Published December 9, 2024
BY ABBY COE
In the 1830s, when Christmas was rapidly becoming a thing of the past, Charles Dickens sought to redefine the meaning of the universal holiday with a ghost story novella that touched upon the themes of seasonal giving and ever-changing hearts.
An annual read for many, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens has integrated itself into the pop culture of the 21st century, ensuring its continual appeal and relevance. The heartwarming tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, a selfish money-counter, and his journey of self-discovery is a testament to Dickens’ impact.
“A Christmas Carol,” the 2009 movie adaptation. (courtesy of WALT DISNEY PICTURES)
“Was there ever a better charity sermon preached in the world than Dickens’ ‘Christmas Carol’?” said William Makepeace Thackeray, Dickens’ friend and literary rival in 1852. “I believe it occasioned immense hospitality throughout England; was the means of lighting up hundreds of kind fires at Christmas time; caused a wonderful outpouring of Christmas good feeling….”
After the lagging sales of “Martin Chuzzlewit,” Dickens’ publishers pushed him to author a new masterpiece that would once again captivate the reading public. “The real story behind Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol,’” an article written by Penguin Books, explains how with his publishers threatening to decrease his salary, Dickens needed a breakthrough. With a deadline of only six weeks to get a book written, printed and distributed, Dickens was due for a Christmas miracle, adds Paulette Beete in her article, “Ten Things To Know About Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.”
Despite many Christmas traditions that were familiar to Europeans earlier on, the reemergence of the Christmas celebration began when Prince Albert, British Monarch and husband of Queen Victoria, introduced the first Christmas tree to England in 1840, says English Heritage in their article “A Short History of Christmas Greenery.”
“Britain’s newly urban population didn’t have much energy or opportunity to celebrate [Christmas], thanks to the extremely un-festive combination of long hours of unregulated industrial toil and displacement from the rural communities they’d grown up in,” explains Lauren Laverne, a writer for The Guardian.
Many have often heard about the spirit of Christmas and have associated it with the religious connection to Christmas as a Christian holiday. Its resurgence during the Victorian era has transformed it from a somber Church gathering to a merry social event celebrated by many.
Ebenezer Scrooge with the ghost of Marley. (courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS)
“Thanks in large part to Dickens, Christmas has become a family holiday available to everyone, not just a religious ceremony or one restricted to any privileged group,” says John Jordan, the director of The Dickens Project and a professor of literature at University of California, Santa Cruz.
Dickens described the Christmas season as a forgiving and charitable time as if other people were fellow passengers to the grave instead of souls bound on other journeys. He penned his “Carol philosophy,” which Dickens defined in a letter to his friend, John Forester, as jolly and cheerful, with an atmosphere of heartiness within the home and by the fireside.
Through an era in which the individualism of the Romantic period was fading and novels were increasingly centered upon the values of society, Dickens reinforced the humanitarian aspect of the Christmas season that Victorians desperately needed, says Barbara McBride, teacher of English at CHS. “A Christmas Carol” changed the public’s perception about Christmas by urging aristocrats and gentry alike to celebrate as the humbler folks did–to celebrate losses, ruined relationships and abandoned plans, adds Laverne.
Charles Dickens, the author of A Christmas Carol. (courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS)
“This novella had a huge impact on the culture at a time when industrialization was making some people very rich on the backs of inexpensive child labor and the institution of workhouses,” explains Carmel High School English teacher Dale DePalatis. “Good satire exposes evil and suggests solutions…. [‘A Christmas Carol’] gave the world the idea of Christmas spirit as well as the wonderful family Christmas dinner.”
Due to child labor laws which began in the early 19th century, child labor was a fixture in Victorian society, adds DePalatis. A strong social reformer, Dickens shined a light on the horrors of child labor through sickly Tiny Tim, demonstrating how he believed that people who have the means to help, such as Scrooge, have the responsibility to offer assistance.
“The figures of Ignorance and Want in ‘A Christmas Carol’ embody this important theme [of social reform],” says Jordan.
“He was introduced to me the way most people were, which was through ‘A Christmas Carol,’” says McBride. “Part of what Dickens is doing in there is calling out industrial society and its focus on money-making and that divide that really started to happen during that time between the wealthy and the poor and the abuse of the worker. ‘A Christmas Carol’ reminds us to check our own privilege and to keep in mind that there are those less fortunate, and rather than to judge or exclude them, [we should] seek to understand and do what [we] can to not just help them out but help them up in society.”
Victorians celebrating Christmas. (courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS)
As the urban British population grew, many yearned to remember the Christmases from their youth, out of nostalgia for a long-lost social conscience.
“The nostalgia that comes from Dickens has seeped into mine and a lot of people’s consciousness,” explains McBride.
“A Christmas Carol” not only encapsulates how humans have the capacity to take accountability for their actions, but have the ability to change, grow and give.
“The overall moral that generosity and the Christmas spirit could redeem even the hard heart of a Scrooge was something to be celebrated,” says DePalatis.
On Dec. 19, 1843, Dickens published “A Christmas Carol.” By Christmas Eve, all first editions had been sold. It has not been out of print since.
