a christmas carol subject

Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. A Christmas Carol, short novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in 1843. There’s such a goose, Martha!’. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. It was his own room. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle. 'How does Dickens present the theme of Christmas in A Christmas Carol?' Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 162. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister -– the plump one with the lace tucker[10]: not the one with the roses–blushed. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins[3], squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. ‘Why, where’s our Martha?’ cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. ‘And your brother, Tiny Tim? At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Explanatory Notes to Juno and the Paycock, 151. There never was such a goose. Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.’, ‘My dear,’ was Bob’s mild answer, ‘Christmas Day.’, ‘I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,’ said Mrs Cratchit,’ not for his. ‘Mr Scrooge!’ said Bob; ‘I’ll give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!’, ‘The Founder of the Feast indeed!’ cried Mrs Cratchit, reddening. Not to sea. Who suffers by his ill whims? The Importance of Being Earnest: Act III, 63. He always knew where the plump sister was. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds– born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water–rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. ‘I am afraid I have not. Countdown to Christmas year round with your favorite holiday movies. GCSE AQA English literature - what were the specimen papers? A great deal of steam! The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Himself, always. © Copyright The Student Room 2017 all rights reserved. That is an awful question to get! I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Scrooge’s nephew, ‘because I haven’t great faith in these young housekeepers. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 60. ‘You have never seen the like of me before!’ exclaimed the Spirit. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously. The Daughters of the Late Colonel: VII, 182. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. ‘More shame for him, Fred!’ said Scrooge’s niece, indignantly. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. The Importance of Being Earnest: Act I, 61. ‘He wouldn’t take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 21. From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. Then Bob proposed: ‘A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. Look, look, down here!’ exclaimed the Ghost. Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. ‘He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,’ said Fred, ‘and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone–too nervous to bear witnesses–to take the pudding up and bring it in. ‘Spirit, are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. ‘Here is a new game,’ said Scrooge. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. ‘I wish I had him here. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. The children drank the toast after her. Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord ‘was much about as tall as Peter;’ at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn’t have seen his head if you had been there. Bob had but fifteen bob[7] a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don’t mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister -– the plump one with the lace tucker [10]: not the one with the roses–blushed. you could then talk about Tiny Tim and his family and then contrast that with the fact that Scrooge doesn't have that idea of closeness of families during Christmas. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister—the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses—blushed. Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) (1870–1916), 119. The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. say he will be spared.’, ‘If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,’ returned the Ghost, ‘will find him here. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. ‘Here’s Martha, mother!’ cried the two young Cratchits. I know what it is, Fred! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains. He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. After tea they had some music. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 213. ‘Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?’ pursued the Phantom. ‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Scrooge’s nephew. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. ‘More than eighteen hundred,’ said the Ghost. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. ‘Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.’ said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch[11], I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was not. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton’s spade that buried Jacob Marley. The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas. It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Hark! See the preface to. Oh God! This girl is Want. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops[5]. Suppose it should not be done enough! Stop! For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! talk about the idea of family, and how Christmas is meant to be s time to bring family together. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. 25 A Christmas Carol: Stave 3 ... who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. They are always in earnest. Alight shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. ‘Wouldn’t you?’, ‘You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,’ said Scrooge. But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. ‘God bless us every one!’ said Tiny Tim, the last of all. Scrooge reverently did so. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.’. ‘Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!’, ‘No, no! Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 28. You can personalise what you see on TSR. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. ‘And how did little Tim behave? A decorated cake made for a Twelfth Night (January 5, the eve of Epiphany) celebration. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter s being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. ID: 13051 Language: English School subject: English as a Second Language (ESL) Grade/level: elementary Age: 5+ Main content: Christmas Other contents: Add to my workbooks (706) Download file pdf Embed in my website or blog Add to Google Classroom Last-minute GCSE English Literature revision: a crammer�s guide, University College London Applicants' Thread 2021. For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball–better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest– laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. What then. For, he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. That was the pudding! It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall. At last, however, he began to think–as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too–at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, Appendix 1: A Mini-Casebook on The Turn of the Screw, Appendix 2: A Mini-Casebook on Brave New World, Appendix 3: A Mini-Casebook on Heart of Darkness, Appendix 5: Writing an Analysis of a Poem, Story, or Play, Appendix 6: Documenting Essays in MLA Style. The Daughters of the Late Colonel: IX, 184. I’m going to fail English Lit at this rate! ‘He never finishes what he begins to say! Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. Is Leeds or Loughborough better for Economics & Finance? Have you had many brothers, Spirit?’. ‘Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,’ said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, ‘but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. ‘He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!’ cried Scrooge’s nephew. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. You know he is, Robert. However, I don't even know where to begin. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 172. If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that’s something; and I think I shook him yesterday.’. But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. For the theme of Christmas you could explore Scrooge and his attitude towards the holidays in stave one, how this is contrasted with the Cratchits and his own nephew, Fred. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. ‘And it comes to the same thing.’. ‘I was only going to say,’ said Scrooge’s nephew, ‘that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season.The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French origin. The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. ‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, ‘tell me if Tiny Tim will live.’, ‘I see a vacant seat,’ replied the Ghost,’ in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority[12] had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. ‘He never finishes what he begins to say! What do you say, Topper?’. ‘Hurrah! ‘Are there no prisons?’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ‘There are some upon this earth of yours,’ returned the Spirit, ‘who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.’. It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. A glee is a song sung by three or more; a catch is a round, a song in which two or more voices sing the same melody but with each voice beginning at different times, as in “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The Daughters of the Late Colonel: I, 176. Macbeth and a Christmas carol. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 136. ☘️. I know what it is!’. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’. Any help would be greatly appreciated whether it is how to write the essay or any good points I could include. The Student Room, Get Revising and Marked by Teachers are trading names of The Student Room Group Ltd. Register Number: 04666380 (England and Wales), VAT No. The Grocers’! The Daughters of the Late Colonel: II, 177. Suppose it should break in turning out. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. Published 173 years ago this month, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was an instant bestseller, followed by countless print, stage and screen productions. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say,”Uncle Scrooge!” ‘, ‘A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is.’ said Scrooge’s nephew. We have a brilliant team of more than 60 Support Team members looking after discussions on The Student Room, helping to make it a fun, safe and useful place to hang out. I. Oh, perfectly satisfactory! III, Edexcel GCSE English language (1EN0) - Paper 1 Fiction & Imaginative - 4 June, 2019, English literature 30 mark essay grade boundaries, AQA GCSE English Language 8700 - Paper 2 - 07th June 2019, Grade 9 English GCSE Creative Writing 40 Mark Example, AQA GCSE English Language Exam 8700 Paper 1,2 2nd, 4th Nov 2020 - Exam Discussion, GCSE English Language Paper 2 Question 5 Response, GCSE AQA English Language Paper 1 and 2 - 4th/7th June 2019 [Exam Discussion], Descriptive Essay IGCSE English First Language, AQA English Language Paper 2 Question 2 Exemplar Answer, AQA English Literature GCSE Unseen Poetry Revision Guide, AQA Power and Conflict poems to compare to eachother. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,’ said Scrooge. But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. Why does my boyfriend message me like a baby? Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes[2], and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them.

Knoxville Food Trucks, Fentress Funeral Home, Uday Stylish Name, Sarangi In English, House Burned Down Today Near Me, Leeds Taxi Drivers, Excelsior Ukulele Review,