Setting Of A Christmas Carol

How does Dickens set the scene for the appearance in Jacob Maryles Ghost in stave 1 of a Christmas carol? Dickens immediately sets the scene by writing a forceful, yet mysterious beginning to the first scene. “Marley was dead to begin with” The effect of this opening is startling and also shocking. This is a very unusual way to open a story. Also this is a question to his death, so he is dead but could come into the story later. Dickens exaggerates this point of that Marley is dead and is very repetitive in this manor.

So this makes the reader ask themselves why the writer is doing this and repeating such a bold point.

But then dickens puts the reader back into reality “Old Marley was as dead as a doornail”. So this reassures the reader that Marley is dead and also dickens has used a simile with alliteration. The use of alliteration emphasises the meanings of words so that the word compared to the object is bolder.

Introduction. Charles Dickens was born in 1812. His father worked for the navy pay office. So Dickens ‘s early life gave him plenty of chances to see life on and around the Thames. He attended a small school until he was eleven, when he and his family decided to move to London.

Where Is The Setting Of A Christmas Carol

His family contained himself, five other children and his mother and father. His father wasn’t bringing enough money so his mother thought she could get a job but this was not meant to be.

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The family had to sell all the books they had collected and other valuable household items to a pawnshop. When Charles turned twelve so his parents where leased to find Charles a job at a blacking factory. This would be a very dirty un hygienic place to work but this was life. This was a big warehouse, which was decaying and full of rats. Paragraph 2.

In the next scene of the book, dickens uses his second technique, which describes Scrooge by his physical features. Dickens describes scrooge so bad that he intends it for us to dislike scrooge, the type of description is so inhumane that we think of him as a creature. “The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivels his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red and made his thin lips blue”. This helps the reader picture a disgusting and strange looking man who is incredible ungiving. Dickens describes Scrooge by writing what Scrooge’s action are.

“Scrooge never painted out old Marley’s name ” therefor this could show that Scrooge is so stubborn to buy and paint the board outside of his business. Dickens also describes scrooge in a different way, which is when he uses a verb chain. This also describes scrooge in a bolder way so it portrays him in a meaner way. This is effective because this is exaggerated to the extreme, so that scrooge is discovered to be how mean he is. Scrooge is compared to an oyster and this is such a good comparison. This is because oysters have very hard ugly shells but they have a pearl, which is pretty inside.

This could mean that scrooge has a outer shell which means he’s argent, horrible and stubborn, but inside he could have a better giving side to him. Also the theme of redemption is introduced here because at Christmas people look back on the year and try to change the bad ways they have done, so the reader may be thinking of this. Paragraph 3 A further method by which Dickens prepares us for the ghostly vision of Marley’s face on Scooge’s door is how he describes the setting outside Scrooges counting house. In the next scene dickens describes the setting of a Christmas carol.

Dickens uses the fact that Marley is dead and describes the setting in an unusual way. First dickens describes the setting as dark, damp and gloomy. This is a very different contrast to a normal Christmas, which is light, snowy and sunny. The reader wonders why dickens does this, because this is totally opposite to what Christmas is really like. Another technique that dickens uses is personification “It was cold, bleak, biting weather”. This doesn’t really happen because the cold isn’t really biting scrooge it’s that it is so cold it feels as if you are being bitten.