A Christmas Carol

Question 1

give a reason why Dickens might have created Ignorance and Want, and tells the reader to “most of all beware the boy” (“want”)

Answer 1

to highlight the importance of education

Question 2

“Scrooge was the sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and his sole mourner”

Answer 2

• repetition of “sole” - highlights how alone Scrooge is - right from start, Dickens setting Scrooge up to be an obnoxious character, however Dickens can’t let the audience dismiss Scrooge as a horrible person, because then they won’t engage with the novella: whilst criticising him, Dickens also introduces a note of sympathy. Dickens hopes that this empathy will cause the reader to care for Scrooge, despite his unpleasant manner - leads the audience to hope for his reform, causing them to engage more with the novella and be more likely to take the messages on board.
• homophone for “soul” - suggests that Scrooge does have a soul, just hidden away, and foreshadows his eventual reform

Question 3

“a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner”

Answer 3

• alliteration - repetition of guttural, plosive “c” sound creates a feeling of hardness reflecting the hardness of Scrooge’s personality
• “sinner” - Dickens deliberately using Christian language to create an image of Hell in the readers mind, and link it to Scrooge’s selfishness, helping to further his message
• hyperbole - build-up of adjectives becomes almost comical, creating a sense of the reader laughing with Dickens about people like Scrooge, giving the impression that people like Scrooge are so obviously in the wrong that it becomes comical.

Question 4

explain a quote that describes Scrooge as cold

Answer 4

“A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him…”

• sounds almost like a child’s rhyme - assonance of “chin” and “him” give it a half rhyme, and the two sentences balance each other like a rhyming couplet. This could be Dickens suggesting that, like a child’s story, this novella will have a moral and a happy ending. (even includes the word “rime” which, although is denotation is a frost formed on cold objects, is a homophone for “rhyme”, therefore contributing to this atmosphere almost of a fairy-tale