GCSEEnglish LiteratureAQARevision Notes2. The 19th Century NovelA Christmas Carol

2. The 19th Century Novel (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Revision Note

A Christmas Carol: Overview

As part of Paper 1, Section B you will study one 19th-century novel and write one response to one set question in your paper. The question will include an extract from your studied text but it is a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the text in your exam. There are two Dickens novels that you could study for the exam:

This page contains some helpful information, and links to more detailed revision note pages, that will enable you to aim for the highest grade when studying A Christmas Carol. This page includes:

Who was Charles Dickens?

Charles Dickens was a 19th-century novelist and he is regarded as one of the most famous British authors of all time. Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England on February 7, 1812 and died on June 9, 1870. He is buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey despite his request to be buried in Rochester Cathedral. 

Dickens was the author of 15 novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of stories and essays. He also edited a weekly journal for 20 years. He is particularly renowned for his stark portraits of poverty and the suffering of the masses in Victorian London during the Industrial Revolution. His work clearly demonstrates his consciousness of and commitment to social justice and his writing mixed social criticism with animated representations of characters using both humour and satire. While many of his works can be seen to contain idealised characters, Dickens uses them to underscore the terrible living and working conditions endured by so much of the population during this period. 

A Christmas Carol summary

A Christmas Carol is a novella written by Charles Dickens and first published on 19th December, 1843. The novella’s full title is: ‘A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas’. In the Preface, Dickens declares: ‘I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it’. 

A Christmas Carol is a novella composed of five staves (chapters) and it is set in mid-19th-century London. It narrates the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser, who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and three spirits: the spirit of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. Through their valuable lessons, the spirits enable Scrooge to be transformed into a charitable philanthropist. His journey of transformation from a cruel miser to a benevolent and kind man conveys Dickens’s message that everyone has the ability to show compassion and kindness to others, regardless of their social position.

Like many of Dickens’s other works, A Christmas Carol was written as a piece of social commentary. It is an allegorical tale of redemption written in response to the appalling social conditions of Victorian England. It is an exploration of the themes of poverty, family, transformation and redemption. For a more detailed summary, please see A Christmas Carol: Plot Summary page.

How is A Christmas Carol assessed in the exam?

  • Your GCSE Paper 1 requires you to answer two questions in 1hr 45min. That means you have approximately 52 minutes to plan, write and check your essay
  • Paper 1 is worth 64 marks and accounts for 40% of your overall GCSE grade
  • Your essay is worth 30 marks in total
  • Section B of Paper 1 contains the question and you are required to answer the one available question on the novella
  • Your question will also include a printed extract of about 35 lines from the novella
  • It is a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the text (other than the printed extract) in your exam
  • You will be asked a question that asks you to analyse and write in detail about an aspect of A Christmas Carol
  • Your answer will need to address both the extract from the novella that you will be given, and the novella as a whole

For a much more detailed guide on answering the A Christmas Carol question, please see our revision notes on How to Answer the 19th-Century Novel Essay Question.

A Christmas Carol characters

The characters you should focus on when revising A Christmas Carol are:

  • Jacob Marley
  • Ebenezer Scrooge
  • Bob Cratchit
  • Ghost of Christmas Past
  • Ghost of Christmas Present
  • Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

There are also other minor characters in A Christmas Carol who contribute to Scrooge’s transformation and it is important to understand their role in the novella. For example: Tiny Tim, Fred, Fan, Fezziwig, Belle, Ignorance and Want.

It is always vital to remember - when considering a Dickens novella, or any text - that characters are deliberate constructions created by a writer for a purpose. These characters often represent ideas, or belief systems, and a writer, like Dickens, uses these characters to explore these ideas and beliefs through them. For more details on how Dickens uses his characters in A Christmas Carol, please see the A Christmas Carol: Characters revision notes page.

A Christmas Carol context

There are a maximum of six marks available in the 19th-century novel question for context. It is important that you understand what context means as examiners understand context not as historical information, or biographical facts about a writer, but as the ideas and perspectives explored by a writer through their text. Therefore, for the context of A Christmas Carol you should not write about random, irrelevant information about London in the 1840s, or biographical information about Dickens, but ideas about:

  • Poverty
  • Family and Relationships
  • Transformation and Redemption
  • Death and Loss

Crucially, context is about how the above ideas and perspectives give us a better understanding of the author’s intentions, or messages. Many of these ideas and perspectives are universal, so your own opinions of them are valid, and will be rewarded in an exam. For a detailed breakdown of the contextual topics listed above, see the A Christmas Carol: Context page.

A Christmas Carol themes

Exam responses that are led by ideas are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the ideas of A Christmas Carol, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about the text.

Understanding the themes that Dickens explores in A Christmas Carol is one of the best approaches any student can take when revising the novella. This is because to get the highest mark on your exam, you need to take what examiners call a “conceptualised approach”: a detailed and perceptive exploration of Dickens’s ideas and intentions. The main themes explored by Dickens in A Christmas Carol are:

  • Poverty
  • Family and Relationships
  • Transformation and Redemption
  • Death and Loss

There are many more themes than just those listed above that are explored by Dickens in A Christmas Carol, and you are encouraged to consider these too. However, the above list makes a great place to start, and detailed breakdowns of each of these themes can be found on our A Christmas Carol: Themes page.

A Christmas Carol quotes

The assessment objectives state that you should be able to “use textual references, including quotations”. This means summarising, paraphrasing, referencing single words and referencing plot events are all as valid as quotations in demonstrating that you understand the text. It is important that you remember that you can evidence your knowledge of the text in these two equally valid ways: both through references to it and direct quotations from it. If you are going to revise quotations, the best way is to group them by character, or theme. We have already identified some quotations that you may wish to review in preparation for your exam. For a detailed analysis of each of these quotations, see our A Christmas Carol: Key Quotations page.

Top tips for the highest grade

Please see our revision pages on the 19th-century texts for guides on: