STAVE ONE:
1. What must a “stave” be?
2. Dickens makes direct reference to which literary device in paragraph 2?
3. What does he suggest as the more appropriate comparison?
4. You can tell by the third paragraph that Scrooge and the narrator are not the same person. Who is the narrator?
5. To what work does the author allude in paragraph 4?
6. Consider the sentence: “He carried his own low temperature always about him; he iced the office in the dogdays, and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.” Explain how this one sentence could summarize the entire story.
7. What is personified in the third paragraph on page 2?
8. What is the first bit of dialogue we hear from Scrooge’s mouth?
9. The constant response, “Good afternoon” to the nephew’s repeated requests indicates that Scrooge wants what?
10. Scrooge refers the needs of the poor to what two social institutions?
11. What, declares Scrooge, is none of his business?
12. What is personified by the “chattering teeth”?
13. The ice is called ______ ice because it causes scorn for mankind.
14. Dickens’ style includes the use of incomplete sentences such as: “foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold” What effect do such sentences yield? Or, why is their use appropriate in this instance?
15. Scrooge asks his worker if he will, “want all day to-morrow”? What does that mean?
16. Literally, Scrooge lives where?
17. Metaphorically, how might he live the same way?
18. What happened to the door knocker?
19. What indication do we have that the door knocker incident has Scrooge operating differently than usual?
20. Scrooge explains that he doubts his senses because they can be affected by what?
21. The chain about the ghost of Marley is made of what? How is that significant?
22. What is a better word for “significant” in question number twenty-one?
symbolic
23. Why was the ghost wearing a bandage around his head?
24. What, according to Dickens, can keep a spirit from having to wander on Earth after death?
25. The ghost says that Scrooge’s chain is even heavier than his. What does this mean?
26. Scrooge’s habit of putting his hands in his pockets could be symbolically interpreted. So, go ahead
and do it! (symbolically interpret it, not put your hands in your pockets)
27. The ghost explains that his business in life should have been what?
28. Where have we heard this before?
29. What does Dickens define as the misery of the phantoms?
STAVE II
30. Who is standing in spirit at our elbows as we read?
31. Do you believe that? Explain why or why not.
32. What does the first ghost have streaming from its head?
33. Employ symbolic criticism with that detail.
34. What is capricious about this ghost?Â
35. Why do you think Scrooge longs to have the ghost remove its cap?
36. In the sentence, “The ghost donned its cap,” what does “don” mean?
37. What was upon Scrooge’s cheek as he saw the place where he had grown up?
38. Who is sitting alone reading by a feeble fire?
39. What is Scrooge’s first admitted regret?
40. What a glorious simile! The fiddler came in and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. HA HA. Write “that’s a good one” and get this question right.
41. Dickens directly addresses the reader in a friendly way when he says that if we know higher _____ we can tell him and he’ll use it in this story.
42. To say that Fezziwig could “wink with his legs” is to describe his dancing as __________.
43. The ghost does not come right out and preach to Scrooge. Instead he uses whose words to prove his points?
44. Scrooge says he would like to talk to the clerk right now. What do you think he would say?
45. What “idol” of the heart has replaced the young girl?
46. Dickens states that he should have liked, “t o have had the lightest license of a child, and yet been man enough to know its value.” Describe what qualities a person of this kind would have.
47. What is the topic of conversation at Belle’s house which has Scrooge increasingly uncomfortable?
STAVE III
48. It is described that Scrooge was so prepared for anything that he was virtually unprepared for ________ and, therefore, fell into a fit of trembling when he met with it.
49. The second ghost is of what stature?
50. What does the ghost sprinkle from his torch?
51. To whose home is Scrooge led?
52. What is Dickens’ intent in telling us that Mrs. Cratchit and her daughter are “brave in ribbons”?
53. It’s a technique of novelists to employ a character who can serve as the antithesis (complete opposite) of the main character. Who might this be for this story?
54. The second ghost threw Scrooge’s words back at him to prove a point. What words came back to haunt Scrooge at the Cratchitt visit?
55. What does it mean that Peter Cratchitt likely ”knew the inside of a pawnbrokers”?
56. What do you suppose was the ghost’s purpose in taking Scrooge out to sea?
57. What was special about that particular game of Blind Man’s Bluff?
58. What comes out from beneath the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present?
59. Once again, the ghosts employ the trick of using Scrooge’s words to prove a point. When Scrooge asks if the children have any recourse, the ghost replies, “_________”?
STAVE IV
60. Describe the appearance of the final ghost.
61. What does this appearance remind you of?
62. Whose bed curtains and blankets did the lady take?
63. Scrooge longs to find a person who feels ________ about the death of the man who lies dead.
64. And when the ghost succeeded in showing him that, what emotion was revealed?
65. Why might it be appropriate that the third ghost does not speak?
