TASK #1-Why does Dickens include a
colon after 'Marley was dead'? What is
the effect?
Dickens uses a colon
to seperate the two ports
of the opening scenrence.
TASK #2 - Why does Dickens spend
so much time emphasising that
Marley is dead?

TASK #3- What tone/atmosphere
does the opening create? How does
Dickens do this?
1. 'Marley was dead: to begin with...'
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The
register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon
'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a
door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is
particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the
wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not
disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat,
emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge
and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole
executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his
sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up
by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day
of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There
is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing
wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly
convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be
nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon
his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman
rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot-- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for
instance literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards,
above the ware-house door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge
and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and
sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
TASK #4 - How is Scrooge introduced to us
here? What do we learn about him?

TASK #5 - Why is Hamlet's father alluded
to in the fourth paragraph? Research and
explain.
TASK # 6-What kind of world do you think
'A Christmas Carol' is set in based solely on
this opening?