1. Lesson 6: End of Stave One: Recap
A Christmas Carol
Lesson 6: End of Stave One: Recap

2. Focus
At the end of this lesson we will have considered the use of a narrator in the play, and compared a film adaptation of the story to the text.

3. Dialogue
What does it mean?
A conversation between two or more characters at a time, we hear directly from the character about their thoughts and feelings.

4. Stage Directions
What does it mean?
An instruction in the text of a play indicating the movement, position or tone of a character, or the sound effects and lighting.

5. What advantages do dialogue and stage directions provide to characterisation?
Can you think of any disadvantages to this approach to characterisation?

6. Third person narration
What does it mean?
Each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they“. The story is told from a ‘god-like’ point of view.

7. What advantage does third person narration provide in the play?

8. Mankind was my business, The common good was my business...’
Recap
What’s happened so far in the play?
What is the purpose of Marley’s visit to Scrooge?
Consider the following quote  How could we devise a paragraph, using P.E.E. Around this quote?
Mankind was my business, The common good was my business...’

9. Question to Consider...
How does Dickens / the playwright hook the reader into the story, in Act1, Scenes 1 & 2? What makes you want to read on?

10. Text vs Film
How do you suppose a film version of the novel will differ from the play?
What could they illustrate effectively in a film that they may not be able to in a play?

11. sequence of the 1999 film version (up to the end of Act 1, Scene 2).
Watch the opening
sequence of the 1999 film version (up to the end of Act 1, Scene 2).

12. Charting the similarities and differences between the text and the film

13. Marley’s ghost – His description in the novel
Let’s take a close look at how the ghost is described in the novel (page 17):
Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts; and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent...he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes, and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin...though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.

14. Plenary
Similarities
Differences
Marley’s ghost: Do you get a better impression of the horror of the ghost in the film or in the novel or the play? Why?