Christmas Carol revision notes in depth PDF

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revison notes on notes each characters fred, marely and the 3 ghosts of the past and scrooge. it also includes in a summary of each stave...

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Christmas Carol Revision The plot 1. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge makes his clerk, Bob Cratchit, work in the cold. 2. He refuses an invitation to his nephew Fred's Christmas party and will not give money to the charity collectors. 3. At home he is visited by the ghost of his old business partner, Jacob Marley, who warns Scrooge that his way of life will lead to misery. 4. The Ghost of Christmas Past wakes Scrooge and shows him moments from his childhood, his apprenticeship, and his failed engagement. 5. The Ghost of Christmas Present takes him to the Cratchit's home, where he is saddened by the ill, but kind, Tiny Tim. He is also shown how Fred celebrates Christmas with friends and how others celebrate Christmas together, despite being poor. 6. The final ghost is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come who terrifies Scrooge with visions of his death, where nobody mourns his passing. He also discovers that Tiny Tim has died. 7. Scrooge awakes on Christmas Day and is delighted to find he has the chance to change his miserly ways. He buys a turkey for the Cratchits and attends his nephew's party. 8. Scrooge becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim and gains a reputation for knowing how to celebrate Christmas

A Christmas Carol is a moral tale about the spirit of giving and being kind to one another.

Characters Ebenezer Scrooge – The miserly owner of a London counting-house, a nineteenth century term for an accountant’s office. The three spirits of Christmas visit him in hopes of reversing Scrooge’s greedy, cold-hearted approach to life. He is cold, miserable, and bitter at first, but as the novel progresses, we see him change into a better man. Key Quotes for Scrooge Bah! Humbug!” – Scrooge demonstrating his dislike of Christmas “Are there no prisons, no workhouses for the poor?”– this suggests that Scrooge believed poverty was almost a crime. “Then the poor should die and decrease the surplus population” – a shocking attitude demonstrating Scrooge’s lack of compassion for those less fortunate.

“Solitary as an oyster”- This simile suggests that Scrooge also has these tough and strange qualities and that he is hard to 'open'. “Every idiot who goes around with Merry Xmas on his lips... should be buried with a stake of holly through his heart”- He cannot accept the generosity that is offered him and instead turns images of Christmas into images of violence. Bob Cratchit – Scrooge’s clerk, a kind, mild, and extremely poor man with a large family. Though treated harshly by his boss, Cratchit remains a humble and dedicated employee. KEY QUOTES FOR BOB CRATCHIT "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!"- Scrooge is too miserly to offer his clerk a decent wage, but Cratchit is generous enough to be grateful to his boss. “My little, little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!”-The repetition of 'little' adds to the sad effect of Bob's cry. We feel sympathy for him at this point.

Tiny Tim – Bob Cratchit’s young son, crippled from birth. Tiny Tim is a highly sentimentalised character who Dickens uses to highlight the problems of England’s poor and to cause the reader to feel sympathy for him in the society he lives in. KEY QUOTES FOR TINY TIM “God bless us everyone!’ – this demonstrates Tiny Tim’s positive attitude to life, a Christian belief in making the best of your situation. “We recollect how patient and how mild he was”-Tiny Tim is remembered fondly by his family for his good qualities. “Tell me Tiny Tim will live” – the fact Scrooge asks this shows how much of an impact Tiny Tim has on him. Of all the visions that Scrooge sees, Tiny Tim has the biggest effect on him

Jacob Marley – In the living world, Ebenezer Scrooge’s equally greedy partner. Marley died seven years before the narrative opens. He appears to Scrooge as a ghost condemned to wander the worldbound in heavy chains. Marley hopes to save his old partner from suffering a similar fate.

KEY QUOTES FOR MARLEY ‘I wear the chain I forged in life’ – This shows a key Christian message of the novel that Dickens wanted to communicate, there will be consequences for our actions in life through punishment in the after-life

‘I made it link by link, and yard by yard’ – This shows Dickens’ key message of selfresponsibility. Marley’s chain is long and heavy, and he must now carry this great weight for eternity

The Ghost of Christmas Past – The first spirit to visit Scrooge, a curiously childlike apparition with a glowing head. He takes Scrooge on a tour of Christmases in his past. The spirit uses a cap to dampen the light coming from his head.

KEY QUOTES FOR THE GHOST OF PAST ‘It was a strange figure – like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man’ – the ghost has a strange appearance, unclear like our early memories. ‘Spirit!’ said Scrooge, ‘show me no more!’ – Scrooge finds watching the end of his relationship with Belle very painful and begs to see no more. ‘It wore a tunic of the purest white… From the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light’ – the white suggests a purity about the ghost and the light illuminates our past.

The Ghost of Christmas Present – The second spirit to visit Scrooge, a majestic giant clad in a green robe. His lifespan is restricted to Christmas Day. He escorts Scrooge on a tour of Holiday celebrations. He also uses Scrooge’s words against him to make Scrooge feel terrible.

KEY QUOTES FOR THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT ‘The boy is ignorance, the girl is want. Beware them both!’ – Ignorance and Want to represent the starving and malnourished children of London. The spirit shows Scrooge the children to make him realise the consequence of his selfish lifestyle. ‘A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth. But they know me. See!’– this shows the spirit takes Scrooge to all over England to show him how even the poorest of communities still make the best of their situations and celebrate Christmas

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – The third and final spirit to visit Scrooge, a silent phantom clad in a hooded black robe. He presents Scrooge with an ominous view of his lonely death.

KEY QUOTES FOR THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME ‘Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone.’ – This part shows much Scrooge has been affected by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. He is left begging the phantom for redemption. ‘It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost’ – this part shows Scrooge that his visions he saw were indeed just visions, not reality, and so he now has the chance to change his ways. ‘It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life’ – The phantom shows Scrooge his own grave, a lonely place that nobody cares – a fitting place for Scrooge to be buried.

Fred – Scrooge’s nephew, a friendly man who loves Christmas. He invites Scrooge to his Christmas party every year, only to be refused by his grumpy uncle. KEY QUOTES FOR FRED ‘A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!’ – this shows Fred’s cheerful and festive spirit. He clearly loves his uncle and does his best to connect with him. I am sorry for him; I could not be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always’ – this shows Fred pities his uncle and defends him loyally despite his wife and others criticising him

Fezziwig- The cheerful merchant with whom the young Scrooge apprenticed. Fezziwig was renowned for his wonderful Christmas parties. Belle – A beautiful woman who Scrooge loved deeply when he was a young man. Belle broke off their engagement after Scrooge became consumed with greed and the lust for wealth. She later married another man. Fan – Scrooge’s sister; Fred’s mother. In Scrooge’s vision of Christmases past, he remembers Fan picking him up from school and walking him home.

CHRISTMAS CAROL THEMES THEME OF REDEMPTION Redemption is the idea of being saved from sin or evil. In Scrooge we see a man who is transformed from a greedy, selfish miser into a generous and good-natured character by the end. He is shown the error of his ways by the ghosts that visit him and is redeemed by his own willingness to change. The moral message of the novella is that all human beings have the opportunity to behave in kinder ways towards each other. Charles Dickens’ taps into a key Victorian Christian value that sinners can be saved from damnation.

THEME OF COMPASSION AND THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT The Novella takes place on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and uses the ideas of generosity and compassion that we associate with Christmas to highlight the transformation of Scrooge. Christmas is a time when families and friends come together in the home to share food and exchange gifts but it is also a time when we’re supposed to think of those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Scrooge’s nephew and his clerk show compassion towards Scrooge which is in stark contrast to those who coldly dismiss him (fellow business people, his servants, the pawn shop owner) as he does them. Dickens’ shows us in the novella that if you show others a lack of compassion, they will not show you compassion. Scrooge learns the lessons of the Christmas spirit through his visions of Christmases past, present, and future; in each he sees either the ill effects his miserly nature has wrought or the good tidings that others bring about through their love and kindness

THEME OF SOCIAL INJUSTICE Dickens’ uses the story to question the unequal distribution of wealth in society. The rich enjoy comfort and feasting at Christmas and ignore the dreadful living conditions of the poor; in fact, they effectively punish the poor for their poverty by sending them to Workhouses. Scrooge is used in the novella to represent the Victorian rich while the

Cratchits represent the working poor. When the thieving workers divvy up the possessions of the dead Scrooge their actions are justified as he was a miser and if he had not been, they wouldn’t have needed to steal from him.

THEME OF FAMILY The entrance of Scrooge’s nephew Fred at the beginning of the story introduces another side to the miser. Scrooge is not unfortunate in the way of relatives – he has a family awaiting his presence, asking him to dinner, wanting to celebrate the season with him, yet he refuses. This is one of the important moral moments in the story that helps predict Scrooge’s coming downfall. It shows how Scrooge makes choices to prolong his own misery. He chooses to live alone and in darkness while even poor Cratchit is rich in family. Scrooge’s distaste for Fred’s happiness is not just annoyance at the sight of merriness and excess, it is also motivated by bitterness towards marriage based on Scrooge’s own lost love Belle, who left him long ago.

CONTEXT POINTS LINKING TO THE NOVEL Dickens uses the novel to highlight the poverty of working-class London. 

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He contrasts the wealth of Scrooge with a poverty of Bob Cratchit. Scrooge lives alone in a large building the grand staircase, while the Cratchits are crammed into a four-roomed house. In Stave four, Scrooge visits a part of London that “reeked with crime, with filth, and misery”, and the people who live there are described as “half-naked, drunken slipshod ugly”. The death of Tiny Tim, and the appearance of the doomed children, Ignorance and Want, highlight the suffering of children who live in poverty. Dickens uses the novel to argue against the belief that poverty was inevitable and helping the poor made the situation worse. In Stave one, Scrooge tells the charity collectors that it would be better if poor people would die and in doing so ‘decrease the surplus population’. This is a direct reference to Malthus’ theories that poverty is inevitable - Dickens is highlighting how cruel Malthus’ views seemed to be. In Stave three, the ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to bustling shops where it shows him the huge amount of food on display. This lengthy, mouth-

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watering description emphasises Dickens’ point there was plenty of food to go around - the problem was that it was not shared with poor. Dickens attacks what he saw as an uncaring attitude towards the poor. In Stave one, Scrooge tells a charity collector that he cannot afford to ‘make idle people merry’, and he says he supports the prisons and workhouses. His views seem cruel and unfeeling. When Scrooge expresses sympathy for Tiny Tim and Ignorance and Want, the spirit quotes Scrooge's harsh comments from Stave one about ‘surplus population’ and sending the poor to prisons and workhouses. Dickens shows that Scrooge realises that his beliefs about the poor were wrong. Dickens uses the novel to promote charity and believed the rich should do more to help the poor. In Stave one Marley's ghost warns Scrooge that he must pay more attention to those around him. He can't walk among ‘crowds of fellow beings’ with his ‘eyes turned down’ like Marley did. In Stave one, Scrooge is presented as a wealthy man who ignores the poverty around him, including that of his employee, Bob Cratchit, which mirrors the views of many wealthy people in Victorian Britain. By the end of the novel, Scrooge has learnt his lesson and changed his attitude towards charity– he gives a large sum of money to the charity collectors. Scrooge also learns to generously reward other people's work – he gives Bob Cratchit a pay rise and pays a boy a large fee to run and fetch the prize turkey from the shop. Dickens uses Scrooge's actions to suggest that if people are paid fairly there will be less need for charity Dickens believed education was the solution to poverty. In Stave three, Dickens uses the child, Ignorance, to show how the poor are doomed to a life of want by a lack of education. The Ghost of Christmas Present suggests that without education, those who live in ignorance and want to have no refuge except prisons and workhouses. Dickens uses the novel to promote the importance of Christmas. The novel focuses on charity, forgiveness, goodwill, and generosity - values which are an important part of the spirit of Christmas and also reflect Dickens views of Christianity. A key message in a novel is that people should try to observe these values all year round, not just at Christmas - Scrooge promises, ‘I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year’. Despite their poverty, the Cratchits celebrate Christmas joyfully, enjoying the pleasure of family, and are thankful for what they have....