Stephen Savage

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Language A 7A
Mr. Garner
3 January 2015
A Christmas Carol: The Deeper Meaning
Most people think that the book A Christmas Carol is a story about an old man learning
to be generous. But really it has a much deeper meaning, a meaning that needs to be interpreted,
that is not obvious. Dickens reforms not just Christmas with this book, but the Poor Laws and
how employers treat their employees. Dickens uses the character of Scrooge, the setting of
Christmas, and the symbol of ghosts in A Christmas Carol to recreate Christmas into a holiday
all about giving, charity, and good will, and also influence these attitudes year-round.
Relating to the point, in A Christmas Carol, Dickens uses the character of Ebenezer
Scrooge to recreate the Poor Laws and how the poor were treated. At the time, relationships
between employers and workers were nothing like they are today. Managers were indifferent to
the fate of their employees. Scrooge took this to an extreme with Bob Cratchit. Cratchit did not
receive enough money to care for his family, and could not afford medicine to save his sons life.
Not just the Poor Laws were affected by Scrooge's character; the way the poor were treated in
general was changed. The driving factor for these changes was in A Christmas Carol when
Dickens showed England their negative attitude towards the poor, with the famous words uttered
by Scrooge, Are there no prisons, are there no workhouses?
Additionally, the setting of Christmas in A Christmas Carol teaches valuable lessons
about how Christmas should be celebrated. It taught the importance of charity and good
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will towards all humankind. "This struck a powerful chord in the U.S. and England and showed
the benefits of celebrating the holiday, encouraging more to celebrate it" says History.com.
Christmas had not been like this since Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans took control of England.
Yet with one book, Charles Dickens was able to bring back the old Christmas of giving,
goodwill, and charity to the people in need.
A final, but surely no less important point, is the use of ghosts as symbols to help recreate
Christmas in Dickens A Christmas Carol. In Spirits and Psychology, A Halloween Story, Allan
Schwartz talks about projection, when you deny something about yourself and create something
in the outside world to assign the characteristic to. Many have speculated that this is what the
Christmas ghosts are, projections of Scrooges mind. Scrooge is denying to himself that he is a
bad person, not giving charity or goodwill, so he creates the ghosts to apply the characteristic to.
The ghosts teach him how to become a better person and rid himself of his predicted fate, and as
soon as he learns this, the ghosts are gone, and he is a better person, spreading goodwill and
charity.
Thus Dickens combines the symbols of ghosts, the setting of Christmas, and Scrooge to
change the way Christmas is celebrated and the spirit of charity and goodwill that surrounds it.
Not only did Dickens change Christmas, but he influenced changes in the Poor Laws, the way
that employers treat their workers, and the spirit that comes with the celebration of the holiday.
Dickens's final intent was to combine the three symbols in A Christmas Carol to make the world
that he lived in a better place.