Christmas and family — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Christmas and family
Themes
What you need to know
How Dickens explores Christmas, family and goodwill across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time', 'The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune', 'God bless us every one!', 'the Founder of the Feast', 'Will you let me in, Fred?', 'knew how to keep Christmas well'.
Context: the Victorian Christmas, and Dickens's part in shaping it.
Edexcel's novel question has two parts, and neither marks context: part (a) on the printed extract marks language, form and structure (AO2); part (b) on the novel elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1), not language analysis. Use context only where it explains a reading, and say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
