Nineteenth-century novel, Year 10: the Cratchits, Fred, Fezziwig and Belle (A Christmas Carol option)

15

提示The text says Bob pockets that many of his own name each week.

为什么“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.

Mrs Cratchit

提示She says what she would like to give him a piece of.

为什么She 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.

Whether Tiny Tim will live

提示He asks “with an interest he had never felt before”.

为什么The 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.

That those who are likely to die had better do it, and “decrease the surplus population”

提示It was his reply to the charity collectors.

为什么Hearing it applied to a child he has just watched, Scrooge hangs his head in shame. Dickens makes a statistic into a person.

father

提示A family role.

为什么The capital letters of NOT are Dickens's own. The future the last Spirit showed has been changed by what Scrooge did.

Humbug

提示An old word for a sham or a piece of nonsense.

为什么He means that Christmas cheer is a fraud. Fred keeps his temper, repeats his invitation to dinner and leaves without an angry word.

Fred, Scrooge's nephew

提示He has come to the counting-house to invite his uncle to dinner.

为什么He 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.

His employer: Scrooge was his apprentice

提示He is seen again in Stave Two, giving a Christmas Eve ball.

为什么Fezziwig stops work early and turns the warehouse into a ballroom for his workers. He is the model of a good master.

His own clerk, Bob Cratchit

提示Someone to whom Scrooge is now the master.

为什么He 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.

idol

提示A false god that someone worships.

为什么She says it is a golden one. He has come to love money more than her, and she releases him.