What Moral is Dickens trying to elicit in his readers?

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                                                     A Christmas Carol        

A Christmas Carol is a novel written by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) during the Victorian age, an era that took its name from Queen Victoria, England titular ruler from 1819-1901. Under Queen Victoria’s rule, London reigned the worlds dominate city country and the country’s incomparable center of commerce, culture and government. At this time London’s industrial age contributed to a large share of the manpower and capital that brought the country to a position of world economic dominance.

        However there was a downside to the industrial age, industrialization had altered the physical, social and cultural landscapes of Great Britain. The rise of the factory system had drawn rural peasants to the great urban centers in numbers, incomparable in history, creating dangerous conditions of overcrowding and feeding, developing modern problems of social displacement, crime and poverty. Within London the River Thames was filled with sewage and industrial waste. The air was contaminated with soot and pollution which emptied from residential and industrial chimneys. Until the second half of the 19th century London residents were still drinking water from the very same portions of the Thames that the open sewers were discharging into. Inside the factories, the place of economic production, self-interested owners paid poverty level wages for fourteen hour days and employed young children in dangerous, even lethal, work environments. Child labor became a very big problem. Children of all ages worked in factories (mills), mines, picking fruit and preparing sea-food. The children not only suffered because of lack of education, they also suffered from injuries caused by the machines. They usually had to work with machines that only adults have the strength for, and know how to use. Some children were deformed or crippled because of working with the machines. The children had no other choice, if their parents were poor; they needed to help bring money into the family. The orphans had no family but they needed the money for themselves.

        The Poor Law made in 1834 was the Victorian answer to dealing with the poor. The Poor Law created regional workhouses where aid could be applied for. The workhouses were little more than a prison for the poor. Freedom was denied, families were separated and human dignity was destroyed. The true poor often went to great lengths to avoid this relief.

        Charles Dickens applied his unique power of observation to the city, in which are expressed in his novels. His description of 19th century London, allow readers to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the old city.

        The story I am studying is A Christmas Carol. A Christmas Carol is a song sung during a Christian celebration - Christmas.

A Christmas Carol is structured using 5 stares (chapters). It begins in the past, informing the reader of a man named Marley, and his death. Then in the present we are introduced to Ebenezer Scrooge who is a business man. Unfortunately that is all he cares about. He thinks Christmas is a humbug and that if the poor don’t want to go to prison or to the workhouses, they had better die and decrease the surplus population. On this Christmas Eve, Scrooge was visited by his very cheerful nephew who greeted him with a jolly; ‘Merry Christmas, uncle.’ However Scrooge replied bitterly not even cracking a smile. The theme explored in this chapter is greed. This is shown when two charity workers enter after Scrooge’s nephew leaves and asked whether Scrooge will donate any money to feed the poor. He replies; ‘I can’t afford to make idle people merry.’

Scrooge leaves for his home after asking if his clerk wanted the day off. Scrooge approached his door and proceeded to open it but was stopped as the knocker on it changed to Marley’s face. Startled as he was he reached for the key and walked straight in. He sees Marley’s face again on the tiles. These frequent sightings build the tension until Scrooge finally sees Marley’s ghost   in whole.

In the second chapter Scrooge woke confused with the time but remembered what Marley’s ghost said. As the clock struck one, the first ghost appears. It is the ghost of Christmas past and takes Scrooge on a journey through time. They begin with the boarding school that Scrooge had been sent to as a child, and had been left for many of the Christmas holidays. After seeing himself as a boy left all alone. Scrooge felt remorseful for not giving the carol singer anything. Next, they went to Mr.Fezziwigs’. Scrooge had apprenticed there, he saw the party that Mr.Fezziwig always threw on Christmas, spreading cheer and happiness. The ghost highlighted that Mr. Fezziwig didn’t have to spend a lot to make all these people happy. However he was corrected by Scrooge who says, ‘he has the power to render us happy or unhappy…his power lies in words and looks…the happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune’ speaking consciously like his former self. As the scene changes we see the Christmas that Ebenezer broke of his engagement with Belle because she was poor and he had just gotten a job with Jacob Marley. Scrooge is upset and wishes to see no more of the past however is shown one more shadow. It was the shadow of Belle as a mother with children. He is again remorseful for being very rude and rejecting her. Scrooge struggles with the ghost to be taken back and finally falls onto his bed unconscious.

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  In the third chapter Scrooge awoke however prepared for what ever may face him next. But when the hour arrived nothing appeared until a booming voice called him into the next room. The room in which sat the giant was decorated with berries and delicious food. The giant revealed himself to be the Ghost of Christmas Present. Scrooge, still shaken from his encounter the night before with the Ghost of Christmas Past, goes with the giant without objection.

        They appeared on the street on Christmas morning. The ghost takes Scrooge all over the city showing him how all the ...

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