A Christmas Carol
Stave I: Marley’s Ghost
Directions: As you read in the novel, answer these guided reading questions to be used for reflection, discussion, and pre-assessment during classroom instruction.
1. In his prefatory note, what do you think Dickens is saying?
2. What is meant by the phrase, “…and Scrooge’s name was good upon [the exchange], for anything he choose to put his hand to”?
3. What does the author say has to be understood before this story can be of any significance?
4. Why do you suppose the author refers to Hamlet and his father?
5. Why is Marley’s being dead so important to this story?
6. What description does the author give the reader of the character Scrooge?
7. What type of man is the character Scrooge?
8. What time of year is it in the novel?
9. Describe, using a T-Chart, the attitudes of Scrooge (being rich) and his nephew (being poor) concerning Christmas.
10. How can a rich man be so dismal and a poor man be so joyful?
11. What are the two visitors to the office seeking? When they say, “We have no doubt that his [Marley’s] liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,” why is their assumption correct but their view entirely wrong?
12. Why does Scrooge say, “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population?”
13. What does Scrooge tell us occupies him constantly?
14. What is a miser? Does this word describe the personality of the character Scrooge? Why?
15. Why do you suppose that Dickens might be upset if he saw a movie that portrayed Scrooge as a money-mad miser?
16. Again, the author describes how bitterly cold the day is. Why do you suppose he brings this up so often?
17. Reluctantly, Scrooge gives his clerk the next day off—his one paid holiday. What, however, does Scrooge tell his clerk.
18. Describe the phenomenon that Scrooge experiences when he opens the door of his home on Christmas Eve.
19. How does Scrooge respond to this experience?
20. As a result of seeing Marley’s face in the door knocker, what extra precautions does Scrooge take that night? Explain.
21. What other precaution does he take that is not customary for him?
22. Describe what happens when Scrooge sits down in front of the fireplace to warm himself.
23. What happens when Scrooge tries to take his mind off what he has seen on the fireplace?
24. How does Scrooge respond to the sounds?
25. When the ghost appears and identifies himself as Scrooge’s business partner, Jacob Marley, Scrooge states that he does not believe in such things. What does Scrooge suggest might be the cause of this illusion?
26. What happens to change Scrooge’s mind to believe in what he is seeing?
27. In answer to Scrooge’s question as to why spirits walk the earth, what is Marley’s response?
28. What is significant about Marley’s chain, and how does it happen that he is fettered in this way?
29. Explain how you think he has forged such a chain.
30. When Scrooge comments on how Marley had always been a good businessman, what does Marley say was his true business, and how should it have been conducted?
31. Why does Marley say he suffers most this particular time of year?
32. What is Marley’s warning to Scrooge?
33. What is comic in Scrooge’s response to the ghost in the last page and a half of this chapter?
34. When Marley’s ghost goes out the window, Scrooge sees many chained, anguished specters floating about. What is the reader told is the “Misery with them all?” What is the point of the comment that Dickens is making?
35. What is a major theme of this stave?