Writer's methods — A Christmas Carol — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Writer's methods
Writer's methods
What you need to know
How Dickens's form, structure and language create meaning: the novella's five staves, the narrator's voice, the ghost story,
pathetic fallacy, symbolism, and contrast.
Form: a carol in five staves (verses of a song), a ghost story and a moral fable, told by a narrator who speaks to the reader ('Marley was dead: to begin with').
Language and structure: lists, similes and pathetic fallacy (the fog and cold), symbols (Marley's chain, Ignorance and Want), contrast, and the circular ending.
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.
