stave one

Question 1

what happens in stave one

Answer 1

• starts on christmas eve
• ebenezar ( scrooge ) is a cold-hearted miser who hates christmas
• he’s mean to nephew fred and clerk bob cratchit
• refuses to make a donation to charity
• at night,ghost of old business partner ( jacob marley ) visits him in chains
• marley warns him to change or he’ll suffer the same fate
• marley mentions how he will be visited by 3 spirits

Question 2

who do we meet and how do they come across?

Answer 2

• ebenezar ( scrooge ) = greedy,lonely,money obsessed
• scrooge’s nephew ( fred ) = opposite of scrooge, cheerful
• scrooge’s assistant ( bob cratchit ) = timid,nervous
• marley’s ghost = aggressive

Question 3

analyse quotes about scrooge :
- ‘ hard and sharp as flint ‘
- ‘ solitary as an oyster ‘
- ‘ covetous,old sinner ‘
- ‘ darkness is cheap and scrooge liked it ‘
- ‘ the cold within him froze his features ‘

Answer 3

• ’ hard and sharp as flint ‘ = not forgiving, unapproachable
• ’ solitary as an oyster ‘ = simile - isolation causing misery
  ‘solitary’ ~ alone,isolated
  ‘oyster’ ~ closed emotions (shell)
  
  • self - contained = keeps himself to himself
  • juxtaposing imagery - hard outer shell,beauty inside ( pearl )
  • links to ‘ solitary child , neglected by his friends ‘
• ’ covetous,old sinner ‘ = theme of religious
  ( christianity )
  ‘ sinner ‘ ~ bad thing,villainous
• ’ darkness is cheap and scrooge liked it ‘
  ‘ darkness ‘ = abstract noun that symbolises evilness,death destruction and lack of goodness
  ‘ cheap ‘ = darkness does not have much value
  = emphasises how he is morally corrupt and ready to associate with something that has no value
• ’ the cold within him froze his features ‘
  ‘ cold ‘ = lacks emotion, unfriendly and unsympathetic character
  ‘ froze ‘ = illustrates image of scrooge’s features becoming unmovable
  = shows his crooked personality is so strong within that it has now become visible

Question 4

types of imagery throughout stave one

Answer 4

cold weather :
- ‘ cold ‘ ‘ wintery weather chill ‘ ‘snow ‘ ‘ hail ‘
- radiates coldness - contrast to Fred and how he’s alone ( binary opposites )

Question 5

quotes about fred

Answer 5

• ’ a kind,forgiving,charitable time ‘ = not motivated by money
• ’ glow ‘ = warmth,opposite of scrooge

Question 6

representation of marley

Answer 6

• committed sins ( ‘ chains ‘ ) = get to heaven by helping scrooge - ‘ pay off sins ‘
• lives in purgatory = between heaven + hell

Question 7

thoughts on the poor / social responsibility

Answer 7

• ’ decrease the surplus population ‘ = poor people should be left to die
• Thomas Malthus - writer that thought Britain was overpopulated and had a ‘surplus’ amount of people.
• ’ mankind was my business ‘ = metaphor about using people for money,mankind suffered
• past tense ‘ was ‘ = regret - mankind should have been a community
• ’ mankind ‘ = generalising no care for individuals
• ’ i wear the chains ive forged in life ‘
• dickens’ core message of social responsibility
• ’ forged ‘ = context of industrial revolution - poverty
• personal pronoun ‘ I ‘ - Marley takes responsibility