You know he is, Robert! And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze[9], and coarse rank grass. Scrooge was the ogre of the family. Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. 5. Christmas Day., It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, said she, on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 156. Scrooges nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed. Not coming! said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tims blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. The pudding was out of the copper. Bring wintertime, he is forced to try and stay warm with thick clothes and heat himself by the flame of a candle. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family, said Scrooge. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.. Explain Ignorance and Want, who appear in stave 3 of A Christmas Carol. A smell like a washing-day! The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooges time, or Marleys, or for many and many a winter season gone. Ha, ha! laughed Scrooges nephew. He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live! cried Scrooges nephew. Who is Belle in A Christmas Carol, and why was she important to Scrooge? To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.. Long life to him! Spirit, said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, tell me if Tiny Tim will live., Dickens illustrates powerfully how allowing aperson to witness a scene can exert a powerful influence on a one's heart. There was no doubt about that. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadnt ate it all at last! He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirits eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a childrens Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. 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. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Look upon me!. I am afraid I have not. Are spirits lives so short? asked Scrooge. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. Scrooges niece was not one of the blind-mans buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask, said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirits robe, but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. They were a boy and girl. It was his own room. I wish I had him here. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephews and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability. Man, said the Ghost, if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Are there no workhouses?. The abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit is a kind but very poor man with a large family and a very sick son, Tim. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. Scrooges nieces sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion. I have no patience with him, observed Scrooges niece. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name. Scrooge, Marley's business partner, signed the register of his burial. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 68. Scrooge bent before the Ghosts rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. Mrs. Cratchit voices her dislikes, and refers to Scrooge as an "odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man." The family feels this way toward Scrooge because Mr. Cratchit works hard as his employee but is paid little and treated poorly. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycooks next door to each other, with a laundresss next door to that! Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. ', When Scrooge protests against this future, the Spirit mocks him by retorting with Scrooge's cruel remark about the need for the poor to die, anyway, as they will "decrease the surplus population." and know me better, man.. Suppose it should break in turning out. He never finishes what he begins to say! He never finishes what he begins to say! Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchits wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown[8], but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bobs private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. A tremendous family to provide for! muttered Scrooge. ", Scrooge wants to profit in a different way, he recognises that there are things that are just as valuable as money. I was only going to say, said Scrooges 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. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. "How is Scrooge affected by seeing the Cratchits in A Christmas Carol?" Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 213. This boy is Ignorance. Add commas where necessary. Christmas Day.It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, said she, on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. Slander those who tell it ye! 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. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchits wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bobs private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. That was the cloth. Scrooges nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed. 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. One half hour, Spirit, only one!. Come in! exclaimed the Ghost. He dont make himself comfortable with it. Whereat Scrooges nieces sisterthe plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the rosesblushed. 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. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! It is only afterwards that the general cheer resumed. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. But they know me. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. 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. The children drank the toast after her. M.A. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. The Grocers! If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die., No, no, said Scrooge. It is the Ghost of Christmas present who takes Scrooge to view how the Crachit family celebrates Christmas. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. See the preface to. They are always in earnest. Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. This girl is Want. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit enteredflushed, but smiling proudlywith the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. 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! 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. 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. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Do go on, Fred, said Scrooges niece, clapping her hands. It would have been flat heresy to do so. The ghost replies by saying that if things go on as they are, then the poor boy will die. Now the ghost throws those harsh words back into Scrooges own face, compelling him to hang his head in shame and feel overcome with penitence and grief. Without seeing the family of his employee Bob Cratchit, it seems unlikely that Scrooge would have experienced such a change of heart in his thoughts about and treatment of the poor. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Now, when Scrooge sees the Crachits in their own home, they start to become real people to him. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. He obeyed. 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. Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!, No, no! Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. And so it was! Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 136. He then looked at the knocker with great affection. To Scrooges horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. When Scrooges nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooges niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. Their sentiments are not missed by the miser who realizes he is the "Ogre of the family.". The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes with a rating and help us compile the very best Charles Dickens quotations. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. And it comes to the same thing.. This boy is Ignorance. Here is a new game, said Scrooge. from Concordia University M.S. By the time the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to see the Cratchit family celebrating their meager Christmas, Scrooge's heart has begun to be softened. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. And it comes to the same thing.. 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 couldnt have seen his head if you had been there. Lesson Transcript. (c) Copyright 2012 - 2023 The Circumlocution Office | All Rights Reserved | Built by The Circumlocution Office using WordPress. 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. Scrooge! said Bob; Ill give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!The Founder of the Feast indeed! cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. See eNotes Ad-Free Start your 48-hour free trial to. Cratchit is treated poorly by Scrooge and given a weekly salary that is insufficient to provide his family with a proper Christmas dinner. Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!, No, no! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! I wish I had him here. 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. 'I see a vacant seat'replied the Ghost,'in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. The Daughters of the Late Colonel: IX, 184. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a childrens Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. A merry Christmas and a happy new year! Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. God love it, so it was! Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I dont 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. It was his own room. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas songit had been a very old song when he was a boy!-and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. Ha, ha, ha!. 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 moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. Latest answer posted July 29, 2019 at 8:57:00 PM. Have they no refuge or resource? cried Scrooge. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooges nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as could have told you. How does Dickens present Scrooge's character in stave 1? 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. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. 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. He wears tattered clothes as he cannot afford a coat. He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure, said Fred, and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. 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. Think of that. \underline{\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad}\\ \underline{\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad} Scrooges 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. God bless us!. 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 sextons spade that buried Jacob Marley. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 31. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. The time is drawing near.. Id give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope hed have a good appetite for it. Which it certainly was. They are generous and loving, happy despite their poverty. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peters 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. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as . Dickens says of Scrooge: ''To Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. Are spirits lives so short? asked Scrooge. Then Bob proposed: A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! Are there no workhouses?. Scrooge bent before the Ghosts rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. He dont lose much of a dinner.. I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, said the Spirit. Oh, a wonderful pudding! The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a 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. After it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Stop! This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is described as "the Ogre of the family", this image allows the reader to understand that Scrooge is unloved and, furthermore, that his family are scared of him as he is seen to be monsterous. Ha, ha! laughed Scrooges nephew. Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goosea supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! Uncle Scrooge!. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Scrooge is concerned about the fate of Tiny Tim Scrooge was the Ogre of the family Metaphor, Scrooge is essentially the opposite the family he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay Scrooge rediscovers his inner child and has enthusiasm again two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each bakers oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. "Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where you will. Describe a cada uno en tus propias palabras. The Importance of Being Earnest: Act III, 63. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?. ' Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The Daughters of the Late Colonel: XII, 189. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the waterrose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. To any kindly given. Scrooge! said Bob; Ill give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!, The Founder of the Feast indeed! cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. The children drank the toast after her. He dont do any good with it. If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, thats something; and I think I shook him yesterday.. ", Thus chastised, Scrooge, "bent before the Ghost's rebuke," lifts his head as he hears his name. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooges nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didnt care twopence for it. It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. I have a big packet of the Christmas Carol Questions and I have barely read the book. Theres such a goose, Martha!. The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither. ", Scrooge recognises the urgent need to help the poor and he realises that his own words were cruel, its capacious breastits genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air, The Spirit represents generosity, abundance and joy much like Fezziwig, "Tonight if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it. Whereat Scrooges nieces sister - the plump one with the lace tucker[10]: not the one with the rosesblushed. I dont think I have, said Scrooge. The Daughters of the Late Colonel: IV, 179. And so it was! Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure, said Fred, and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Ya tendrs en mente algunas imgenes de los personajes del cuento. I wish I had him here. Christmas Day., It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, said she, on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. Design changes: Please bear with us if you come across anything that may look a little disjointed. 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. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.
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