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A CHRISTMAS CAROL (BY CHARLES DICKENS)
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“By Close Analysis of Staves One and Five Show How Dickens Portraysthe Transformation of Scrooge and To What Effect”
In December 1843, Charles Dickens wrote and published “A ChristmasCarol.” He published this book when he needed money; he needed moneybadly because he was in debt. He decided to link it to things that arehappening; that Christmas was not taken seriously, it was fading outand ghost traditional Christmas tales. Dickens used the genre of ghoststories, but Dickens did something unusual, he changed the fact thatghost stories are meant to be frightening, in this book, the ghoststories were scary.
In 1843 (ancient times), there were no security, pensions, nationalhealth nor compulsory education. You were expected to work six days aweek and on Sunday, you go to church (only if you had a job). Thosewho had no job couldn’t go to church, because they were probably inprison or workhouse. There were no holidays, you had to work on BoxingDay, and if you ended up in debt, you would be put in debt prison.Dickens grew up in this prison with his dad, he started work at theage of 12 (it was a terrible work).
Looking at the Book, it was about ghosts, and ghost stories werealways told during Christmas. Books were always in chapters, butDickens wrote his in staves; musical notes. Dickens starts to compare,first, looking at the full title, “A Christmas Carol in prose,” tohave a carol in prose means a contradiction (to speak against). Thebook written in staves, which is a music stave, is alreadycontradicting the title. In the preface, he uses another contradiction(repetition); we will also be looking at jokes and humours.
Stave1: Marley’s Ghost
“Marley was dead; to begin with” this is a contradiction; we alreadybegin to make assumptions about the story. Stave1, beginning with anegative statement; “Marley was dead……….” (A quick reference tostave 5), and stave 5; a positive statement; “Yes!” with anexclamation mark, showing that there is an excitement there, even inthe first paragraph. Dickens uses repetition in the first paragraph ofstave 1; clergyman and clerk, undertaker and chief mourner, andScrooge was also emphasised twice. He uses a simile; “Old Marley wasdead as a door nail”, he was being humorous; in the book he explainswhy he used it, but we figured out that Dickens uses these to slowdown the “pace” and change the “atmosphere”, this was meant to befunny (in1843), he used this to divert people’s attention from the
