A Christmas Carol - Detailed Notes

Themes

Transformation / Redemption

 AQA 2019: Explore how Dickens uses the ghosts to help Scrooge change his behaviour.                                            Extract (Visit of Marley's Ghost)

Relevant Quotes:

• 'Solitary as an oyster' -> 'His own heart laughed'(Simile + Personification)
• 'He tried to say 'Humbug' but stopped at the first syllable' (Repetition (of humbug))
• 'I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy'(List of Similes)
• 'I am prepared to bear your company and do it with a thankful heart' (Metaphor)
• 'Spirit... Conduct me where you will... let me profit by it'(CF 'picking a mans pocket'/ 'things in life from which I may have derived good from which I have not profited')
• 'I hope to live to be another man from what I was'
• 'I will live in the past, the present, and the future'

Context: 

• Redemption ~ Christian Values
• Moral wealth > Material Wealth

Dickens Message:

• Its never too late to change
• Redemption is possible
• Try to become more charitable

Social Injustice

AQA 2017: Explore how Dickens uses the Cratchits family to show the struggles of the poor.                                      Extract (Cratchit family Christmas)

Relevant Quotes:

• 'A poor excuse for picking a mans pocket every twenty-fifth of December'(Metaphor (for charity))
• 'It's enough for a man to know his own business, and not to interfere with other people's' (CF mankind was my business)
• 'Are there no prisons... Union Workhouses... The Treadmill and Poor Law are in full vigour them'(Context)
• 'Ragged, Meagre, Scowling, Wolfish' (List of Adjectives)
• 'Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did.'(Scrooges employees at old Joe's)
• 'Have they no refuge or resource'
• 'If they would rather die..they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population'

Context: 

• Poor law of 1843
• Treadmill + Union workhouses 
• Hungry 40's
• Malthus - no right to be where they are
• Disraeli - Like two different nations

Dickens Message:

• Do not be like Scrooge at the start - Wealthy + Miserly
• Try to give more to charity
• Poor are dependant on the wealthy

Christmas Spirit

AQA Sample Paper 3: Explore how far Dickens presents Chrismas as a joyful time.                                               Extract (Fezziwigs's Party)

Relevant Quotes:

• 'A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us'(Christian values)
• 'He laughed all over himself from his shoes to his organ of benevolence' (Metaphor)
• 'I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year'(Metaphor)
• 'If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with…