The document analyzes the deeper message of A Christmas Carol beyond just being a Christmas story. It argues that Dickens was making a point about life and society through the story, encouraging virtues like kindness, forgiveness and charity. While set at Christmas, the story's events and Scrooge's transformation serve as a warning against ignorance and want. Both critics and Dickens' own words support that the moral was to be good to others all year, not just at Christmas, and that anyone, like Scrooge, can change for the better.

1. The Message of
A Christmas Carol
Tamiga Patterson
Engl 1013
Betty Mealy
May 9, 2012

2. What is A Christmas Carol about?
• Scrooge’s transformation
• “Spirit of Christmas”
• Importance of friends,
family
• Just a Christmas story?
Original illustration, reproduced on
charlesdickenspage.com/carol

3. The Bigger Picture
• Dickens was making a point about life in
general, not just Christmas
• How do we know?
– Evidence from the story itself
– Arguments from critics
– Quotes from Dickens about the story Picture from
law.marquette.edu

4. The story itself
• Set during Christmas, but many events are not
related to Christmas
– Why Christmas?
– “A kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time”
– People would be receptive to the actual moral
• Warning against Ignorance and Want
• Description of Scrooge at the end

5. Critical Assessment
• Horsman: Dickens’ Christmas books on “moral
regeneration” (119)
• Glancy: Pattern of Christmas books (62)
• Johnson: “*S+ymbol and allegory” (86)

6. Dickens’ Own Words
• Dickens’ first fully-
planned, cohesive novel
• Inspired by the Sermon
on the Mount (Glancy 57)
• Aimed to “awaken some
loving and forbearing
thoughts, never out of
season *italics added+”
The preface to the original edition, reproduced on
(qtd. in Glancy 59) charlesdickenspage.com/carol

7. What was the moral?
• Be kind and loving all year long
• Learn from the past to change the present and
future
• If Scrooge could change, anyone can
– “May that be truly said *…+ of all of us! And so *…+
God Bless Us, Every One!”

8. Works Cited
• Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. New York:
Creative Education Inc., 1990
• Glancy, Ruth. Student Companion to Charles
Dickens. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.
• Horsman, Alan. The Oxford History of English
Literature: The Victorian Novel. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990.
• Johnson, Edgar. “A Christmas Carol Criticizes England’s
Economic System.” Readings on Charles Dickens.
San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1998. 86-93.