A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843 (novella)

A. Record your initial reaction to the work (suggested length of 1 paragraph or half a page) by doing the following:
1. Describe your initial thoughts and/or feelings about the work.
2. Describe in detail at least one aspect of the work that most interests you.

B. Analyze the work (suggested length of 2–4 pages) by doing the following:
1. Describe the historical context of the period in which the work was written.
2. Discuss insights into the work that can be gained from the author’s biography.
3. Analyze how this work explores a particular theme and/or stylistic characteristic from its period.
4. Explain the relevance of this work for today’s audiences.

C. Discuss how the deeper knowledge you gained through your analysis has informed or altered your thoughts and/or feelings about the work (suggested length of 1 paragraph or half a page).

D. When you use sources to support ideas and elements in a paper or project, provide acknowledgement of source information for any content that is quoted, paraphrased or summarized. Acknowledgement of source information includes

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Stave 1: Marley’s Ghost
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial
was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.
And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.
Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead
about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece
of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed
hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat,
emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Answer preview for a Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

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