Exploring Redemption in Dickens' A Christmas Carol: Key Quotes & Essay Tips

in this video I'm going to explore the idea of redemption in A Christmas Carol first going to talk through some key

quotations then I'm going to isolate the quotation so that you can get them on flashcards or use them for a mind map

and then I'm going to show you what an essay plan might look like in an exam situation if that sounds useful Please

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in any text it can be useful to take a step back and consider the whole plot and reflect on what happens so that we

can understand what message it contains when we do that with A Christmas Carol it's clear that Dickens is writing a

story that takes a terrible human being and makes him decent this is a story of redemption Redemption means saving so

what has Scrooge got to be saved from well Dickens starts the story with Marley for a reason this is Scrooge's

fate if he's not careful Marley tells Scrooge from the afterlife that I wear the chain I forged in life the reader

can see that the character of Marley and by association by Business Partnership Scrooge has made choices the chains are

not easy to make they require force and power choices pursued with energy as shown with a metaphorical verb forged

this verb also carries the weight of realization and regret in the character knowing that each choice that was made

burdens the soul of Marley the other Covetous old sinner of the Nolla the one that is now aware of the sins and unable

to affect change Marley is stuck in purgatory and wants to leave he wants to save himself he wants to redeem himself

and his old partner perhaps this points the Marley's genuine and deep guilt perhaps it's Marley's way to escape

patry or perhaps there is some genuine friendship with Scrooge I'll leave that to you to argue the chains that weigh

him down in the afterlife are the same ones that he used to weigh down other people people in the material world

Scrooge's Redemption is partially a financial or economic one then he needs to change from the squeezing wrenching

grasping scraping clutching Covetous old sinner that he's described by the narrator as at the start of the Nolla

each time he squeezes interest from somebody wrenches cash and happiness from a family scrapes up every last bit

that he can each time will make his Redemption less likely and harder but don't worry Dickens makes Scrooge seem

comically mean to make his Redemption seem even greater Scrooge's name is comically linked to scge meaning to

squeeze or press and is joyfully villainous to say in the same way that list was the financial Redemption is

shown in his generosity in the final Stave the anonymous gift to the charity collectors this is described as Scrooge

whispered in his ear the verb whispered shows Dickens doesn't want to s example to his Rich readers allowing them to say

that they gave a penny more than Scrooge and that the character retains a gentleman discretion by not revealing

the some he doesn't want public praise he wants private Redemption Scrooge's Redemption is also

a familiar one Scrooge's father seems cruel and safe too but vanan spearhead Scrooge the Elder's Redemption having

somehow turned him into a kind of man van declares that she has come to bring you home home home the simple repetition

of home and the exclamation mark at the end emphasize the joy that is provided by the concept and symbolism of home the

home is redeemed the father redeemed and this foreshadows Scrooge's own Redemption at the close of the Nolla in

stay one though the reader can see that Scrooge neglects his family in the form of the resilient and Evert trying Fred

but by the end the narrator describes Christmas with this classically deenan incomplete sentence wonderful party

wonderful names wonderful unanimity wonderful happiness the repetition of wonderful and breaking it down into its

component parts of each syllable simply and elegantly leads the reader to the joy of Scrooge's Redemption we are full

of wonder and we must conclude that if Scrooge can be redeemed there is hope for all of us Dickens reserves the idea

of responsibility for the greatest dose of posos in the Nolla this is Dickens most powerful method and it comes in the

character of Tiny Tim Dickens chooses to focus on a child due to the associated innocence who can possibly blame Tiny

Tim for his situation so has Scrooge already been emotionally redeemed when he asked the Ghost of Christmas present

to tell me if Tiny Tim will live the ghosts reply employing euphemism because it's too harsh to even say out loud is I

see a vacant seat the posos the feeling of pity is way down with a Simplicity the fact that it's the Ghost of

Christmas present that says this not the future not the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come show Scrooge and the reader that

there is real suffering right now that must be addressed the danger is now and the solution is needed now so Scrooge

redeems himself by taking responsibility for his employees becoming more fezy week he raises Bob's salary but more

importantly he becomes a second father to Tiny Tim Dickens paints him at the end as a model paternalistic capitalist

still making money but caring for those who work for him rather than selfishly taking everything for himself and this

is the model that Dickens wants to see in the wider world he isn't after revolution if you've studied in in

spectacles he isn't a socialist like Priestley he is running his business and what he believes is the best interests

of those people that he now cares about finally let's consider the effect of his Redemption on his personality at the

start he's hard and sharp as Flint the simil paints a vivid and cruel picture hard shows that he's solid rigid

unbending and impenetrable nothing will get through to him while sharp conveys danger combined with Flint it gives a

weapon designed for harm but Flint can also be used to create a spark to light a fire to bring warmth and that is what

Dickens does with the character by the end Dickens describes his laugh using epistrophe repeating the phrase at the

end of successive Clauses when he says for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid

laugh a most illustrious laugh the father of a long long line of brilliant laughs for me that quotation is too long

to learn for an exam and I wouldn't actually try but the emphasis the epistrophe lens to the focus on the

laughing is also carried out by the repetition in the final sentence and that's the bit I tried to learn the long

long and the alliteration of long long line of brilliant laughs once more it also ties into the quotation of being a

second father to Tiny Tim leaving the reader with a joyful tone Scrooge is a father to happiness and to real people

making a real difference now let's consider how we revise this coming up up shortly you'll

see the quotations that I've used today you can pause the screen as I show them and then get them on flashcards you can

also use them to create a mind map for the different ways that we see redemption in A Christmas Carol after

that I'm going of skim through what an essay plan might look like here are the quotations I wear the chains I forged in

life a squeezing wrenching grasping scraping clutching Covetous old sinner when I focus on this in lessons what I

do tell people to do is have a go at learning it but if you're in an exam situation and you can't remember the

exact order take them as individual words know that they're part of a list you could put an ellipsis between the

ones you've forgotten and maybe just pretend that these are the ones you're focusing on the point is if the examiner

wanted you to know this quotation 100% they would have given you the book they didn't so write down what you can so you

could take squeezing for instance and just talk about the effect of that word I've got a whole separate video that

talks about Scrooge at the beginning of the Nolla so you might like to have a look at that Scrooge whispered in his

ear to bring you home home home wonderful party wonderful games wonderful unanimity

wonderful happiness I see a vacant seat second father hard and sharp as Flint the

father of a long long line of brilliant laughs I often tell students that they can work in solit tre is an oyster into

any essay and you certainly could use that one in this essay by swapping it with with hard and sharp as Flint or

bringing it in to the point about family or responsibility now let's consider using some of these ideas in an exam if

you were using this for an exam with an extract like the AQA literature gcsc you'd want to include something from

that extract fairly early on you do it early so that if you run out of time you know you've covered both the extract and

the whole text you can easily tie into one of the existing points remember that there is nothing in the mark team that

says you have to go 50/50 on extract and hold text so do it in the proportion that works for your knowledge so my

essay plan would look something like this simple introduction what is redemption when do we first See

Redemption talk about Mary Marley represents the thing that he needs to be redeemed from the possible future that

could be there for Scrooge if he does not change Financial Redemption as a topic uh scraping Etc to Scrooge

whispered in his ear I would go for familial Redemption so bring in fan and father I've written down the quotations

I would use there and responsibility is another heading so taking responsibility for others I see if IAC can see Harden

Shas Flint second father might even put the solit TRU and oyster quotation in there overall change uh from hard and

sharp as Flint the father of a long long line of brilliant laughs in truth the essay plan if I were personally in an

exam would actually be shorter than this as the point of an essay plan is to organize your thoughts make sure you've

got the bits that you've remembered the first word of each point is to remind me to say something about dickens's

intention such as Dickens wants to explore Redemption through the idea of family I like to get the quotations down

in the plan just in case my brain plays tricks on me makes me forget it in half an hour but often I would shorten them

to single words just to save a bit of time my essay plan would be written in the exam booklet Let The Examiner see it

in case anything happens you know they can see that I had good intentions and I know my quotations from inside and

outside of the extract don't be afraid to change and adapt the plan as time goes on in the exam you may well have an

idea of how much you can write already but you may not get as far as you think you might want to drop the later points

if you need to so when you're considering the order of your ideas very much start with the strongest don't

build build this into a a kind of an increasing argument because there's a danger that you save your your best

argument to the end look up 50 minutes is gone and you haven't actually got time to articulate your strongest point

so do be careful about the order of of arguments in an essay my advice would be very much lead off with the strongest

foot if you want to set a pomodora Tim out and independently recreate a mind map or notes for this video I'll link

that on the final screen if you are revising though give yourself a pat on the back back then take a short break

before having another go and best of luck in your exams