Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the story and how it is built (A Christmas Carol option)

dead

HintThe state of Scrooge's old business partner, seven years before the story starts.

The whyJacob Marley died seven years ago “this very night”, that is, on Christmas Eve. Scrooge has kept his name over the door and carried on exactly as before.

Past; Present; Yet to Come

HintThey follow the order of time. Dickens's title for the last of them has three words.

The whyThe first shows him his own childhood and youth, the second shows how others are keeping this Christmas, and the third shows a death nobody mourns.

His own neglected grave, with his name on the stone

HintHe has spent the stave asking whose death people are talking about.

The whyHe has already seen businessmen joking about a funeral and thieves selling a dead man's bed-curtains, without admitting to himself who the dead man is.

A prize turkey

HintA bird far bigger than the goose they had in the Spirit's vision.

The whyHe pays a boy to fetch it from the poulterer's and a cab to carry it. It is his first generous act, and he does it secretly.

He raises Bob's salary and promises to help his family

HintScrooge pretends to be angry first, as a joke.

The whyIt comes near the end of Stave Five. The change is proved in the counting-house where the story began, with the same two men.

5

HintThe same as the number of acts in a Shakespeare play.

The whyStave One: Marley's Ghost. Stave Two, Three and Four: the three Spirits. Stave Five: the end of it, on Christmas morning.

A verse

HintThe book's title names a kind of song.

The whyThe word fits the title: the book is laid out as if it were a carol, something shared and sung at Christmas, not a sermon.

door-nail

HintA piece of ironmongery fixed in something you open and close.

The whyHe adds that this must be clearly understood “or nothing wonderful can come of the story”. The reader has to be sure Marley is dead for the ghost to be a ghost.

He apologises and whispers a large donation

HintThe amount makes the gentleman gasp.

The whyStave Five goes back over Stave One: the collector, Fred's invitation, Bob at his desk. Each meeting is replayed so the reader can measure the change.

Christmas Day

HintHe shouts down to a boy in the street to ask.

The why“The Spirits have done it all in one night.” He has not missed Christmas, so he can still put things right at once.

Tiny Tim

HintThe youngest of the clerk's family.

The whyHe first says it at the Cratchits' Christmas dinner in Stave Three. Ending on his words keeps the child, and the poor he stands for, as the last thing in the reader's mind.