Download dickens christmas carol

A Christmas Carol
By Charles Dickens
About the Author
Charles Dickens
• 1812-1870
• Famous author and social campaigner
• At 12 began working full days at a
warehouse
• Work conditions and cruel treatment
influenced Dickens’ later writings
Birth/ Early Life
• One of eight children
• Favorite pastime when young was reading
• Photographic memory of people he met and
things he read
• Raised in a middle class family
--Family debt forced young
Dickens to begin working
--Father placed in debtor’s
prison
More about the author
Writing
•Wrote most of his stories in short installments for newspapers
•Used cliffhangers- story pauses, leaving character in an
exciting or difficult situation
•Paid by the page– contributes to the length of his stories
Important Works
•
•
•
•
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities
Oliver Twist
A Christmas Carol
•David Copperfield
•Pictures from Italy
•A Trial for Murder
From Books to Movies
• Many of Dickens’ famous works were later
turned into movies
--A Christmas Carol
-- A Tale of Two Cities
--Great Expectations
--Oliver Twist
Death
• Died of a stroke after working on his last
novel Edwin Drode
• Died exactly 5 years after being in a train
accident
Dickens’ writings
Social Commentary
• Disliked the division
between social classes
in Victorian England
• Felt that the poor were
treated unfairly
• Advocate for charity
Victorian Christmas Traditions
• Many Christmas
traditions celebrated
today were introduced
during Dickens’ time
•Decorating Christmas trees
•Christmas cards
•Gift giving from parents to children
•Traditional Christmas carols
•Christmas stories
Theatre Terms
•Dialogue– words spoken by characters. Preceded by
characters’ names in plays
•Dramatic monologue– speaker in play addresses a silent
listener
•Gesture– physical movement of a character during a play
•Props– articles or objects that appear onstage during a
play
More theatre terms
• Soliloquy– character reveals thoughts by talking aloud to himself;
not meant to be heard by anyone else onstage
• Aside– actor speaks directly to audience; is not heard by others
onstage
• Monologue– only one character speaks; others onstage can hear
him
• Playwright– author of a play
More theatre terms
• Stage directions– comments given by the author to describe
dialogue, setting, and action of a play
• Staging—position of actors on stage, backdrops, costumes, props,
and lighting
• Blocking– movement and position of actors on stage within a scene
• Theme– unifying subject or idea of story
• Symbol– object that stands for something other than itself
• Characterization- The act of creating and
developing a character
• Direct Character- A writer states the characters’
traits or characteristics
• Indirect Character- A writer depends on the
reader to draw conclusions about the character
traits
Figurative Language Project
• “A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and Marley is filled
with figurative language.
• Go through the play and find one figurative
language quote.(word for word copied from the
text)
• Make a colored illustration that describes the
quote, include the quote, the name and the page
number.
• This is worth a quiz and a classwork grade. Do
your BEST and be NEAT! ;0)