What are Dickens social aims in ‘a Christmas Carol’ and how does he go about achieving them?

The book, A Christmas Carol, was written during a time of Great Depression. It was written by Dickens as a plea for social change. The “British Empire’ was at it’s peak. With the Technological advances of the Industrial Revolution Britain dominated the global economy. Britons; at least the middle and upper class, held themselves in high prestige: they regarded themselves as ‘civilised’ and to have a ‘civilising influence’ on the rest of the world. Dickens was explicitly writing this book with the rich and the middle class in mind. The middle class who supported the ‘poor laws’, workhouses and the prisons. Just like Ebenezer scrooge.

The nature and plot of “A Christmas Carol” is, relatively simple: it’s is about a Cold Greedy Selfish man, who has a spiritual transformation and becomes a Good Kind and loving man. It is a Fable. A parable, similar to ones told in the bible and it would have had a huge impact. The population of Victorian England was nearly exclusively Christian and Dickens used this to his advantage. Everyone would of liked to think of themselves as Good Christians one of Jesus main philosophies was, ‘love thy neighbour’. Dickens shines a light onto the squalid underbelly of the imperial capital and allows us to look past the façade. It scratches beneath the shiny polished surface of Victorian England and we see the true deprived and vile conditions in which the working and under-classes had to live in. Dickens takes aim at the ‘Poor Laws’ which strictly governed the underclass. He reveals the many flaws in the hugely unfair system which essentially forced those who could not find work, to live in one of the many provisional prisons or work houses to be treated no better than slaves or criminals. Dickens father was forced to go to a debtors prison and Dickens had a strong loathing towards this kind of disconnected, unloving attitude and this comes across in his work.

Dickens relates to the reader through Scrooge. We go on a journey with Scrooge, all the through 180 degrees of the moral compass, from one extreme to another. We watch him change from the cold self-centred and mean man whom we are introduced to in the first stave and we see him slowly, throughout the Carol rapidly turn into a warmer loving and caring human being.

The first stave of the Carol sets the mood and introduces the settings. We are introduced to the main characters and their personalities. Within the Carol we have a microcosm of Victorian England. In this case Scrooge represents all the greed and apathy possessed by the middle class of Victorian England. He is symbolised by cold, everything about him his cold. We, as humans tend to naturally shun away from the cold and seek warmth, it is a natural, primitive instinct. By associating everything about Scrooge with cold we subconsciously associate all the negative qualities we associate with coldness: seclusion, abandonment bitterness etc and put them with Scrooge. We are also introduced to Bob Cratchit; Bob embodies all those who suffer under the Scrooges of Victorian England. In the first stave we are also introduced to Fred, Scrooges nephew. Fred is there to remind us of all the merriment and good cheer of the Christmas holidays. He is a bright and cheery young man and he takes after his mother, Scrooges only sister, Fran. When she

was alive she loved her brother and helped to improve the relationship between Ebenezer and his Father. She unfortunately is now dead. Later in the book we meet Fezziwig, for whom Scrooge was apprenticed to. Fezziwig was in almost the same position as Scrooge is now; he was rich, successful and ran his own business, yet they are now both a world apart. Fezziwig used his money and wealth to enrich his life and the lives of those around him; he is Scrooges foil. He exaggerates Scrooge’s cold negative qualities even further. Bob Cratchits son, Tiny Tim is a sentimental representation of child poverty and infant mortality. He appeals to the reader’s sympathetic nature and is a way of reminding the Scrooges reading the book that they are also hurting the children of the workers.

One of the most dramatic points in this first stave is the haunting by Marley’s ghost. Marley was Scrooges greedy old business partner who died 7 winters ago on Christmas Eve. Marley is Dickens’ way of warning all the Scrooges reading the Carol what will happen to them if they carry on in their current fashion. Marley appears to Scrooge in his bedchamber weighed down by his ‘Chains.’ His chains symbolise all the greed and desire that Marley possessed as a mortal. Now his long, heavy chain that imprisons him in his own private hell is made up of ‘Cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and purses wrought into steel. Marley Warns Scrooge that he has also been forging his own ‘Chain” his one is longer and heavier than Marleys . Marley shows him all the other Scrooges who did not change their ways and like Marley, now have to walk the earth bound by the chains they forged in life. They are sentenced to witness the suffering of humanity for eternity.

The second stave is about the First of the three Spirits. He is the Ghost of Christmas Past and represents Scrooge’s memory of what Christmas for him use to be like when he was young. The Spirit is shown to have the appearance of being curiously childlike, yet also like an old man, with muscular arms and glowing head illuminated by a mysterious light.

The first Spirit takes Scrooge on a journey, back into his childhood, back to when he was an innocent schoolboy in the Christmas holidays. The tour through Scrooges past takes him through emotional episodes in his life. First we see him as a child, neglected by his father, who, for some unknown reason, harbours a strong resentment for his son and abandons him at a boarding school. With nothing but his teachers and his books for company the young scrooge misses out on all the fun and merriment of Christmas Instead all that he can associate with his childhood Christmases is abandonment and coldness and we begin to see why as an adult Scrooge has no love for sharing and generosity, as he never truly experienced it as a child. As these visions pass in front of him we watch as Scrooge grows progressively colder and more detached from humanity; his initial. Even more so, his lusting desire for money destroys his love for bell, his fiancé, and this completes his cold recluse. When he looks back at it as an outsider it brings him, a hard tough emotionless man, to tears; this is the start of scrooge’s transformation.

The second of the three Spirits, the ghost of Christmas present, serves as the symbolism of an ideal Christmas, or at least Dickens ideal of what Christmas was about: celebration, generosity and merriment. Christmas for dickens should not just be about the solemnity

of religion, but should be also about having fun and celebrating. A time to share your wealth and good fortune and make others feel happy and loved.

The Spirit also represents empathy, by allowing Scrooge to see what life is like for the Cratchits. The Spirit allows Scrooge and all the Scrooges reading the book to see how deprived life was like for the underclass. The Spirit takes Scrooge to the tiny home of Bob Cratchit and his family. Scrooge is amazed to see how little the family have, and how they enjoy what little Christmas treats they do have. The family is happy and cheerful despite their meagre Christmas dinner. Scrooge, uncharacteristically, becomes attached to Tiny Tim. The Spirit tells Scrooge ‘I see a vacant seat, in the poor chimney corner a crutch with no owner, if the shadow of the future remains unchanged the child will die.’ The ghost then mocks scrooge ‘ if he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’ Scrooge is deeply ashamed and ‘hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit.

This stave is really aimed at bringing the reader to the harsh realities of poverty. At the time ‘A Christmas Carol’ was written, there were a lot of laws in place that forced the poor into workhouses and provisional prisons. These laws further widened the class divide, it detached the underclass from the ‘Civilised’ side of humanity and turned them into a dirty and inferior sub species living in parallel with the ‘Civilised’.

The Cratchits are an emotional and sympathetic image of the underclass and Dickens uses them as a means to enable us, the reader to feel the hardship and the sorrow of their daily life. This rather sentimental image of the underclasses was aimed particularly at the unfeeling and disconnected portion of the upper-class. This picture is Dickens way of undermining the Victorian class prejudice and tells the reader that the underclass should not be regarded as a whole ‘surplus population’ but rather as individuals who have their own lives to live and their own families to support.

The Spirit takes Scrooge to many other different Christmas gatherings and celebrations across the country. He takes him to a group of miners and to a party onboard a ship and shows how people who have very little wealth financially, are capable of celebrating, their wealth being the wealth of love. Finally the Spirit takes Scrooge to his nephew, Fred’s, the Christmas party to which Scrooge had coldly declined earlier that morning. Scrooge becomes engrossed within the games, despite the fact that no one else can see him. Finally the Spirit takes Scrooge to a vast and empty expanse where the ghost shows Scrooge two decrepit starving horrible looking children. He tell Scrooge that they are humanity’s children, the girl is want and the boy is ignorance. The Spirit says

‘Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware of the boy, for on his brow I see the that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased ‘

This ominous warning from the Spirit is Dickens warning the rich: the factory owners, the greedy businessmen and creditors, and all the Scrooges, reading the book, that Doom, death, will come to them, probably in the form of a Revolution, unless they change their ways.

The last of the three Spirits, the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is an ominous phantom like figure, dressed in a hooded black robe. It is much more like our traditional idea of ghosts and spirits and it does not talk. Instead it takes Scrooge to see the reaction from all the people who knew him when he was alive. The final Spirit represents all that will happen if things in scrooge’s life do not change, and ultimately, it represents Scrooge’s death.

Scrooge is horrified by the reaction from his business associates, who joke about his death ‘It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral’ ‘I don’t mind going if lunch is provided.’ Although Scrooge at the time does not know it is he who they are joking about. The Phantom like spirit also takes Scrooge to see his servants selling off his few possessions to a pawnshop. Although Scrooge is still unaware of the possessions belong to.

At the time when this piece was written, the concept of Heaven and Hell in the after life was. The belief was that you would be judged and then sent to Heaven or Hell, or in Marleys case to a kind of personal hellish purgatory. This chapter is a more threatening than scrooges other lessons and it’s Dickens way of telling all the ‘Scrooges’ and ‘Marleys’ reading the book that they won’t get to heaven unless they learn from all the other lessons from the other two spirits. The ghost of Christmas yet to come, briefly interrupts all the sentimentality of the previous staves and brings to mind the more sombre Christian perspective into the carol. This serves to remind scrooge of Jacob Marley’s fate, the terrible punishment for his greed and selfishness and that Scrooge will suffer the same fate, unless he changes his ways and becomes a Good Christian.

Finally at the end of the stave, the Spirit takes Scrooge to a graveyard. He shows him to a grave where upon the headstone is written the name EBENEZER SCROOGE. Scrooge is mortified and realises that it was he who was being mocked after his death and those were his possessions being sold by his servants. Upon realising this he falls to the ground before the spirit and cries:

‘Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!’

Scrooge promises that ‘I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.’

The final stave is a bright and cheery contrast to the one about Christmas Yet to Come. It shows us the new warm and jolly ‘born again Christian’ which Scrooge has become. He has gone completely through the 180 degrees of the moral extremes and changed from a detached cold and bitter old man, into a kind, jolly and loving old man. The first thing Scrooge does upon awaking is he pays the fist boy he meets a large sum of money to deliver a giant Christmas turkey to the Cratchit’s. He meets one of the men who earlier sought his charity, but were rejected; Scrooge apologises and promises to donate a large sum of money. He attends his nephew’s party and finally gives his clerk, Bob Cratchit, a pay rise. The stave ends with the jovial words from Tiny Tim “God Bless Us, Everyone!”