Christmas carol context and research
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
SYNOPSIS
A Christmas Carol opens on a bleak, cold Christmas Eve in London, seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge, an ageing miser, dislikes Christmas and refuses a dinner invitation from his nephew Fred—the son of Fan, Scrooge's dead sister. He turns away two men who seek a donation from him to provide food and heating for the poor and only grudgingly allows his overworked, underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit, Christmas Day off with pay to conform to the social custom.
That night Scrooge is visited at home by Marley's ghost, who wanders the Earth entwined by heavy chains and money boxes forged during a lifetime of greed and selfishness. Marley tells Scrooge that he has a single chance to avoid the same fate: he will be visited by three spirits and must listen or be cursed to carry much heavier chains of his own.
The first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to Christma2s scenes of Scrooge's boyhood, reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. The scenes reveal Scrooge's lonely childhood at boarding school, his relationship with his beloved sister Fan, and a Christmas party hosted by his first employer, Mr Fezziwig, who treated him like a son. Scrooge's neglected fiancée Belle is shown ending their relationship, as she realises that he will never love her as much as he loves money. Finally, they visit a now-married Belle with her large, happy family on the Christmas Eve that Marley died. Scrooge, upset by hearing Belle's description of the man that he has become, demands that the ghost remove him from the house.
The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to a joyous market with people buying the makings of Christmas dinner and to celebrations of Christmas in a miner's cottage and in a lighthouse. Scrooge and the ghost also visit Fred's Christmas party. A major part of this stave is taken up with Bob Cratchit's family feast and introduces his youngest son, Tiny Tim, a happy boy who is seriously ill. The spirit informs Scrooge that Tiny Tim will die unless the course of events changes. Before disappearing, the spirit shows Scrooge two hideous, emaciated children named Ignorance and Want. He tells Scrooge to beware the former above all and mocks Scrooge's concern for their welfare
The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shows Scrooge a Christmas Day in the future. The silent ghost reveals scenes involving the death of a disliked man whose funeral is attended by local businessmen only on condition that lunch is provided. His charwoman, laundress and the local undertaker steal his possessions to sell to a fence. When he asks the spirit to show a single person who feels emotion over his death, he is only given the pleasure of a poor couple who rejoice that his death gives them more time to put their finances in order. When Scrooge asks to see tenderness connected with any death, the ghost shows him Bob Cratchit and his family mourning the death of Tiny Tim. The ghost then allows Scrooge to see a neglected grave, with a tombstone bearing Scrooge's name. Sobbing, Scrooge pledges to change his ways
Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning a changed man. He makes a large donation to the charity he rejected the day before, anonymously sends a large turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner and spends the afternoon with Fred's family. The following day he gives Cratchit an increase in pay and begins to become a father figure to Tiny Tim. From then on Scrooge treats everyone with kindness, generosity and compassion, embodying the spirit of Christmas.
A Christmas carol also hints that Scrooge may have been Jewish due to the fact that he does not celebrate Christmas and also tells Christmas past he doesn't ever recall celebrating it with his family. His job as a Money lender also suggests that he was a Jew.
Scrooge has a very strong character, in a negative way that is. His very strong dislike in giving and celebration is made obvious from the very beginning. Stingy with his money, even towards the poorer and the dead, he dislikes the very thought of becoming poor the most. He is a very stubborn old man mean to his own loved ones due to his most committed sin; Greed.
We as the audience are also shown aspects of his life which brought him to this stage in his life, we are able to see his young fresh personality before all the bitterness. After all the events he goes through one Christmas eve, he becomes the total opposite of what he was, an absolute lighthearted person, happy and grateful to just be alive.
The ghost of Christmas past is represented as a mystical and whimsical being, drawing you in with their very calm demeanour but there is a sense of danger if you are too close or comfortable. The ghost of Christmas Present gives off Santa vibes, with his over the top laugh and jolliness, to the point where it's uncomfortable for the audience watching and Scrooge himself. The ghost of Christmas future is there to show Scrooge his demise and what little meaning it will hold in everyones hearts. In the 2009 adaptation, this character does not speak, and heavily symbolises death with his black cloak and a skeletal figure, it's like the final straw for Scrooge, this character ought to really force Scrooge to have a 'spiritual awakening'.
VICTORIAN ERA
JOBS
POOR LAW
CLASS
VALUES - PLUMP GIRL
THEMES
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
RELIGION
CHANGE
RICH VS POOR
GREED - SIN
FAMILY
CLOUDED JUDGEMENT
WANTS VS NEEDS
VICTORIAN EERA - CANDLES, HYGIENE, CLOTHES, CLASS
CHARLES DICKENS RESEARCH
The writer Charles Dickens was born to a middle-class family which got into financial difficulties as a result of the spendthrift nature of his father John. In 1824 John was committed to the Marshalsea, a debtors' prison in Southwark, London. Dickens, aged 12, was forced to pawn his collection of books, leave school and work at a dirty and rat-infested shoe-blacking factory. The change in circumstances gave him what his biographer, Michael Slater, describes as a "deep personal and social outrage", which heavily influenced his writing and outlook.
By the end of 1842, Dickens was a well-established author, having written six major works, as well as several short stories, novellas and other pieces. On 31 December that year, he began publishing his novel Martin Chuzzlewit as a monthly serial; the novel was his favourite work, but sales were disappointing and he faced temporary financial difficulties.
Celebrating the Christmas season had been growing in popularity throughout the Victorian era. The Christmas tree had been introduced in Britain during the 18th century, and its use was popularised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Their practice was copied in many homes across the country. In the early 19th century there had been a revival of interest in Christmas carols, following a decline in popularity over the previous hundred years. The publication of Davies Gilbert's 1823 work. Some Ancient Christmas Carols, With the Tunes to Which They Were Formerly Sung in the West of England and William Sandys's 1833 collection Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern led to a growth in the form's popularity in Britain.
Dickens had an interest in Christmas, and his first story on the subject was "Christmas Festivities", published in Bell's Weekly Messenger in 1835; the story was then published as "A Christmas Dinner" in Sketches by Boz (1836). "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton", another Christmas story, appeared in the 1836 novel The Pickwick Papers. In the episode, a Mr Wardle relates the tale of Gabriel Grub, a lonely and mean-spirited sexton, who undergoes a Christmas conversion after being visited by goblins who show him the past and future. Slater considers that "the main elements of the Carol are present in the story", but not yet in a firm form. The story is followed by a passage about Christmas in Dickens's editorial Master Humphrey's Clock. The professor of English literature Paul Davis writes that although the "Goblins" story appears to be a prototype of A Christmas Carol, all Dickens's earlier writings about Christmas influenced the story.
references:
-Charles dickens and A Christmas Carol plot
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