A Christmas Carol Education Pack
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PITLOCHRY FESTIVAL THEATRE A Christmas Carol Education Pack Contents: Pg 2: Word Association Pg3: Attitudes towards Christmas Pg 4-5: Synopsis of the story Pg6: Exploring the language Pgs7-9: Drama activity Pg 10: Torments of the ghosts Pg 11: A Christmas Carol quiz How to use this pack: This pack is meant for students as an introduction to the story. All quotations are taken from Dickens’ novel and not Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s A Christmas Carol, adapted by Isobel McArthur. 1 Word Association Write all the words you associate with Christmas and Carol around the ribbons to get you thinking about possible themes in the story. Christmas Carol 2 Attitudes towards Christmas ‘.. the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.’ Who said this?: What does it tell us about them?: ‘What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ‘em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?’ Who said this?: What does it tell us about them?: ‘There’s another fellow, my clerk, with fifteen shillings a-week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.’ Who said this?: What does it tell us about them?: ‘And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!’ Who said this?: What does it tell us about them?: ‘At this festive season of the year it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’ Who said this?: What does it tell us about them?: ‘I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned; they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.’ Who said this?: What does it tell us about them?: In your own words: What is the true meaning of Christmas? 3 The story… Everyone is getting ready for Christmas. Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean, old man, is in his usual cold frame of mind… Scrooge: “Bah! Humbug!” His nephew, Fred, comes to invite him for Christmas dinner. Scrooge rudely refuses. Scrooge: “If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding.” Scrooge also refuses to give money to help the poor, even though he is a very rich man. Scrooge: “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.” He is uncharitable about giving Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off work. Scrooge: “A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” Scrooge is a really miserable man. That night he goes home and a ghostly figure visits him as he is about to go to bed. The ghost is his old business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is sceptical about ghosts. Scrooge: “There is more of gravy than of grave about you!” Jacob Marley wears heavy chains around him as a punishment for being so miserable during his life. Marley: “I wear the chain I forged in life…link by link, and yard by yard.” He warns Scrooge that he will face the same fate if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is being given the chance to escape the ghostly fate that awaits him. Marley: “You will be haunted by three spirits.” The first ghost to visit is the Ghost of Christmas Past. He takes Scrooge back to his childhood. His father wasn’t a pleasant man and Scrooge was very lonely. Later in life, he gets a job with Fezziwig and we see the memory of a Christmas party. Fezziwig was the life and soul of any party and very kind. Scrooge: “Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart.” Seeing his past life starts to melt Scrooge’s frozen heart. Scrooge also sees his old girlfriend who split up with him because Scrooge loved his money too much. Belle: “Another idol has displaced me. A golden one.” Scrooge sees how happy she became with a husband and children. 4 Scrooge: “I cannot bear it.” The second ghost to visit is the Ghost of Christmas Present. The ghost takes Scrooge to Bob Cratchit’s house, where they see warmth and happiness, even though the family is poor. Tiny Tim is the youngest child and although he is quite poorly, he has a big heart. Tiny Tim: “God bless us, everyone!” Ghost of Christmas Present: “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.” They also visit Fred’s house, where Scrooge hears Fred talking about him. Fred: “His wealth is of no use to him. He doesn’t do any good with it. He loses some pleasant moments with us, which could do him no harm.” When Scrooge tries to join in with the Christmas games, we see his heart melting a little more. The third ghost to visit is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. He takes Scrooge to overhear conversations about a man who has just died. Nobody is sad or mournful about it. They see the dead man’s clothes being pawned at the pawnbrokers and the covered figure of a dead man lying on a bed. Scrooge: “If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man’s death, show that person to me.” The only people showing emotion are glad because they owed the dead man some money. Scrooge: “Let me see some tenderness connected with a death.” They see Bob Cratchit and his family mourning Tiny Tim. Scrooge sees and realises that the dead man is him. Scrooge: “I am not the man I was! I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.” Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning a changed man. He buys the Cratchits a very large turkey. He goes through the streets greeting people and wishing them a merry Christmas. He also goes to Fred’s house for Christmas lunch. The next day, he gives Bob Cratchit a pay rise. Scrooge: “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family.” 5 Exploring the language Using these descriptions of Scrooge, work in groups to draw a picture of him. The bit in bold is different in each description and should be really clear in your image. 1 The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. …he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone. 2 The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out with generous fire. 3 The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. …secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. 4 The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows and his wiry chin. 6 Drama Activity In small groups: read a short scene from the text; present a tableau or ‘frozen moment’ that seeks to sum up the spirit of the scene. To do this, you need to think about where characters are positioned in relation to each other, eye contact, gesture, body language, etc. Each group will then show its tableau for other students to observe closely and then discuss what it adds to their understanding. 1. The Christmas Pudding Arrives You will need: Bob Cratchit Mrs Cratchit Scrooge Optional: Tiny Tim Martha Cratchit Peter Cratchit Text excerpt: Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house, and a pastry cook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute, Mrs Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling proudly: with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour.