STAVE 4

Vocabulary
breach: an opening
cesspools: filthy or corrupt places
curtaining: covering
disgorged: spewed
entreaty: a plea
excrescence: an abnormal growth
frowzy: musty
laden: burdened
offal: garbage
pendulous: swinging freely
skreeks: variant spelling screeches
slipshod: shabby
snuff: tobacco
spectral: ghostly
stair rod: a rod that holds a stair-carpet in the angle between two steps
Study Questions
1. How does the final spirit communicate?
2. What emotions does this spirit inspire in Scrooge?
3. Why is Scrooge willing to follow the spirit?
4. Scrooge witnesses a scene of businessmen talking about the recent death of someone who was
very cheap. Who is the likely subject of their conversation? Why?

5. Why does Scrooge assume he is not in his usual place of business?

6. Which literary device(s) are employed in this description of a specific part of town?
The ways were foul and narrow, the shops and houses wretched, the people half-naked, drunken,
slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offenses of smell,
and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth
and misery.
7. What are the charwoman, the laundress, and the undertaker all doing at the shop?
8. What justification is given for stealing from the wicked old screw in his death?
9. Why cant Scrooge lift the sheet to see who the dead man is? What does it reveal about him?
10. Who does feel emotion for the mans passing? What do they feel? Explain why they feel as
they do.
11. Why is Bob Cratchits path homeward slower than it once was?
12. How has Tiny Tims passing affected his family?
13. What does Scrooge beg of the spirit?