A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
As they stand over Scrooge’s future tomb after experiencing the nightmare visions of his impending death and its pitiful repercussions, the previously miserly elderly Scrooge makes a desperate commitment to the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Generation after generation has been impacted by the endearing and witty classic story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his change of heart by Charles Dickens.
A Christmas Carol transports us to Victorian London in the same year that the story was first published, in 1843. Old Ebenezer Scrooge, who is self-centred, stingy, miserly, and melancholy, broods in his dislike of the Christmas season and abhors joy, charity, love, and family. His former business partner, Jacob Marley, haunts him on Christmas Eve night. Marley appears to Scrooge with a long, heavy chain made of all the evil things he pursued in life. Marley warns Scrooge that unless he makes a change in his manner of life, he will experience the same dreadful destiny as Marley. He then informs Scrooge that he will experience three more Spirits during the rest of the night. We are all familiar with the tale: the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come to visit Scrooge and depict events from his life in an effort to persuade him to stop being so evil and start being kind.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
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Charles Dickens gives us three different techniques (one for each of the three spirits) to use as tools to help characters like Scrooge transform their lives throughout the course of the story. How these three approaches can be used to transform someone’s heart is one of A Christmas Carol’s most important themes. The first of the three ghosts to approach Scrooge and use one of Dickens’ techniques to soften his heart is The Ghost of Christmas Past. To show Scrooge all the people he has loved, the Ghost of Christmas Past transports him back to his early years and boyhood.
He sees Fezziwig, the jovial man to whom he was once apprenticed, and the jovial love he showed to all his family and friends; he sees his beloved, younger sister, Fan, the mother of his ever-encouraging nephew, Fred; and Scrooge also sees his ex-fiancée, reliving not only the scene of when she left him due to his growing greed, but also the images of the content life she led after she left Scrooge’s passion for his family and friends is reignited by encountering these folks from his past. Love was Dickens’ first step toward a change of heart.
