INTRODUCTION
A Christmas Carol is a novel by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visitations of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim.
The book was written and published in early Victorian era Britain when it was experiencing a nostalgic interest in its forgotten Christmas traditions, and at the time when new customs such as the Christmas tree and greeting cards were being introduced. Dickens' sources for the tale appear to be many and varied but are principally the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.
Story
The story of A Christmas Carol starts on Christmas Eve, with Scrooge at his place of business. The book says that Scrooge lives in London, England. Charles Dickens refers to Scrooge as "...a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!" It is usually assumed that he is a banker or professional money lender. Some recent versions portray him as a solicitor. Whatever his main business is, he seems to have usurious relationships with people of little means.
His nephew however, has great regard for Christmas and we are introduced to him early in the story where he unsuccessfully attempts to invite Scrooge to his Christmas dinner party only to be rebuffed by Scrooge with a repeatedly said sentence: "Good afternoon"
Scrooge has only disgust for the poor, thinking the world would be better off without them, "decreasing the surplus population," and praise for the Victorian era workhouses. He has a particular distaste for the merriment of Christmas; his single act of kindness is to give his clerk, Bob Cratchit, the day off with pay. Done more as a result of social mores than kindness, Scrooge sees the practice akin to having his pocket picked on an annual basis.
After introducing Scrooge and showing his shabby treatment of his employee, business men, and only living relative, the novel resumes with Scrooge at his residence, intent on spending Christmas Eve alone. While he is preparing to go to bed, he is visited by the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley (who had died seven years earlier on Christmas Eve) spent his life exploiting the poor and as a result is damned to walk the Earth for eternity bound in chains of his own greed. Marley warns Scrooge that he risks meeting the same fate and that as a final chance of escape he will be visited by three spirits: Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The rest of the novel acts as a biography and psychological profile, showing his evolution to his current state, and the way he is viewed by others.
Later the ghost shows how his success in business made him become obsessive and develop a workaholic tendency. His money and work-obsessed personality traits eventually compel Scrooge's fiancée, Belle, to leave him, which further hardens his heart. The death of his sister Fran, the one relative who had a close relationship with him, also injures him greatly enough that he loses any love he had for the world. Scrooge has only his nephew left but doesn't particularly care for him, likely due to Scrooge blaming him for his sister's death following childbirth; in some versions Scrooge's father blames Ebenezer for causing his wife's death in childbirth.
Scrooge
is then visited by the Ghost
of Christmas Present, who shows him the happiness of his nephew's
middle-class social circle and the impoverished Cratchit family. The
latter have a young son (Tiny Tim) who is lame, yet the family still
manages to live happily on the pittance Scrooge pays his clerk. When
Scrooge asks if Tim will die, the ghost – quick to use
Scrooge's past unkind comments to two charitable solicitors against
him – suggests "they had better do it now, and decrease
the surplus population".
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge the final consequences of his actions. Tiny Tim has died from his illness, leaving the entire Cratchit family in mourning. In addition, Scrooge's solitary life and disdain for those in need will ultimately lead others to find comfort and happiness from his own death. No one will mourn his passing and his money and possessions will be stolen by the desperate and corrupt, the very people he condemned in life. The only people who feel any emotion are a young couple Scrooge was about to ruin financially. His death, however, allows them the small amount of extra time (while Scrooge's affairs were being settled) to raise the funds to pay off their debt to his estate. His final legacy will be that of a cheap tombstone in an unkept graveyard. Scrooge then weeps over his own grave, begging the ghost for a chance to change his ways before awakening to find it is Christmas morning. He has been given an opportunity to repent after all. Scrooge does so and becomes a model of generosity and kindness. "Many laughed to see this alteration in him, but he let them laugh and little heeded them. 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."
Critical reception
The book received immediate critical acclaim. The London literary magazine the Athenaeum declared it, "A tale to make the reader laugh and cry—to open his hands, and open his heart to charity even toward the uncharitable [...] a dainty dish to set before a King.” Poet and editor Hood wrote, "If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were ever in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease. The very name of the author predisposes one to the kindlier feelings; and a peep at the Frontispiece sets the animal spirits capering [...]".
Even the caustic critic Theodore Martin (who was usually virulently hostile to Dickens), spoke well of the book, “noting it was finely felt, and calculated to work much social good". A few critics registered their complaints. The New Monthly Magazine, for example, thought the book's physical magnificence kept it from being available to the poor and recommended the tale be printed on cheap paper and priced accordingly. The religious press generally ignored the tale but, in January 1884, Christian Rembrancer thought the tale's old and hackneyed subject was treated in an original way and praised the author's sense of humor and pathos. Dickens later noted that he received "by every post, all manner of strangers writing all manner of letters about their homes and hearths, and how the Carol is read aloud there, and kept on a very little shelf by itself".] After Dickens' death, Margaret Oliphant deplored the turkey and plum pudding aspects of the book but admitted that in the days of its first publication it was regarded as "a new gospel" and noted that the book was unique in that it actually made people behave better.
Americans were less enthusiastic. Dickens had wounded their national pride with American Notes for General Circulation and Martin Chuzzlewit, but Carol was too compelling to be dismissed, and, by the end of the American Civil War, copies of the book were in wide circulation. The New York Times published an enthusiastic review in 1863 noting that the author brought the "old Christmas of bygone centuries and remote manor houses, into the living rooms of the poor of today" while the North American Review believed Dickens’s "fellow feeling with the race is his genius"; and John Greenleaf Whittier thought the book charming, "inwardly and outwardly".
CHARACTERS
Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 drama, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness. Dickens describes him thus: "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice ..." The tale of his redemption by the three Ghosts of Christmas (Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, and Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday. Scrooge's catchphrase, "Bah, humbug!" is often used to express disgust with many of the modern Christmas traditions. The Ghost of Christmas Past is a character in the well-known work of the English novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Ghost of Christmas Past
The Ghost of Christmas Past was the first of the three spirits (after the visitation by Jacob Marley) that haunted the miser Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent. He showed him scenes from his past that occurred on or around Christmas, in order to demonstrate to him the necessity of changing his ways, as well as to show the reader how Scrooge came to be the person he was and his particular dislike for Christmas – most of the events which negatively affected Scrooge occurred around the Christmas holiday season.
The Ghost of Christmas Past first showed Scrooge his old boarding school where he he stayed (alone but for his books) while his schoolmate returned home for the Christmas holidays. Then he was shown the day when his beloved, younger sister Fan picked him up from there after repeatedly asking for his return. He was shown an episode from his time as an apprentice to Mr. Fezziwig. The spirit also showed Scrooge the day when, as a young man, his fiancee, Belle, chose to end their relationship as his increasing obsession with his money caused him to alienate her. Scrooge never asked Belle to break off their engagement, but he did not protest against her decision. Finally, the Ghost showed him how she married and found true happiness with another man. After this vision, Scrooge, out of anger, extinguished the Ghost of Christmas Past with his cap and found himself back in his bedroom.
Ghost Of Christmas Present
The Ghost of Christmas Present was the second of the three spirits (after the visitation by Jacob Marley) that haunted the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, in order to prompt him to repent. According to Dickens' novel, the Ghost of Christmas Present appears to Scrooge as "a jolly giant" with dark brown curls. He wears a fur-lined green robe and on his head a holly wreath set with shining icicles. He carries a large torch, made to resemble a cornucopia, and appears accompanied by a great feast. He states that he has had "more than eighteen hundred" brothers (in fact eighteen hundred and forty two) and later reveals the ability to change his size to fit into any space. He also wears a scabbard with no sword in it, a representation of peace on Earth and good will toward men.
The spirit transports Scrooge around the city, showing him scenes of festivity and also deprivation that were happening as they watched, sprinkling a little warmth from his torch as he travels. Amongst the visits are Scrooge's nephew, and the family of his clerk, Bob Cratchit.
The spirit finally reveals to Scrooge two emaciated children, subhuman in appearance and loathsome to behold, clinging to his robes, and names the boy as Ignorance and the girl as Want. The spirit warns Scrooge, "Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.", underscoring the book's social message. The spirit once again quotes Scrooge, who asks if the grotesque children have "no refuge, no resource," and the spirit retorts with Scrooge's same words, "Are there no prisons, no workhouses?", filling Scrooge with self-loathing.
Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, is a fictional character in English novelist Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is the ghost that haunts the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, in order to prompt him to adopt a more caring attitude in life and avoid the horrid afterlife of Marley. Scrooge finds the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come the most fearsome of the spirits; he appears to Scrooge as a figure entirely muffled in a black hooded robe, except for a single gaunt hand with which he points. Although the character never speaks in the story, Scrooge understands him, usually through assumptions from his previous experiences and rhetorical questions. The Ghost's general appearance suggests that he may be associated with the Grim Reaper. The Ghost's muteness and undefined features (being always covered by his robe) may also have been intended to represent the uncertainty of the future. He is notable that even in satires and parodies of the tale, this spirit nonetheless retains his original look.
When the Ghost makes his appearance, the first thing he shows Scrooge is three wealthy gentlemen making light of a recent death, remarking that it will be a cheap funeral, if anyone comes at all. One businessman said he would go only if lunch is provided, while another said he didn't eat lunch or wear black gloves, so there was no reason for him to go at all. Next, Scrooge is shown the same dead person's belongings being stolen and sold to a receiver of stolen goods called Old Joe. He also sees a shrouded corpse, which he implores the ghost not to unmask, and a poor, debtor family rejoicing that someone to whom they owed money is dead. After pleading to the ghost to see some tenderness connected with death, Scrooge is shown Bob Cratchit and his family mourning the passing of Tiny Tim. (In the prior visitation, the Ghost of Christmas Present states that Tiny Tim's illness was not inherently fatal, but it implies that the meager income Scrooge provided to Bob Cratchit wasn't enough to afford proper treatment.) Scrooge is then taken to an unkempt graveyard, where he is shown his own grave, and realizes that the dead man of whom the others spoke ill was himself.
His transformation complete, Scrooge is ready to re-enter the world of humanity as he does in the story's denouement in the final stage.
Jacob Marley
In life, Marley was the business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge. Even when Marley died (though it was never explained how), Scrooge kept his name on the welcome sign outside his shop. As teenagers, both men had been apprenticed in business and met as clerks (presumably in accounting) in another business. The firm of Scrooge and Marley was a nineteenth century financial institution, probably a counting house, as Marley refers to their offices as 'our money-changing hole'. They have become successful bankers, with seats on the London Stock Exchange; they are alsostockholders, moneylenders, and directors of at least one major association, but a vast amount of their wealth has been accumulated through usurious moneylending. Scrooge is described as Marley's "sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner". He has been dead seven years by the time the story begins.
At first Scrooge does not believe that Marley's ghost is real, and a mere figment of his imagination. When the spectre asks, "Why do you doubt your senses?" Scrooge scoffs that "...a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheat. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" Later, more pointedly he says, "Humbug, I tell you! Humbug!" Marley's only reply is a spine-chilling howl that brings Scrooge to his knees, begging for mercy. Satisfied, after explaining his situation and the reasons for it, Marley delivers his message of the three hauntings that will help redeem Scrooge of the same punishment, he then flies out of the window in the company of other restless souls, all of them chained in a similar manner to himself, and all of them suffering the same incessant torture.
CONCLUSION
The tale has been viewed as an indictment of nineteenth century industrial capitalism and was adapted several times to the stage, and has been credited with restoring the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and somberness. A Christmas Carol remains popular, has never been out of print, and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.