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Victorian fiction: Dickens and A Christmas Carol

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Charles Dickens (1812 to 1870) is one of the most famous novelists in English. Reading pre-1914 writers like him at Key Stage 3 prepares you for the 19th-century novel and the unseen 19th-century fiction you will meet at GCSE.

Dickens and his world

Dickens wrote during the Victorian era (Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901).
As a boy he was sent to work in a factory while his father was in a debtors' prison. He never forgot what poverty felt like.
Many of his novels attack the cruelty shown to the poor, especially children. *A Christmas Carol* was published in 1843.

Meet Scrooge

Ebenezer Scrooge is a mean, cold businessman who says Christmas is 'Humbug!' On Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his old partner Jacob Marley, then by three spirits: the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. They show him how his greed has hurt others, and he changes.

Reading the description

List of verbs: 'squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching' piles up greedy actions, as if he grabs at money with his hands.
Simile: 'Hard and sharp as flint' makes him seem like stone: cold and unfeeling.
Simile: 'solitary as an oyster' suggests he is shut up in a shell, alone.
Worked example

What does the simile 'solitary as an oyster' suggest about Scrooge?

  1. An oyster lives shut inside a hard shell.
  2. It is hard to open.
  3. So Scrooge keeps himself closed off from other people.

Answer: He is lonely and closed off from others, hiding inside a hard shell like an oyster.

Key idea

Dickens wrote in the Victorian era and cared about the poor. In A Christmas Carol (1843) he uses lists and similes to show Scrooge as greedy, cold and alone, then shows him change.

The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.

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