Every card in Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the Cratchits, Fred, Fezziwig and Belle (A Christmas Carol option)
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- How many shillings a week does Scrooge pay Bob Cratchit? (number only)
15
HintThe text says Bob pockets that many of his own name each week.
Why“Fifteen ‘Bob’ a-week”: a bob was slang for a shilling. On that he keeps a wife and six children in a four-roomed house.
- Bob proposes a Christmas toast to Scrooge as “the Founder of the Feast”. Who objects?
Mrs Cratchit
HintShe says what she would like to give him a piece of.
WhyShe drinks the toast in the end “for your sake and the Day's”, not for Scrooge's. Bob's forgiveness is set beside her honest anger, and the mention of his name casts a shadow on the party.
- In Stave Three Scrooge asks the Spirit one question about Tiny Tim. What does he want to know?
Whether Tiny Tim will live
HintHe asks “with an interest he had never felt before”.
WhyThe Spirit answers that he sees a vacant seat and a crutch without an owner, if nothing changes. For the first time Scrooge cares what happens to someone poor.
- When Scrooge begs for Tiny Tim to be spared, the Spirit answers with a phrase Scrooge himself used in Stave One. Which phrase?
That those who are likely to die had better do it, and “decrease the surplus population”
HintIt was his reply to the charity collectors.
WhyHearing it applied to a child he has just watched, Scrooge hangs his head in shame. Dickens makes a statistic into a person.
- In Stave Five the narrator tells us what became of the boy: “and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second ____.”
father
HintA family role.
WhyThe capital letters of NOT are Dickens's own. The future the last Spirit showed has been changed by what Scrooge did.
- Scrooge's reply when his nephew wishes him a merry Christmas in Stave One: “Bah!” said Scrooge, “____!”
Humbug
HintAn old word for a sham or a piece of nonsense.
WhyHe means that Christmas cheer is a fraud. Fred keeps his temper, repeats his invitation to dinner and leaves without an angry word.
- Who describes Christmas as “a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time”?
Fred, Scrooge's nephew
HintHe has come to the counting-house to invite his uncle to dinner.
WhyHe says it has done him good although it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in his pocket. Fred stands for what Scrooge could be: cheerful without being rich.
- What was old Fezziwig to the young Scrooge?
His employer: Scrooge was his apprentice
HintHe is seen again in Stave Two, giving a Christmas Eve ball.
WhyFezziwig stops work early and turns the warehouse into a ballroom for his workers. He is the model of a good master.
- Watching Fezziwig's ball, Scrooge says “The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.” Whom does this make him think of straight afterwards?
His own clerk, Bob Cratchit
HintSomeone to whom Scrooge is now the master.
WhyHe tells the Spirit he would like to say a word or two to his clerk just now. He has seen that an employer has the power to make his workers happy or miserable.
- Belle, ending her engagement to the young Scrooge in Stave Two, tells him: “Another ____ has displaced me”.
idol
HintA false god that someone worships.
WhyShe says it is a golden one. He has come to love money more than her, and she releases him.
1★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0023
2★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0024
3★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0025
4★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0026
5★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0027
6★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0028
7★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0029
8★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0030
9★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0031
10★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0032
Keep what you learn
Here, nothing is saved. In your child’s own sky every card is scheduled — it comes back just before they’d forget it — and the professor who wrote it is one tap away.