Stave One - Marley has been dead 7 years. London is dirty, dark and gloomy.
Scrooge refuses to spend money or celebrate Christmas . Marley’s Ghost visits
and warns Scrooge of the chains of punishment he has forged already.
Stave Two - The Ghost of Christmas Past – symbol of flickering light and
changing age- takes Scrooge to visit his school, sister, Fezziwig, Belle and later
her husband and children. Scrooge falls asleep.
Stave Three – The Ghost of Christmas Present wakes Scrooge up – symbol of
generosity, abundance and food – takes Scrooge to visit The Cratchits - inc Tiny
Tim, a range of poor places where Christmas is celebrated – mines, lighthouse
keepers etc. Scrooge is frightened by the child personifications of ignorance and
want.
Stave Four - The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come appears – symbol of a
phantom and grim reaper. It does not speak. It takes him to hear others insulting
a dead man. He visits the Cratchits where Tiny Tim has died. He then goes to a
grave and realises it is his own and the insults were about him. He falls asleep.
Stave Five - He wakens on Christmas morning with joy. Scrooge looks out and
London looks bright and light. He orders a turkey for the Cratchits, promises to
back pay the charity gentlemen and raises Cratchit’s salary. We are told he
becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim. Scrooge is a changed man.
Quotations
Scrooge - Oh but he was a tight-fisted, hand at the grindstone,
Scrooge. ...hard and sharp as flint.......solitary as an oyster.
- I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!' Scrooge
repeated, as he scrambled out of bed.
Ghost of Christmas Past – ‘Strange figure like a child ...yet not so like a
child.’
Belle – ‘You are changed.’ ‘another idol has displaced me’
Ghost of Christmas Present – ‘Jolly giant.’
Bob Cratchit – “Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the feast!"
Mrs Cratchit “founder of the feast, indeed!”
Tiny Tim – ‘God bless us, every one.’
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – ‘The Phantom slowly, gravely,
silently approached...... it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.’
Social and historical context –
Poverty in London is a huge influence on the novel.
Dickens makes the real issues of the terrible treatment
of the poor clear to readers. Dickens wanted social
reform – for the rich factory owners to support their
poor workers.
Victorian England was Christian but Scrooge has no
Christian morals – he does not live by Jesus’
commandment – treat others as you would want to be
treated yourself. By teaching Scrooge to be more
Christian and kind, Dickens hope to educate his readers
in better Christian behaviour.
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens 1843
How the writer tells the tale effectively...
Visual imagery – Very detailed character
descriptions to make each ghost frightening.
London is dark and sinister in Stave 1 and
contrastingly bright and light in Stave 5 to match
Scrooge’s character.
Similes – eg. as solitary as an oyster.. Emphasis on
his goodness deep inside invisible from the
outside.
Time in the story is distinguished by several motifs.
First, bells tolling and chiming fit into the story’s
song-like structure (that’s why the chapters are
called staves as it is like a song with repetition and
chorus) and also recur at key moments, reminding
Scrooge of the time and of time passing.
Act One :Sunday Morning – The street fight to establish the ongoing feud. Evening – Paris
asks Capulet to marry Juliet. Capulet hosts a masked ball, which Romeo, Benvolio and
Mercutio attend in disguise. Romeo and Juliet fall in love at first sight., before realising they
are from rival families.
Act Two: Sunday Night – At Juliet’s balcony the talk of their love and promise to wed.
Monday Dawn– Romeo asks Friar to marry them. Morning – Romeo hears word that Tybalt
wants to fight him for attending the Capulet ball. Midday – Juliet attends Friar’s cell and
R&J wed in secret.
Act Three: Monday Afternoon- Tybalt fights and kills Mercutio. Romeo kills Tybalt. The
Prince banishes Romeo as punishment. Evening – Romeo is distraught and the Friar
encourages him to spend the night with Juliet before leaving for Mantua. Capulet tells Paris
he can marry Juliet. Scene 5 -Tuesday Morning – Before dawn – Romeo leave Juliet’s room
for Mantua. Juliet refuses to marry Paris and argues with her parents.
Act Four: Juliet goes to the Friar who gives her a potion to fake death for 42 hours so she
can escape to Mantua. The Capulets bring the wedding forward to Wednesday. Juliet takes
the potion . Wednesday Morning – the nurse finds Juliet ‘dead’. Balthasar, Romeo’s servant
tells him Juliet is dead.
Act Five : Wednesday night /Thursday morning – Beside Juliet’s tomb Paris and Romeo fight
; Romeo kills Paris. Romeo kisses Juliet for the last time and takes poison. Juliet awakens,
tries kill herself by kissing poison from Romeo’s lips, then stabs herself. The consequence of
the tragedy is the families make peace.
Romeo: ‘she doth teach the torches to burn bright!’ A1Sc5 ‘I will stay
with thee and never from this pace of dim night depart again.’ Act 5Sc3
Juliet: ‘Willt thou leave me so unsatisfied?’A2Sc2 ‘He shall not make me
there a joyful bride!’ A3Sc5
Mercutio: ‘Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?’ A3Sc1
The Nurse: ‘Go girl seek happy nights to happy days. A1Sc3
Benvolio: ‘Put up thy swords!’ Act 1Sc1.
Tybalt: ‘What drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word, as hate hell, all
Montagues and thee.’ A1Sc1.
Lord Capulet: ‘Let two more summers wither in their pride’ A1Sc2.
‘My fingers itch!’ Act 3Sc5
Lady Capulet : ‘I have done with thee.’ Act 3 Sc5
Social and historical context –
Patriarchal society – ruled by men,
fathers are most important. Capulet
perfect example of this. Male head of the
household holds all the wealth and
power. Girls were expected to be wives
and mothers. Capulet is much older than
his wife and controls both her and Juliet.
Shakespeare presents him critically so
that the audience should question the
social rules that were accepted.
The family relationships are damaging in
the play, even in the Montagues where
Romeo’s parents do seem more
moderate. Even with less aggressive
parents, wealthy parents were distant
from their children and this play shows
this is dangerous.
Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare 1597-9
How the playwright tells the tale effectively...
Foreshadowing: The prologue tells us what will become of the
lovers and we are eager to watch to discover how the tragedy
unfolds. The dramatic irony created by this makes it very tense
whenever we watch the romance unfold and whenever any
references to death are made.
Imagery of light used to describe Juliet throughout – Romeo sees
her as heavenly and a source of warmth and light. ‘What light
through yonder window breaks?’.
Imagery of religion – used to emphasise the purity and perfection of
their love so we believe in its sincerity – ‘pilgrim’ ‘holy shrine’.
Soliloquies – Juliet and Romeo when struck with love use these to
share emotion with the audience alone. Very tense and dramatic.
Chapter 1 – Old Major’s vision – he tells the animals of his dream for animals to live free of
slavery. This inspires the animals to rebel.
Chapter 2 – The Revolution – Mr Jones is driven out, the farm renamed Animal Farm. The
Seven commandments are written on the barn wall. The animals discover the pigs have taken
the milk.
Chapter 3 – snowball teaches the animals to read and write. Napoleon takes the puppies away
to educate them privately.
Chapter 4 – Farmers return to attack the farm but Snowball leads them to victory in the Battle
of the Cowshed.
Chapter 5 – After disagreeing over the building of the windmill, Napoleon‘s dogs attack
Snowball and he is driven away. Napoleon stops debates; pigs make all decisions.
Chapter 6 and 7 – The animals work harder than ever. The pigs move into the house, sleep in
the beds. The animals face starvation. Napoleon holds a show trial and accused animals are
publicly executed.
Chapter 8 and 9 – The pigs alter the commandments as justification of what they are doing.
Boxer collapses and the pigs sell him to the knacker’s yard. They use the money from selling
him to buy more whisky.
Chapter 10 – The farm is richer but the animals work harder than ever before. The seven
commandments are replaced by ‘All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than
others. ‘ Through the farm house window the animals cannot tell the difference between the
farmers and the pigs.
Napoleon: ‘fierce-looking boar’ C 2. ‘Napoloen rarely
appeared in public’ C7 ‘ acted swiftly and ruthlessly’ C7.
Snowball: ‘quicker in speech and more inventive’ C2 ‘Four
legs good, two legs bad.’ C3
Squealer: ‘brilliant talker’ C2 ‘sometimes you might make
the wrong decisions comrades and then where would we
be?’ C4
Boxer: ‘unfailing’ C2 ‘I have no wish to take a life....eyes
full of tears.’ C4
‘Boxer could not get beyond the letter D.’ C3
‘Boxer! Get out! They are taking you to your death!’
(Clover) C9
Social and historical context –
Old Major’s speech represents Marx’s
theory about capitalism and how the
workers must rebel and overthrow the
capitalists, the humans, and overthrow
them for a more equal society.
Old Major’s ideas are the yardstick by
which everything in the new society is
judged.
Napoleon represents the nightmare of
dictatorship – Joseph Stalin – undemocratic
and a tyrant.
Snowball represents revolution and Leon
Trotsky – idealist and attempts to
modernise society.
Boxer represents the proletariat, the
people, and their hopes for a better world.
Animal Farm – George Orwell
1945
How the writer tells the tale effectively...
Circular plot – The animals end in a similar but worse position than the one
they started in. Orwell uses this to highlight the horror of what Napoleon has
done and the irony of this revolution.
Foreshadowing – Old Major predicts Boxer’s demise a the hands of humans
will be to the knacker’s yard making his final tragedy more dramatic at the
hands of humans.
Third person omniscient narrator - all knowing godlike figure emphasises how
there is a great gap between what we and the narrator understand about their
exploitation and what the animals know.
Squealer’s techniques – questions, statistics, imperative and jargon all used to
make him sound clever and hide his real meanings to persuade the animals.