A CHRISTMAS CAROL (BY CHARLES DICKENS) :: English Literature

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (BY CHARLES DICKENS) â€Å"By Close Analysis of Staves One and Five Show How Dickens Portrays the Transformation of Scrooge and To What Effect† In December 1843, Charles Dickens wrote and published â€Å"A Christmas Carol.† He published this book when he needed money; he needed money badly because he was in debt. He decided to link it to things that are happening; that Christmas was not taken seriously, it was fading out and ghost traditional Christmas tales. Dickens used the genre of ghost stories, but Dickens did something unusual, he changed the fact that ghost stories are meant to be frightening, in this book, the ghost stories were scary. In 1843 (ancient times), there were no security, pensions, national health nor compulsory education. You were expected to work six days a week and on Sunday, you go to church (only if you had a job). Those who had no job couldn’t go to church, because they were probably in prison or workhouse. There were no holidays, you had to work on Boxing Day, and if you ended up in debt, you would be put in debt prison. Dickens grew up in this prison with his dad, he started work at the age of 12 (it was a terrible work). Looking at the Book, it was about ghosts, and ghost stories were always told during Christmas. Books were always in chapters, but Dickens wrote his in staves; musical notes. Dickens starts to compare, first, looking at the full title, â€Å"A Christmas Carol in prose,† to have a carol in prose means a contradiction (to speak against). The book written in staves, which is a music stave, is already contradicting the title. In the preface, he uses another contradiction (repetition); we will also be looking at jokes and humours. Stave1: Marley’s Ghost â€Å"Marley was dead; to begin with† this is a contradiction; we already begin to make assumptions about the story. Stave1, beginning with a negative statement; â€Å"Marley was dead..........† (A quick reference to stave 5), and stave 5; a positive statement; â€Å"Yes!† with an exclamation mark, showing that there is an excitement there, even in the first paragraph. Dickens uses repetition in the first paragraph of stave 1; clergyman and clerk, undertaker and chief mourner, and Scrooge was also emphasised twice. He uses a simile; â€Å"Old Marley was dead as a door nail†, he was being humorous; in the book he explains why he used it, but we figured out that Dickens uses these to slow down the â€Å"pace† and change the â€Å"atmosphere†, this was meant to be funny (in1843), he used this to divert people’s attention from the