A Christmas Carol Study Guide

Name: _________________________ Period: _____ Date: _____________

A Christmas Carol Stave 4 – “The Last of the Spirits”

1. What are some possible reasons Dickens chose to have the Spirit of the Future share some features with the

Grim Reaper?

2. What is the one reason the dead man’s business associates will go to his funeral?

3. In A Muppet Christmas Carol, the business men are depicted as pigs. Why was this symbol chosen to represent

the business men?

Read this passage, then answer the following questions:

[Scrooge] knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business, very wealthy, and of great

importance. He had made a point always of standing in their esteem – in a business point of view, that is,

strictly in a business point of view.

“How are you?” said one.

“How are you?” returned the other.

“Well!” said the first. “Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?”

“So I am told,” returned the second. “Cold, isn’t it?”

“Seasonable for Christmas-time. You are not a skater, I suppose?”

“No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!”

Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations

apparently so trivial, but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider

what it was likely to be…

4. What does the author mean when he says, “[Scrooge] had made a point always of standing in their esteem – in a

business point of view, that is, strictly in a business point of view”?

5. About whom are these gentlemen speaking?

6. Why does the Spirit “attach importance to [a conversation] apparently so trivial” (that is, why is it

interesting/important that the conversation is so short)?

7. Why do you think Scrooge refuses to recognize that the man being discussed in the future is him?

8. Where do the charwoman, the laundress, and the undertaker’s man get the goods they are about to pawn?

9. More specifically, from exactly what location does the laundress get her goods?

10. How does the treatment of Scrooge’s property and body after his death by the undertaker’s man, the laundress,

and the charwoman (maid) reflect how Scrooge lived his life?

11. In A Muppet Christmas Carol, Old Joe is depicted as a giant spider. Why did the Muppets choose this symbol

to represent Old Joe?

12. What is the emotion Caroline and her family (NOT the Cratchit’s) feel when they learn Scrooge is dead?

13. Referring to the last question, why do Caroline and her family feel this way?

14. What event has transpired in the Cratchit house?

15. What are the words the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come says to Scrooge which make Scrooge so afraid?

16. What about this bleak future gives Scrooge hope?

17. What suggests to Scrooge that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come feels sorry for Scrooge?