A Christmas Carol Essay
Charles Dickens' timeless tale of an old miser who never celebrates Christmas called Scrooge, one night the old miser man must face Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come, as they help to bring kindness to his otherwise cold heart. The Ghosts remind him of the man he used to be, the hard truth of what the world is today, and what will happen if he does not strive to be a better man. Set around Christmas, the most joyous day of the year, Scrooge realizes the sharp contrast of his own personality.
Written in 1843 this tale appears in the middle of world which was living the beginning of capitalism, the post industrial revolution. New factories, new products, new transportations, the commerce’s growth made a bigger production of richness, but, at the same time, it made the social inequality get bigger too.
In this world, using the Christmas time as temporal reference, the story told by Dickens starts, confronting values as compassion, mercy and the Christmas’ fraternity against the desire of gain more and more money, the mechanization of the human being which made the men become a machine which just look for money.
Personifying the greed for wealth, the selfishness, the bad temper, the bad manners and the brutality we find the character Ebezer Scrooge, a man who is the owner of a factory and becomes its singles owner after the death of his partner Jacob Marley.
However, the death of Jacob brings something unexpected; during the Christmas time, when Scrooge was lonely in his house, he is visited by the ghost of his old partner, the ghost was arrested in heavy chains, and makes Scrooge remind all the sins he has been committing during his life and the Jacob’s ghosts tells him he will be visited by three ghosts, ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come
When the day comes down the old Scrooge tries to convince himself that everything was a dream, but when the first hour rings the first spirit comes to lead him to the Christmas of his childhood and youth, a time when Scrooge had some feelings like friendship and love and a time that had been erased from his memories and his heart.
On the next day, the second spirit shows him the current Christmas, taking him to the house of his employees and other people he knew where they were celebrating the date and praying for him, a man that used to be disrespectful with those people.
During the third night the last spirit comes with a grave tone in its voice, and he shows him what we would live. The spirit leaded Scrooge to his future, until his death when he could see the negligence and the disapproval people had for him.
After that a transformation happens and Scrooge notice that his life was not good and decide to change himself and becomes a good man who has compassion and kindness for his family and friends.
This simple tale, that talks about the man who cares only for money and became miser, lonely and unhappy, becomes a folktale known all over the world tale that rescue that love, kindness, friendship, and good feelings that this capitalism made people forget.
A Christmas Carol is a fairly straightforward allegory built on an episodic narrative structure in which each of the main passages has a fixed, obvious symbolic meaning. The book is divided into five sections (Dickens labels them Staves in reference to the musical notation staff--a Christmas carol, after all, is a song), with each of the middle three Staves revolving around a visitation by one of the three famous spirits. The three spirit-guides, along with each of their tales, carry out a thematic function--the Ghost of Christmas Past, with his glowing head, represents memory; the Ghost of Christmas Present represents charity, empathy, and the Christmas spirit; and the reaper-like Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come represents the fear of death. Scrooge, with his Bah! Humbug! attitude, embodies all that dampens Christmas spirit--greed, selfishness, indifference, and a lack of consideration for one's fellow man.
With A Christmas Carol, Dickens hopes to illustrate how self-serving, insensitive people can be converted into charitable, caring, and socially conscious members of society through the intercession of moralizing quasi-religious lessons. Warmth, generosity, and overall goodwill, overcome Scrooge's bitter apathy as he encounters and learns from his memory, the ability to empathize, and his fear of death. Memory serves to remind Scrooge of a time when he still felt emotionally connected to other people, before he closed himself off in an austere state of alienation. Empathy enables Scrooge to sympathize with and understand those less fortunate than himself, people like Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit. The fear of death hints at imminent moral reckoning--the promise of punishment and reward.
With each Ghost's tale functioning as a parable, A Christmas Carol advances the Christian moral ideals associated with Christmas--generosity, kindness, and universal love for your community--and of Victorian England in general. The book also offers a distinctly modern view of Christmas, less concerned with solemn religious ceremony and defined by more joyous traditions--the sharing of gifts, festive celebrations, displays of prosperity. The book also contains a political edge, most evident in Dickens' development of the bustling, struggling Cratchit family, who are a compelling, if one-dimensional, representation of the plight of the poor. Dickens, with every intention of tugging on your heartstrings, paints the Cratchits as a destitute family that finds a way to express profound gratitude for its emotional riches. Dickens carries this sentiment even further with the tragic figure of the pure-hearted, crippled Cratchit son, Tiny Tim. Scrooge's emotive connection to Tiny Tim dramatically underscores his revelatory acceptance of the Christmas ideal. Scrooge begins to break through his emotional barricade in Stave Three as he expresses pity for Tiny Tim. The reader, upon hearing the usually uncaring miser inquire into Tim's fate, begins to believe Scrooge has a chance at salvation. Scrooge's path to redemption culminates with his figurative "adoption" of Tiny Tim, acting as "a second father" to the little boy.
Intertextuality
Christmas like it was stated previously has been well known as time for love, compassion, humility and generosity. Because of this strong symbolism that it holds, Charles Dickens has many other pieces on it, such as What Christmas is as we grow older, A Christmas tree, Christmas at Fezziwig’s warehouse. But he was not the only writer who was interested on it, famous writers as Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde and Dr. Seuss also have taken advantage of the atmosphere that the 25th brings.
The last author on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, published in 1957, tells the story of a Grinch who was a catlike creature with a heart “two sizes too small”. This creature lived on a snowy
Although, at first apprehensive, the Grinch appears to be getting into the Christmas spirit, until the Mayor proposes to Martha May-Who, and offers her a car. The ostentatious gift rouses the ire of the Grinch, and he then begins to wreck the celebration, causing mayhem and burning down the Christmas tree. Then he returns to
Christmas from coming, by dressing as Santa, and stealing it. He took everything that reminded Christmas from Whoville to the top of
Back in Whoville, everyone was sad and distraught, with the Mayor blaming the whole thing on Cindy for inviting the Grinch. Cindy's father proclaimed that he actually is proud of his daughter, because he's seen that Christmas is not about presents and decorations, but about being together. Soon a number of other Who's join in and begin singing.
This sound makes the Grinch wonders how they can be so cheerful after everything that happened and as he watches, the emotion gets to him, and his once shrivelled heart grows 3 sizes. The Grinch then returns the presents to Whoville, and apologizes for his misdeed. At the same time, Margaret May-Who tells the Mayor she is rejecting his marriage proposal, and that her heart belongs to the Grinch.
The story above clearly bears some resemblance to A Christmas Carol. Grinch and Scrooge who were misanthropes after learn to love Christmas and humanity, once they were able to see that is not money what it matters most. But differently from Scrooge who thought about the relations economically, Grinch was the one who did not accept the relations as business so he hid himself.
Both stories use Christmas to show the goodness on people and kids are the ones who try to show it to them, Tiny Tim and Cindy Lou Who. As it is known, children symbolize the innocence and no pre judgments.
On A Christmas Carol the spirits show Scrooge’s life and they represent the Christmas spirit itself. On How The Grinch Stole Christmas Cindy interviews the people and finds out how Grinch life was and more than that she is the reminder of what Christmas is about, so she is the Christmas spirit on this particular story.
Charles Dickens and Dr. Seuss’ stories are universal and eternal once they show the conflict of living in society and having a capitalist system ruling it, which turn the human beings into competitors and selfish people as well as the (un)balance between emotional and rational.
References:
http://www.stormfax.com/dickens.htm
http://www.allthingschristmas.com/stories.html
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dKbrown/christmas.html
http://www.knoxvilletennessee.com/christmas/stories/
http://www.seussville.com/grinch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas!
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