote: The phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached.

    • Quote: shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand

    • Distinctive features: Silent, shrouded in black, conveys dread. Represents the bleak future and consequences of his actions if he doesn't change.

  • Role of the Ghosts:

    • Represent Scrooge's conscience.

    • Offer a moral code to follow.

    • Create sympathy for Scrooge.

    • Add to the Gothic atmosphere.

    • Each represents something slightly different.

    • Show the possibility of a second chance.

    • Attract the reader's attention.

    • More comic than Gothic or scary.

    • Show that life events are linked.

A Christmas Carol and Social Commentary

  • Stunning Critique of a Society Obsessed by Money

    • A Christmas Carol is a savage critique of society in the 1840s.

    • Scrooge is a representative of a harsh version of capitalism.

    • Dickens shows consequences in Tiny Tim's death and Want and Ignorance.

    • Dickens shows that the reformed Scrooge offers a healthy form of capitalism.

  • A Flawed Solution to a Real Problem

    • A Christmas Carol does little to address the root causes of the problems that existed.

    • The solution offered depends on the people who are the cause of the problem in the first place.

    • The poor have to rely on the support of wealthy individuals such as Scrooge.

    • Christmas simply makes people forget about the difficult realities of their day-to-day lives.

Noticing Context

The books context can filled in with lots of different words and phrases linked to the book’s context, such as ‘poverty’, ‘wealth’, ‘family life’, ‘city life’, and so on.

  • Matching the Text to the Wider World

    • Industrial Revolution transformed British society.

    • First commercially available Christmas card was produced in 1843.

    • Many people relied on charity due to no safety net.

    • Poor working conditions in factories and mines.

    • Extremes of poverty and wealth in society.

    • Malthus’s theory that England would soon become overpopulated.

    • Christmas traditions developed in the Victorian period.

    • Christmas had been an established part of the calendar in much of Europe long before the Victorian period.

Revising Structure

  • Beginning: opening, foreshadowing, foregrounding, introduction, first initial starting point

  • Middle: development continuation evolution expansion extension unfolding elaboration complication tension suspense reinforcement magnification intensification decline reduction flashback shift

  • End: conclusion closure denouement culmination finale consequence outcome revelation

Setting and Significance

  • Scrooge’s counting-house: The ruling, capitalist system; Miserliness; the exploitation of the poor.

  • Scrooge’s living chambers: Loneliness.

  • The market town where Scrooge grew up: Nostalgia for a better past.

  • Scrooge’s old school: A harsh upbringing; Loneliness.

  • Fezziwig’s warehouse: Nostalgia for a better past.

  • Belle’s family home: Shared family happiness.

  • Busy city streets on Christmas morning: The bond shared by everyone at Christmas, no matter where they are or what conditions they live in

  • The Cratchit’s home on Christmas Day: Poverty.

  • ‘a bleak and desert moor’: Christmas as a joyful, community celebration.

  • ‘a solitary lighthouse’: Christmas as a joyful, community celebration.

  • A ship: Christmas as a joyful, community celebration.

  • The house of Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, at Christmas: Shared family happiness

  • London’s finance district: The ruling, capitalist system.

  • A shop in a slum district of London: Poverty.

  • The Cratchit’s house after Tiny Tim has died: The result of an unjust, uncaring society

  • A churchyard: The result of an unjust, uncaring society and The ruling, capitalist system

  • London’s streets on Christmas morning: Christmas as a joyful, community celebration

  • Christmas dinner at Fred’s: Shared family happiness

Revising Key Themes

  • Poverty

  • Redemption

  • Community

  • Wealth

  • Christmas

  • Misery

  • Charity

  • Personal reform

  • The future

  • Want

  • Joy

  • Family

  • Abundance

  • The past

  • Generosity

Quotations

  • “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!”

  • “External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.”

  • “There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

  • “I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

  • “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.”

  • “A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.”

  • “He has the power to render us happy or unhappy … The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

  • “Another idol has displaced me… A golden one”

  • “You fear the world too much,”

  • “Remove me!” Scrooge exclaimed, “I cannot bear it!”

  • “God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

  • “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it.”

  • “I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always.”

  • “Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!”

  • “Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

  • “Hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!”

  • “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.”

  • “No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold … Oh, glorious! Glorious!”

  • “A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”