”A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol is a tale on the subject of change. It is a quite simple story based on an intervallic narrative composition in which all of the major chapters have a clear, fixed symbolic connotation. Dickens’ much-loved short story A Christmas Carol was printed in 1843, along with the purpose of getting the attention of the reader to the dilemma of England’s underprivileged people. In the story, Dickens furtively joins a fairly roundabout picture of poverty experienced by the deprived with a pitiful, sentimental festivity of the season of Christmas. The heartless character of the frugal Ebenezer Scrooge, who pours his heart when deal with three ghosts; continue as Dickens’ most extensively well-known and admired work. The spirit of Christmas Past, along with his gleaming head representing the brain, stands for reminiscences; the spirit of Christmas Present symbolizes kindness, compassion, and the mood of Christmas; plus the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come signify the terror of bereavement and ethical reckoning.

In addition the Cratchits stand for the unfortunate, whom Dicken represents with affection and understanding as seeking to get attention to their troubles. By means of A Christmas Carol, Dickens wishes to exemplify how insensitive, self-serving individuals are able to be transformed into generous, kind, and socially alert people of the world due to the intervention of moralistic quasi-religious instructions. This short story is subjugated by a single character, Ebenezer Scrooge. The aim of the novella is to demonstrate why and how he transforms. “Through his simple festive allegory, Dickens draws attention to the role individuals can play in bringing about social reform and helping the poor, pointing out in the process they may redeem both themselves and their society” (Collet Daiute) Once Scrooge is introduced and his nasty conduct with his workers, business partners, and one relative is shown, the short story starts again with him at his house, focused on celebrating the Christmas unaccompanied.

As he is getting ready to sleep, the spirit of his dead business associate, Marley comes to visit him. Marley who had died on Christmas had used up his entire life taking advantage of the deprived and therefore is hopeless to wander in the World for perpetuity clad in the manacles of his greediness. He forewarns Scrooge that he possibly will meet the similar destiny, so as a last opportunity of avoiding this fate the three spirits will come to meet him. They are spirit of Past, spirit of Present, and spirit of Yet to Come. In the same way as promised, the first ghost comes to meet Scrooge and escorts him to his past when he was just a school boy. At this time it is recommended that his father deserted the youthful Scrooge even at Christmas. This is significant to Scrooge, since it demonstrates the early stages of him being rude and his lack of empathy. He fails to meet people since he in no way experienced stable development in a strong unit of family.

He fails to sympathize owing to the manner with which he was cared for. Afterwards the spirit explains that his accomplishments in business prepared him to become compulsive and acquire a tendency of being a workaholic. Scrooge after that meets the spirit of Present, who demonstrates him the contentment of the middle-class friends of his nephew and the poor family of Cratchit. The Cratchits have their little son Tim who is crippled, but still the family tries to live gladly on the meager amount Scrooge pays them. As Scrooge, whose feelings of sympathy are quickly coming back, inquires if Tim will pass away, the spirit verifies this, but reminds Scrooge’s about the mean remarks he had given. The spirit in addition cautions him about the evils of want and ignorance. The ultimate penalty of his proceedings is shown by the spirit of Yet to come.

Tim passes away due to his sickness, leaving the whole family of Cratchit in grief. It is shown that nobody will grieve Scrooge’s death, his possessions and money will be taken away by the corrupt and desperate, the same individuals he hated in his life. His ultimate inheritance will be an inexpensive gravestone in a disheveled cemetery. Scrooge cries on his tomb, pleading the spirit for an opportunity to alter his behavior and embrace life, before waking up from his sleep to discover it is the morning of Christmas. Scrooge is gifted with a chance to ask forgiveness for all his conducts. He turns out to be kind and generous with his neighbors, nephew and the Cratchits. Like the concluding narration says, “Many laughed to see this alteration in him, but he let them laugh and little heeded them, for he knew that no good thing in this world ever happened, at which some did not have their fill of laughter. His own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him. And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”

Friendliness, bigheartedness, and overall kindness, conquer Scrooge’s resentful lethargy as he meets and gains knowledge through his memory, the capability to understand, and his terror of loss of life. Memory assist to tell Scrooge of a point in time when he felt sensitively linked to other individuals, before he bunged himself in a severe position of estrangement and alienation. Empathy facilitates Scrooge to empathize and recognize with those deprived people who were less privileged then himself, individuals such as Bob Cratchits and Tiny Tim. The terror of bereavement suggests the forthcoming moral calculation; the assurance of reward and punishment. With the tale of every Ghost performing in the function of a parable, A Christmas Carol put light on the Christian ethical principles linked with Christmas. They are openhandedness, generosity, and general affection for your kinship and community.

Dickens, with all the aim of pulling on the reader’s heartstrings, portrays the Cratchits in the role of a poor family that discovers a method to convey deep gratefulness for its emotional treasures. Dickens holds this feeling ahead with the sad character of the simple-hearted, crippled son of Cratchit, Tiny Tim. Scrooge’s emotional association to Tiny Tim noticeably emphasizes his revelatory recognition of the moral value of Christmas. Scrooge starts to break into his emotive barrier in Stave Three when he feels compassion for Tiny Tim. The person reading the novella starts to consider that Scrooge has a possibility at salvation, upon hearing the generally hardhearted miser question into the fate of Tim. Scrooge’s course to salvation ends with his symbolic “adoption” of Tim, in the role of “a second father” to the small boy. Dickens illustrates Scrooge by comparing him to the weather of winter and at the same time notices that no weather conditions have any consequences on him.

There is no clue that the same menacing character will turn out to be the amusing Scrooge at the end of the story. An extremely clear technique in this novella is the general employment of dialogue to demonstrate what individuals consider or sense. Dickens composes speech similar to a playwright. Generally in the stories of ghost, the ghostly phantom works to jog the memory of the major characters of anything wicked or evil that they have executed in the past. Simply, spirits performs as the conscience of the character. Scrooge surely has a lot to feel culpable on: he is nasty and miserly with his subordinate, Bob Cratchit; indifferent to his nephew, Fred; tightfisted and aloof with the people from the native charity organization; and spiteful to the small caroler that he chases away by means of a ruler.

According to Grace Moore “By forcing scrooge to connect with those around him, particularly those who need his aid, Dickens redeems him from the solitude that has fostered his bitterness over the years and left him without support” Mostly, this short story is written in the third person; which means, the novella is generally written as “Scrooge watched them,” “she said” or “he said” and so on. In the start, there is a small amount of a first-person storyteller, as someone chats directly with the person reading the book. So as Dickens deduces that the new Scrooge “knew how to keep Christmas well,” he signifies something more; he puts an end to “Bah! Humbug!” in contrast of “Merry Christmas!”

Work cited:

DICKENS, C. (1988). A Christmas carol and other stories. Pleasantville, N.Y., Reader’s Digest Association.

MOORE, GRACE. (2011). A Christmas Carol. Insight Pubns Pty Ltd.

DAIUTE, C., & LIGHTFOOT, C. (2004). Narrative analysis: studying the development of individuals in society. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage.