A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens

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A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
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Introduction Background Discussion Starters
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A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens

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A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol Introduction

• a familiar, timeless character

• ghosts and apparitions

• time travel

This classic holiday tale has it all.
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A Christmas Carol Introduction
On a cold and foggy Christmas Eve sometime in the
middle 1800s, Ebenezer Scrooge sits working in
his office in London.
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A Christmas Carol Introduction
His clerk toilsseemingly endlesslywith hardly
any fire to keep him warm.
Scrooge does not care.
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A Christmas Carol Introduction
Two gentlemen come by to ask for donations for
the poor.
Scrooge refuses.
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A Christmas Carol Introduction
Scrooges cheerful nephew Fred stops in to invite
his uncle to Christmas dinner.
Scrooge grumpily declines.
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A Christmas Carol Introduction
Mr. Scrooge does not know that when he gets home
that night, he will have some different visitors
visitors he may not be able to ignore so easily.
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A Christmas Carol Introduction
One by one, four ghosts appear to Scrooge.
Theyve come to try to convince him to become a
nicer person.
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A Christmas Carol Introduction
The ghosts will show Scrooge
the past he is forgetting,
the present he is missing,
and the future he is shaping.
But will their revelations get through to
Scrooge? Will he change his ways?
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A Christmas Carol Background
In Victorian England, poor people usually did not
get much help.
Even young children, sick people, and the elderly
went without assistance from the government or
charities.
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A Christmas Carol Background
If you were a poor, out-of-work Londoner during
this time, these were your options

• beg on the street

• go to a workhouse

• be thrown into prison

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A Christmas Carol Background
Workhouses were institutions where people were
put to work in exchange for food and shelter.
People in workhouses often

• had little or no heat

• used rags for blankets

• did not get nearly enough food

• were severely overworked and even beaten

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A Christmas Carol Background
As a young man, Charles Dickens witnessed a
decline in the traditional celebration of
Christmas in England.
Because of the Industrial Revolution, many
employers wouldnt even give their employees
Christmas Day off.
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A Christmas Carol Background
The Industrial Revolution was a time of change in
Europe marked by

• the introduction of power-driven machinery

• the growth of factories

• a huge increase in the production of goods

• a shift from a rural, agricultural society to a
  more urban one

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A Christmas Carol Background
A Christmas Carol, along with several other
Christmas books by Dickens, helped revive the
holiday customs.
Some people even started calling Dickens The Man
Who Discovered Christmas.
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A Christmas Carol Background
Scrooges story brought about other changes too.
For example, because of the book,

• a home for disabled children was started

• a factory owner began closing his factory every
  Christmas and giving turkeys to of all his
  employees

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A Christmas Carol Background
Charles Dickens had experienced poverty as a
child, and he was very concerned about the poor
people of England.
He raised money to help people in need by reading
A Christmas Carol at charity events.
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A Christmas Carol Discussion Starters

• Discuss (1)
• Dickens believed that human beings were largely
  responsible for societys ills, such as poverty,
  hunger, and suffering.

• How much responsibility does each individual have
  to help others in need?
• How can one person help make the world a better
  place?

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A Christmas Carol Discussion Starters

• Discuss (2)

• Do you believe that any given person can
  significantly change the way that he or she sees
  the world and treats others?
• What does it take to make people change their
  ways?
• If you were shown your past, present, and future
  in one night, how do you think you would change?