Every card in Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: Scrooge, Marley and the three Spirits (A Christmas Carol option)
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- The narrator's first description of Scrooge in Stave One ends: “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old ____!”
sinner
HintA word from religion for someone who does wrong.
WhySeven adjectives pile up before the noun, most of them about hands closing on money. The list makes the reader feel how tight his grip is.
- Two comparisons from the opening description of Scrooge: “Hard and sharp as ____” and “solitary as an ____”.
flint; oyster
HintOne is a stone that gives sparks; the other is a shellfish shut tight in its shell.
WhyThe flint is one “from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire”. An oyster is closed and alone, though one reading notes that an oyster can hold a pearl.
- Scrooge's answer in Stave One when told that many poor people would rather die than go to the workhouse: “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus ____.”
population
HintThe number of people in a country.
WhyHe talks about the poor as a number that is too large. The Ghost of Christmas Present throws these exact words back at him in Stave Three.
- In Stave Two the first Spirit shows Scrooge a schoolroom. What does he see there that makes him weep?
Himself as a lonely boy, left behind at school at Christmas
HintThe other boys have all gone home.
WhyThe Spirit says “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.” It is the first sign that the old man can feel, and it suggests where his coldness began.
- Scrooge on Christmas morning in Stave Five: “I am as light as a ____, I am as happy as an ____, I am as merry as a ____.”
feather; angel; schoolboy
HintSomething that floats, a being from heaven, and a child in class.
WhyThe book opened with a run of hard, cold similes for him. It ends with a run of light, joyful ones: the change is written into the same technique.
- Marley's Ghost explains what he drags behind him: “I wear the ____ I forged in life”.
chain
HintLinked metal that holds a prisoner.
WhyHe goes on: “I made it link by link, and yard by yard”. He tells Scrooge that his own is already longer and heavier.
- What is Marley's chain made of?
Cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds and heavy purses, all in steel
HintThe tools of a money-lender's trade.
WhyThe things he cared about in life have become the weight he must carry in death. It is one of the book's clearest symbols.
- When Scrooge says Marley was always a good man of business, the Ghost cries: “____ was my business.”
Mankind
HintA word for all people.
WhyHe lists what he should have cared about: “charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence”. This is the book's argument in one line.
- At the end of Stave Two Scrooge seizes the Spirit's cap and presses it down over its head. What is he trying to do?
Put out its light, so that he will be shown no more
HintThe cap is shaped like a candle extinguisher.
WhyThe light streams out from under the cap all the same. One reading: once he has looked at his past honestly, the memory cannot be shut away again.
- Which Spirit is described as “a jolly Giant”, in a green robe, holding a torch and sitting among heaps of food?
The Ghost of Christmas Present
HintThe second of the three.
WhyHe stands for generosity and plenty. He ages through his one day and, before he goes, shows the two starved children hidden under his robe.
- How does the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come communicate with Scrooge?
It never speaks: it only points
HintIt is hidden in a black garment, with one hand showing.
WhyIts silence leaves Scrooge to work out the meaning for himself, and makes this the most frightening visit. The future says nothing because it is not yet fixed.
1★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0012
2★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0013
3★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0014
4★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0015
5★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0016
6★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0017
7★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0018
8★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0019
9★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0020
10★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0021
11★ GCSE-ENLI-NOV-0022
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.