Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Classtimeless
with
a story appeal
our favorite
(creepy) classic
holiday tale
Adapted by scope editors
IllustrationS by
LISA K. WEbEr
sometimes called
Scrooge: You want me to pay you for a day “the man who dinner with us tomorrow.
invented Christmas.”
when you’re not working? Then you’d better In England, Scrooge: Humbug.
be here even earlier the next morning. Christmas wasn’t a Fred: But why not?
big holiday—but this
N2: Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, arrives in hopes Scrooge: That’s enough! Good day,
of spreading cheer.
famous story made
it one. Nephew.
Jim Carrey
know this place?
(below) is one Scrooge: I held my
of the many first job here. Why,
actors who have
played Scrooge there’s old Mr.
(right). The Fezziwig. He was a
word “scrooge”
decent man.
derives from
this story. N1: Scrooge sees
Based on what himself as a cheerful
you know about
young man.
the character,
what do you Fezziwig: It’s
think it means? Christmas Eve! Yo
ho, everyone! No
more work tonight.
Clear the floor for
dancing and fiddling
and celebrating!
Y
oung Charles stay together, Charles’s mom and language: “Dickensian.”
Dickens was living five siblings went with his dad to It means “resembling the
a nightmare. jail. Charles, however, had to quit conditions described in
From sunup to school and go to work to pay the Dickens’s stories.” The
sundown, he labored in a family debts. word is used to describe
dark, rat-infested warehouse, Those dark days would haunt particularly squalid and
applying labels to impoverished living and
bottles. And the end of working conditions.
the workday brought Dickens’s tragic—yet
Even young
no relief. He lived in a incredibly popular—
children had to
dilapidated boarding novels evoked a deep
work to survive.
house. To escape, he sympathy for society’s
would wander the most vulnerable. Wealthy
streets of London. readers were moved
At only 12 years old, to call for reforms. In
Charles was on his own. 1870, the year that
How had this Charles Dickens died,
happened? Charles’s England passed a
father had gone sweeping reform called
deep into debt. In the Education Act, which
19th-century England, made it possible for all
no programs existed kids to go to school.
to help the needy. In By then, Dickens
fact, the public tended had become a rich man,
to believe the poor thanks to his runaway
deserved their suffering. literary success. Yet
To pay the butcher and he remained
the baker, Charles had a faithful
to sell his family’s belongings: Charles until the end of his life, but champion of
The Francis Frith Collection/Corbis (shoe shine); adoc-photos/Corbis (Dickens)
chairs, pictures, carpets— they also inspired his stories. He social causes
even his beloved books. But was particularly concerned about until his last
that wasn’t enough. And the plight of the poor. Many of his breath—just like
those who couldn’t pay their novels dramatized the suffering Ebenezer Scrooge.
debts, like Charles’s dad, they endured. In fact, he wrote so
were sent to debtors’ prison. much about their hardships that a Charles Dickens
So that the family could new word was added to the English (1812-1870)
contest
Write About Fulfillment Charles Dickens once wrote, “No one is useless in
this world who lightens the burdens of another.” What do you think that means? How does
this quotation relate to A Christmas Carol and “How Charles Dickens Changed the World”?
Use evidence from both texts in your answer. Send it to DICKENS CONTEST. Five
winners will get Andrea Warren’s Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London. Get this
activity
Online