GE.T-Carol Literature: A Christmas Carol

AQA 8702 · Calculators not allowed · about 105 minutes

Total Marks

Name: _______________________________ Date: ____ / ____ / ______

Answer BOTH questions. You should spend about 50 minutes on each. You are advised to plan your response. 4 additional marks are NOT available for spelling, punctuation and grammar on the 19th-century novel question.

Extract: A Christmas Carol, Stave One (Marley's Ghost)

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843, public domain). In this extract, near the start of the novel, the narrator describes Scrooge.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.

A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Starting with this extract, explore how Dickens presents Scrooge as a cold and isolated man.

Write about: how Dickens presents Scrooge in this extract; how Dickens presents Scrooge in the novel as a whole.

(Total for Question 1 is 30 marks)

How does Dickens present the idea that people can change for the better in A Christmas Carol? Do not use the printed extract to answer this question.

Write about: how Dickens presents change and redemption in the novel; how Dickens uses the character of Scrooge and the ghosts to explore this idea.

(Total for Question 2 is 30 marks)

Mark scheme · GE.T-Carol Literature: A Christmas Carol

Question 1

Level 6 (26-30): Critical, exploratory, conceptualised response to the task and text; analyses the effects of Dickens's methods with precise use of subject terminology; exploratory, well-linked comments on the relationship between text and context.
Level 5 (21-25): Thoughtful, developed response; examines the effects of Dickens's methods with apt subject terminology; thoughtful consideration of context.
Level 4 (16-20): Clear, explained response; clear explanation of the effects of Dickens's methods with relevant terminology; clear understanding of context.
Level 3 (11-15): Some explained response; identifies some of Dickens's methods; some awareness of context.
Level 2 (6-10): Supported, relevant comments; comments on Dickens as a writer making choices; some awareness of context.
Level 1 (1-5): Simple comments; simple awareness that Dickens is making choices; simple comment on context.
Indicative content:
- The asyndetic list of present participles ('squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching') piles up Scrooge's greed and relentlessness.
- Similes 'hard and sharp as flint' and 'solitary as an oyster' present him as unfeeling and closed off from others.
- The extended cold/weather metaphor ('The cold within him froze his old features') externalises his inner isolation.
- 'secret, and self-contained, and solitary' - the tricolon stresses his deliberate withdrawal from community.
- Dickens's narrator directly addresses the reader ('Oh! But he was...'), inviting judgement of Scrooge.
- Context: Dickens criticises the individualism and lack of charity of Victorian society; Scrooge embodies attitudes to the poor (later 'Are there no prisons?').
- In the novel as a whole, this coldness is set against the warmth of the Cratchits and Fred, and is reversed by Scrooge's redemption, making the opening portrait deliberately extreme.

Question 2

Level 6 (26-30): Critical, exploratory, conceptualised response; analyses Dickens's methods across the novel with precise terminology; exploratory links to context.
Level 5 (21-25): Thoughtful, developed response; examines methods with apt terminology; thoughtful use of context.
Level 4 (16-20): Clear, explained response; clear explanation of methods with relevant terminology; clear understanding of context.
Level 3 (11-15): Some explained response; identifies some methods; some awareness of context.
Level 2 (6-10): Supported, relevant comments; comments on choices; some awareness of context.
Level 1 (1-5): Simple comments; simple awareness of choices; simple comment on context.
Indicative content:
- The novel's five-stave structure charts Scrooge's transformation from miser to benefactor.
- The three spirits (Past, Present, Yet to Come) act as a structural device forcing Scrooge to confront memory, empathy and mortality.
- The Ghost of Christmas Past reawakens feeling (Fezziwig, Belle); the Present shows the consequences of poverty (Tiny Tim, Ignorance and Want).
- The silent Ghost of Yet to Come uses fear of death and being unmourned to complete the change.
- Scrooge's changed language at the end ('I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel') signals his renewal.
- Context: Dickens's belief in social responsibility and the possibility of moral reform; the novella as a call to Victorian readers to act charitably.
- A critical response might weigh how convincing or sudden the change is, and Dickens's didactic purpose.

Literature: A Christmas Carol - Worksheets, Questions and Revision

GE.T-Carol Literature: A Christmas Carol

Extract: A Christmas Carol, Stave One (Marley's Ghost)

Question 1

Question 2