A Christmas Carol: quotations to learn

The A Christmas Carol question on Literature Paper 1 prints an extract. Everything you say about the rest of the novella has to come from memory, because the exam is closed book: you cannot take your copy in.

These are the quotations to learn. Most are short, and many work for more than one character or theme. We have copied each one exactly from the text and grouped them by character and theme. Learn the exact words, who says them and which stave they come from.

Scrooge at the start

• “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” (the narrator, Stave 1). A list of harsh words, most of them about grabbing and holding on. Nothing joins the words, so the list rushes on like Scrooge’s greed, and “sinner” adds a religious judgement.
• “solitary as an oyster” (the narrator, Stave 1). A simile: like an oyster, Scrooge is shut tight and alone. An oyster can also hide a pearl, which hints that something good is waiting inside him.
• “Bah!” and “Humbug!” (Scrooge, Stave 1). His answer when Fred wishes him a merry Christmas. Humbug means nonsense: he waves away Christmas, and with it kindness and other people.
• “Are there no prisons?” (Scrooge, Stave 1). His reply when he is asked to give to the poor. The cold question shows that he sees prisons and workhouses as the answer to poverty. In Stave 3 the Ghost of Christmas Present throws it back at him.
• “decrease the surplus population” (Scrooge, Stave 1). Surplus means extra, or not needed. Scrooge talks about poor people as if they were spare numbers whose deaths would not matter. Dickens makes the idea sound shocking so that readers reject it.

Marley’s warning

• “I wear the chain I forged in life” (Marley’s Ghost, Stave 1). A metaphor: every selfish act added a link. The verb “forged” shows that Marley made his own punishment, and it warns Scrooge, and the reader, that they could be forging chains too.
• “Mankind was my business” (Marley’s Ghost, Stave 1). Marley takes Scrooge’s favourite word, business, and gives it a new meaning. He realises too late that caring for other people should have been his real work.

Scrooge’s past

• “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.” (the Ghost of Christmas Past, Stave 2). The young Scrooge was lonely and forgotten. The word “solitary” echoes Stave 1 and suggests that his coldness began in a neglected childhood, so readers start to pity him.
• “The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.” (Scrooge, Stave 2). Scrooge praises Fezziwig, his kind old employer. The money words “cost” and “fortune” show him measuring kindness in money and finding it worth a fortune. Straight afterwards he thinks of his own clerk.
• “Another idol has displaced me” (Belle, Stave 2). An idol is a false god. Belle means that money, “A golden one”, has taken her place in Scrooge’s heart. This is the moment he chooses wealth over love.

Fred, the Cratchits and Tiny Tim

• “fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys” (Fred, Stave 1). Fred’s metaphor makes rich and poor people travellers heading for the same end, death. Dickens uses it to argue that the poor deserve the same care as anyone else.
• “God bless us every one!” (Tiny Tim, Stave 3). Tiny Tim’s blessing includes everyone, even Scrooge. Dickens gives these generous words to a poor, sick child, and repeats them at the very end of the novella.
• “the Founder of the Feast” (Bob Cratchit, Stave 3). Bob drinks to Scrooge’s health even though Scrooge pays him so little. Here the title is ironic. In Stave 5 Scrooge sends the prize turkey and really does provide their feast.
• “If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” (the Ghost of Christmas Present, Stave 3). The spirit throws Scrooge’s words from Stave 1 back at him. Now the surplus population has a face, Tiny Tim’s, and Scrooge hangs his head in shame.

Ignorance and Want

• “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.” (the Ghost of Christmas Present, Stave 3). This is allegory, where characters stand for ideas. The boy stands for a lack of education and the girl for poverty and need. The short, blunt sentences make the warning hard to ignore.
• “Beware them both” (the Ghost of Christmas Present, Stave 3). A direct warning to Scrooge and to Dickens’s readers. A society that leaves poor children without schooling or food is heading for disaster.

Death and the future

• “The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached.” (the narrator, Stave 4). Three adverbs, separated by commas, slow the sentence down, so the spirit seems to creep closer. Its silence makes it more frightening than the spirits who speak.
• “plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for” (the narrator, Stave 4). Three words in a row begin with un-, which means not. Nobody watched over the dead man, cried for him or cared about him. This is the lonely end that Scrooge’s life is heading towards.

The changed Scrooge

• “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” (Scrooge, Stave 4). His promise at his own grave is the moment he decides to change. He wants to live by the values of Christmas every day of the year.
• “I am as light as a feather” (Scrooge, Stave 5). A simile: the weight of his old life, like Marley’s chain, has gone. It starts a burst of joyful similes as Scrooge wakes up a changed man.
• “I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family” (Scrooge to Bob, Stave 5). Scrooge now uses his money to help. He has become the kind of employer Fezziwig was, and he treats Bob’s family as his responsibility.
• “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew” (the narrator, Stave 5). The repeated word “good” shows how complete the change is. Scrooge is now good as a friend, as an employer and as a person.

Using them in the exam

Learn each quotation with its speaker and its stave, so you can say where it fits in the story. Then look for pairs that answer each other across the novella. “Are there no prisons?” comes back in Stave 3. “solitary as an oyster” in Stave 1 is echoed by “A solitary child” in Stave 2. Marley’s heavy chain is answered by “I am as light as a feather” in Stave 5. Pairs like these show the examiner that you know the whole text.

You can use part of a longer quotation, as long as every word you use is exact. For a method that makes them stick, see How to learn quotations so they stay learned. In December, the free A Christmas Carol: a quotation a day gives you one quotation for each day from 1 to 24 December.

Sources

• Project Gutenberg, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843; ebook 46)
• AQA, GCSE English Literature 8702 specification