A Christmas Carol Summary

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  • A Christmas Carol
    • Main events
      • Stave 1
        • Scrooge makes Bob Cratchit work in the cold
        • Scrooge refuses to give money to the poor
        • Scrooge is visited by Marley- he warns him about the ghosts that will come ad visit him
      • Stave 2
        • Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Christmas past
        • Scrooge remembers the joy  Fezziwig offered employees, despite the cost
        • Taken to 5 Christmases of his past
        • Belle breaks off their engagement, saying that greed has corrupted the love he once felt
      • Stave 3
        • Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Christmas present
        • The spirit takes Scrooge to some Christmas gatherings eg. minors
        • The ghost takes him to the Cratchits house to see the poverty they live in
        • The ghost shows him a pair of starving children; ignorance and want
      • Stave 4
        • The ghost of Christmas yet to come visits Scrooge
        • The ghost is silent and points its finger to where it wants Scrooge to go
        • The ghost takes Scrooge to a series of strange places where people are complaining about the dead person
        • Scrooge sees his name engraved on a gravestone, he finds out that everyone was complaining about him
      • Stave 5
        • Scrooge attends Freds Christmas party
        • He promises to give money to the poor
        • Scrooge sings the praises of Marley and the ghosts
        • Gets a boy to buy the biggest turkey and take it to the Cratchits house
    • Dickens' message
      • Wanted to show the rich that the working class were struggling and that they should help
      • London was full of poverty, crime and pollution
      • He was outraged by the living conditions of the working class
      • Christmas is a time of happiness
    • Key points (context)
      • The readers would most likely be the rich, as they were the only ones who could afford books
      • Was written with the intention of drawing the readers attention to the plight of England's poor
    • Key quotations
      • Stave 1
        • "To decrease the surplus population"
        • "The chain he drew was clasped around his middle"
        • "Hard and sharp as flint"
        • "A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner"
      • Stave 2
        • "Another idol has displaced me"
        • "A solitary child neglected by his friend is left there still"
        • "Father is so much kinder than he used to be"
      • Stave 3
        • "The boy is ignorance. The girl is want"
        • "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"
        • "Tell me if Tiny Tim will live"
      • Stave 4
        • "The spirits of all three will strive within me"
        • "Spirit! Hear me, i am not the man i was"
        • "Shrouded in deep black garment"
      • Stave 5
        • "A merry Christmas to everybody!"
        • "A great many back payments"
        • "I am about to raise your salary

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