A Christmas Carol Part 1 Plot Summary Subject: / English Age Groups: / 12-14, 15-16 Topic

‘A Christmas Carol’ part 1 Plot summary Subject: English Age groups: 12-14, 15-16 Topic: ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens

‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens: Part 1

EAL Nexus – free downloadable teaching materials https://eal.britishcouncil.org/ © Bell Educational Trust 2017

This resource was originally developed for EAL Nexus It is Christmas Eve and the weather is very cold. It is foggy outside. Ebenezer Scrooge is sitting in his office. He is a mean old businessman. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, is working in the next room. Bob Cratchit is very cold because the fire in the office is very small. Scrooge is too mean to spend money on buying coal for it.

Scrooge's nephew, Fred, who is a happy young man comes to visit his uncle. Scrooge asks him why he is so happy when he is poor. Fred asks Scrooge why he is so miserable, when he is rich! Fred then invites his uncle to have Christmas dinner with him and his family. He says Christmas is a very happy time for them and wishes Scrooge ‘Merry Christmas’. Scrooge sends him away, saying ‘Bah humbug!’ This means he thinks celebrating Christmas is a waste of time and money.

Two fat men arrive and ask Scrooge for some money for charity. They explain that they are collecting money to buy food and drink for the poor at Christmas. Scrooge says the poor can go to the prisons and the workhouses. He sends the two men away without giving them any money.

A boy singing carols comes to the door and Scrooge sends him away as well. He tells his clerk, Bob Cratchit, that Christmas Day is the same as any other day and he must come to work as usual.

Later that evening, Scrooge is back in his dark, cold home. Scrooge has another visitor. It is the ghost of his business partner, Jacob Marley, who died seven years earlier. Marley is very pale and he is tied up in chains. He says he has come to warn Scrooge. Because Marley was greedy and only interested in making money when he was alive, his spirit is being punished by having to wander around the world wearing heavy chains. Marley tells Scrooge that he must change his behaviour and pay more attention to people and less attention to making money. If Scrooge doesn’t change the same thing will happen to him. When he dies his spirit will also have to wear chains and wander around the world. Marley’s ghost also tells Scrooge that three more ghosts will visit him that night. Then he disappears and Scrooge goes to sleep.

Key words or phrases with pictures

Key words to translate

Word or phrase Translation Meaning business partner to change to celebrate charity a clerk Word or phrase Translation Meaning

Christmas Day 25 December

Christmas Eve 24 December to die greedy heavy to invite mean (miserly) nephew pale to pay attention to to punish prison to sleep uncle to wander to warn a waste of time workhouse to visit visitor

Image attributions 1. Scrooge: https://archive.org/stream/christmascarol00dick2/christmascarol00dick2#page/n56/mode/1up By Frederick Simpson Coburn, Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons 2. Fred: https://archive.org/stream/christmascarol00dick2/christmascarol00dick2#page/n219/mode/1up By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons 3. Scrooge and Bob Cratchit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stave_One_Marley %27s_Ghost.jpg By Fred Barnard [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons 4. Marley’s ghost: https://archive.org/stream/christmascarol00dick2/christmascarol00dick2#page/n56/mode/1up By Frederick Simpson Coburn, Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons