A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (commonly known as A Christmas Carol
) is what Charles Dickens described as his "little Christmas Book" and was first
published on December 19, 1843 with illustrations by
John Leech.[1] The story was instantly successful, selling over six thousand copies in one week and, although
originally written as a potboiler to enable Dickens to pay off a debt, the tale has become one
of the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time.[2]
Contemporaries noted that the story's popularity played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and the
major sentiments associated with the holiday. A Christmas Carol was written during a time of decline in the old Christmas
traditions.[3] "If
Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the
book that would give them a new lease," said English poet Thomas Hood.[4]
Plot summary
A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality
tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer
Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one evening. Mr Scrooge is a
financier/money-changer who has devoted his life to the accumulation of wealth. He holds anything other than money in contempt,
including friendship, love and the Christmas season.
Ebenezer Scrooge encounters "Ignorance" and "Want" in
A Christmas Carol
In keeping with the musical analogy of the title, "A Christmas Carol", Dickens divides his literary work into five "staves"
instead of chapters.
Stave I – Marley’s Ghost
The story begins by establishing that Jacob Marley, Scrooge's business partner in the firm of Scrooge & Marley, was
dead—the narrative begins seven years after his death to the very day, Christmas Eve. Scrooge and his clerk Bob Cratchit are at
work in the counting house, with Cratchit stationed in the poorly heated "tank", a victim of his employer's stinginess. Scrooge's
nephew, Fred, enters to wish his uncle a "Merry Christmas" and invite him to Christmas dinner the next day. He is dismissed by
his relative with "Bah! Humbug!" among other unpleasantness, declaring Christmas time to be a fraud. Two "portly gentlemen",
collecting charitable donations for the poor, come in afterwards, but they too are rebuffed by Scrooge, who points out that the
poor laws and workhouses are sufficient to care for the poor. When Scrooge is told that many would rather die than go there, he
mercilessly responds, "If they would rather die ... they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." At the end of
the workday, Scrooge grudgingly allows Cratchit to take Christmas Day off, but to arrive to work all the earlier on the day
after. Scrooge leaves the counting-house, eats dinner at his usual tavern, and returns to his home, an isolated townhouse
formerly owned by his late business partner, Jacob Marley. In keeping with his miserly character, Scrooge lives in a small suite
of largely unfurnished rooms within the house which he keeps dark and cold since "darkness is cheap" (the rest of the rooms in
the building having been let out as offices). While he unlocks his door Scrooge is startled to see the ghostly face of Marley
instead of the familiar appearance of his door knocker. This is just the beginning of Scrooge's harrowing night. As Scrooge
climbs the staircase of his house he thinks he sees a locomotive hearse charging up the stairs before him in the dark. As he gets
to his room, puts on his dressing gown, and eats his gruel by the fireplace, he sees the carvings on his mantlepiece transform
into images of Jacob Marley's face. All of the bells in the house begin to ring loudly. When they stop he then hears a clanking
noise. His cellar door opens loudly and then the clanking on the stairs coming upstairs and approaches his room. Marley's ghost
passes through the door and appears before Scrooge. Marley has come to warn Scrooge that his miserliness and contempt for others
will subject him to the same fate Marley himself suffers in death: condemned to walk the earth in penitence since he had not done
it in life in concern for mankind. A prominent symbol of Marley's torture is a heavy chain wound around his form that has
attached to it symbolic objects from Marley's life fashioned out of heavy metal: ledgers, money boxes, keys, and the like. Marley
explains that Scrooge's fate might be worse than his because Scrooge's chain was as long and as heavy as Marley's seven
Christmases ago when Marley died, and Scrooge has been adding to his with his selfish life. Marley tells Scrooge that he has a
chance to escape this fate through the visitation of three more spirits that will appear one by one. Scrooge is shaken but not
entirely convinced that the foregoing was no hallucination, and goes to bed thinking that a good night's sleep will make him feel
better.
Stave II - The First of the Three Spirits
Scrooge wakes in the night and the bells of the neighbouring church strike twelve. The first spirit appears and introduces
himself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. This spirit leads Scrooge on a journey into some of the happiest and saddest moments of
Scrooge's past, events that would largely shape the current Scrooge. These include the mistreatment of Scrooge by his uncaring
father who did not allow his Scrooge to return home from boarding school, or Christmas. The loss of a great love sacrificed for
his devotion to business, and the death of his sister who was the only other person who ever showed love and compassion for him.
Unable to stand these painful memories and his growing regret of them, Scrooge covers the spirit with the large candle snuffer it
carries and he is returned to his room, where he falls asleep.
Stave III - The Second of the Three Spirits
Scrooge wakes at the stroke of one. After more than fifteen minutes, he rises and finds the second spirit, the Ghost of
Christmas Present, in an adjoining room. The spirit shows him the meagre Christmas celebrations of the Cratchit family, the sweet
nature of their lame son Tiny Tim, and a possible early death for the child; this prospect is the immediate catalyst for his
change of heart. They also show the faith of Scrooge's nephew in his uncle's potential for change, a concept that slowly warms
Scrooge to the idea that he can reinvent himself. To further drive the point, the Ghost reveals two pitiful children who huddle
under his robes which personify the major causes of suffering in the world, "Ignorance" and "Want", with a grim warning that the
former is especially harmful. At the end of the visitation, the bell strikes twelve. The Ghost of Christmas Present vanishes and
the third spirit appears to Scrooge.
Stave IV - The Last of the Spirits
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come takes the form of a grim spectre, completely robed in black, who does not speak and whose
body is entirely hidden except for one pointing hand. This spirit frightens Scrooge more than the others, and harrows him with
visions of the Cratchit family bereft of Tiny Tim, of Scrooge's own lonely death and final torment, and the cold, avaricious
reactions of the people around him after his passing. Without explicitly being said, Scrooge learns that he can avoid the future
he has been shown, and alter the fate of Tiny Tim—but only if he changes.
Stave V - The End of It
In the end, Scrooge changes his life and reverts to the generous, kind-hearted soul he was in his youth before the death of
his sister. He anonymously sends the Cratchits the biggest turkey the butcher has and spends Christmas Day with Fred and his
wife. The next day after Christmas, Scrooge arrives at work early. Cratchit is late and Scrooge pretends at first to be his old
selfish self, but then tells Cratchit that he is going to raise his salary. Cratchit is shocked and Scrooge wishes him a Merry
Christmas.
Themes
The story deals extensively with two of Dickens' recurrent themes, social injustice
and poverty, the relationship between the two, and their causes and effects. It was written to
be abrupt and forceful with its message, with a working title of "The Sledgehammer". The first edition of A Christmas
Carol was illustrated by John Leech, a politically radical artist who in the cartoon
"Substance and Shadow" printed earlier in 1843 had explicitly criticised artists who failed to address social issues.
Characters
Principal
Supporting
- Fezziwig (to whom Scrooge had been apprenticed as a youth)
- Fan (Scrooge's late sister)
- Belle (a young woman to whom Scrooge was once engaged)
- Mrs. Cratchit (Bob Cratchit's wife)
- Peter Cratchit (Bob's eldest son)
- Martha Cratchit (Bob's eldest daughter)
- Belinda Cratchit (Bob's second eldest daughter)
- two, unnamed, "smaller Cratchits" a boy and a girl
- Mrs. Dilber (Scrooge's charwoman)
- The Laundress
- Old Joe (a receiver of stolen goods; in the "future" segment of the story, he is given the dead Scrooge's belongings, after
his room and his body have been plundered by Mrs. Dilber and the Laundress)
- The Two Portly Gentlemen
- A young boy and girl, Ignorance and Want, respectively.
Dramatic adaptations and sequels
-
A Christmas Carol was the subject of Dickens' first public reading, given in Birmingham Town Hall to the Industrial and
Literary Institute on 27 December 1852. This was repeated three days later to an audience of 'working people', and was a great
success by his own account and that of newspapers of the time. Over the years Dickens edited the piece down and adapted it for a
listening, rather than reading, audience. Excerpts from 'A Christmas Carol' remained part of Dickens' public readings until his
death.
A Christmas Carol has been adapted to theatre, opera,
film, radio, and television
countless times. According to the Internet Movie Database, various movie
adaptations of the story were filmed as early as 1908, in a version produced by Thomas
Edison.
Perhaps the most popular and critically acclaimed film adaptation of the story was made in Britain in 1951. Originally titled Scrooge (and
renamed A Christmas Carol for its American release), it starred
Alastair Sim as Scrooge, and was directed by Brian
Desmond-Hurst with a screenplay by Noel Langley.
Most modern adaptations refer to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as the "Ghost of Christmas Future" instead.
A lighthearted version of the story was portrayed in The Muppet Christmas
Carol, with Michael Caine as Scrooge and the irrepressible Gonzo as Charles Dickens, narrating the tale while also being a
part of the background action.
Dickens wraps up the story with two short paragraphs telling us that sickly Tiny Tim survives and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge
becomes renowned for his newfound goodness—basically a "happily ever after" ending—but he provides no detail on what happens to
any of the characters. Following the every-good-story-deserves-a-sequel idea, a number of authors have crafted their own versions
of what befell Scrooge and company. Ranging from Internet stories to best-selling novels (and even a television screenplay),
several different works have picked up the characters and events of Dickens' classic to spin new tales for the story's
aftermath.
Notes
- ^ Dickens sent out advanced presentation copies on the 17th while the
official release date was the 19th. He was sold out by the 22nd. (see Hearn (2004), pg.xiviii)
- ^ Hearn (2004), xxxi
- ^ Dickens and A Christmas
Carol. Retrieved on 2007-04-06.
- ^ Thomas Hood (1844). "Hood's
Magazine and Comic Review".
References
- Michael Patrick Hearn, The Annotated Christmas Carol: a Christmas Carol in
Prose / by Charles Dickens, W. W. Norton and Co., 2004, ISBN 0-393-05158-7
See also
- Category:A Christmas Carol adaptations
External links
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