English Literature

Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)

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AQAWritten against AQA GCSE English Literature (8702): 3.1.2 The 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. AQA has not reviewed these cards.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

⌨ Type the answerAnswer in your head…In which year was A Christmas Carol published? (year, four digits)

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

1843

HintEarly in Queen Victoria's reign, in the decade later called the Hungry Forties.

The whyIt came out on 19 December and the first edition had sold out by Christmas Eve.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Answer in your head…Under the Poor Law of 1834, where did a poor family in England usually have to go in order to get help?

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★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0049Front

English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Into the workhouse

HintScrooge asks whether they are still in operation.

The whyConditions were made deliberately harsh so that only the desperate would ask. Families were split up. This is why the collectors say many would rather die than go there.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

↔ Asked both waysAnswer in your head…The writer on population who argued that the number of people tends to grow faster than the supply of food

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Thomas Malthus

HintA clergyman and economist; ideas like his are named after him.

The whyScrooge's phrase about the surplus population echoes this argument. Dickens gives it to a miser so that the reader hears how it sounds when applied to real people.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Answer in your head…When Charles Dickens was twelve his father was sent to prison. What for?

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★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0051Front

English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Debt

HintHe owed money he could not pay.

The whyDickens was taken out of school and sent to work in a factory that made boot blacking. The memory of that poverty fed his writing about poor children.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Answer in your head…In 1843, shortly before writing the book, Dickens visited a free school for London's poorest children. What were such schools called?

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★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0052Front

English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Ragged schools

HintNamed after the state of their pupils' clothes.

The whyHe visited the one at Field Lane. What he saw there fed into the figures of Ignorance and Want.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Answer in your head…As the first Spirit draws back Scrooge's bed-curtains, someone says they are as close to it “as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.” Who is “I”?

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

The narrator, speaking directly to the reader

HintNot a character in the story.

The whyThe narrator of this book chats, jokes and gives opinions. The friendly voice at the reader's elbow is part of how the book persuades.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Fill the gapAnswer in your head…From the description of Scrooge in Stave One: “The ____ within him froze his old features”.

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★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0054Front

English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

cold

HintA temperature.

The whyHis coldness comes from inside. “No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.” Cold and fog are attached to him all through the first stave.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Answer in your head…In Scrooge's counting-house the clerk's fire is so small “that it looked like one coal”. What does fire stand for in this book?

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Human warmth and generosity

HintThink of what Fezziwig's and the Cratchits' rooms are full of.

The whyScrooge keeps the coal-box in his own room. Warm, bright firesides appear wherever people are kind to one another.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Answer in your head…What does the chain that Marley's Ghost drags stand for?

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★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0056Front

English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

The greed and selfish dealings of his life, which now weigh him down

HintLook at what the links are made from.

The whyDickens often turns an idea into something a reader can see. Marley's guilt is not described; it is hung on him in steel.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

Fill the gapAnswer in your head…The weather on Christmas morning in Stave Five: “No ____, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold”.

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English Literature · Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)Professor Quill

fog

HintIt filled the streets and came in at every keyhole in Stave One.

The whyThe weather changes with Scrooge. The first stave is dark and choked; the last is clear and full of bells.

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Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the poor in 1840s Britain, language and the narrator's voice (A Christmas Carol option)

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