Themes Flashcards
Christmas Spirit - brings out best in people
- Throughout novella, Christmas is presented as a time when people “open their shut-up hearts freely”
- The Cratchits’ celebration demonstrates love for each other. It’s important for Bob that whole family is together for Christmas.
- Fred fully embraces spirit of Christmas. - A “kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time”
Christmas Spirit - Ghost of Christmas Present
- With its “cheery voice” and “joyful air”, personifies many of the values associated with Christmas. It’s also a symbol of the transforming power of Christmas - it uses its torch to sprinkle incense over anyone who begins to argue, immediately restoring their “good humour”.
Christmas Spirit - involves generosity and kindness
Charity Collectors - “want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices”
Fred - Christmas should encourage people “to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave”. All should unite, rich and poor, rather than continue as isolated individuals
Fezziwig - chooses to bring happiness (christmas party)
Christmas Spirit - has both a religious and secular side
Much of what DIckens says about the Christmas Spirit is related to his view of Christianity. E.g. The values that Fred associates with Christmas (kindness, forgiveness, and charity) are exactly the kinds of “Christian cheer” that Dickens associated with Christianity - he thought helping others should be an important part of people’s faith.
Christmas also had a secular element for Dickens - there’s plenty of evidence of a non-religious celebration of Christmas. As Fred says, Christmas is “a good time”, even “apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin”.
Christmas Spirit - powerful enough to transform Scrooge
- At first, Scrooge’s reaction to christmas is “Humbug” and anyone who celebrates it is an “idiot”
- By the end, Scrooge is transformed by what he’s learned about the christmas spirit.
Dickens uses the novella to suggest the Christmas spirit is important all year round: - C-Past carries winter holly btu wears a dress “trimmed with summer flowers”. Could suggest spirit’s lessons should be observed all year round.
- Presence of Ignorance and Want, in robes of C-Present are reminder that problems will still exist once Christmas is over, and that people should remember those less fortunate at all times.
Redemption
The question of whether Scrooge will achieve redemption is a significant source of dramatic tension throughout A Christmas Carol.
At first, seems impossible. He’s portrayed as a misanthropist whose dislike of other people is shown by his attitude to charity - “Its enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s”.
Redemption (8-9)
Although Scrooge is redeemed by the end of the novella, there are hints that his transformation is at least partly motivated by selfishness. The final vision the spirits show him is of his own death, after which he begs the First Of Christmas Yet to Come: “tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”. It’s clear he’s frightened about his own fate as well as showing concerns for others.
There are hints that scrooge will be redeemed
The visions Scrooge sees with the Ghost of Christmas Past show the reader Scrooge wasn’t always so mean-spirited.
- Close relationship with Fan, sad ending of his engagement to Belle - he is capable of love and kindness.
- Change in Scrooge’s father, foreshadows Scrooge’s own redemption.
- Marley is responsible for “procuring” the “chance and hope” that will help Scrooge save himself. The fact Marley is able to help another person makes it seem more likely that Scrooge himself can change.
Scrooge’s changed behaviour leads to his redemption
- His redemption doesn’t rely on a religious conversion or him going to church and praying more often. Instead, he’s redeemed because he changes his behaviour towards others.
- Consistent with Dickens’s views on religion - he thought that Christianity should be about practical kindness and willingness to help others.
- By the end, he is “glowing with good intentions”. It’s this kindness and generosity that allows him to change his fate and “sponge away” his name from his neglected gravestone. It’s as if he is reborn, and has a second chance to do things better - he even says, “I’m quite a baby”.
Redemption - Scrooge isn’t forced to change
- The spirits that initiate Scrooge’s redemption are sent to help him. They don’t force him to change/tell him what to do - merely show him visions. It’s Scrooge himself who must take meaning from these visions and use that to change.
- He is able to achieve redemption because he chooses to learn from what he is shown - determined not to “shut out the lessons that they teach”.
- Leads him to the realisation that “the Time before him was his own, to make amends in” - he can use rest of his life to make up for previous behaviour.
The fact that is transformation is of his own free will makes his redemption seem more powerful.
Scrooge is transformed by learning the value of empathy
At start, Scrooge is used to “warning all human sympathy to keep its distance”. However, the visions teach him to empathise with other people.
- Feels pity for his lonely boyhood self and regrets treatment of carol singer in chapter 1
- Remembers fun he had as Fezziwig’s apprentice, empathises with his own clerk
- Learns from example of Fred, who frequently displays empathy - Fred pities his uncle “whether he likes it or not”, and he’s “heartily sorry” for the death of Tiny Tim.
- Terrified and disgusted by others’ indifference towards him in his own death.
Perhaps the most important example of empathy occurs when Scrooge witnesses the love between the Cratchits and feels “an interest he had never felt before” when he asks if Tiny Tim will live. Scrooge’s empathy for Tiny Tim is key to his redemption and saves Tim’s life.
