A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Search e. Text, Read Online, Study, Discuss.(1. Illustrated by George Alfred Williams. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. December 1. 84. 3. In this book of excitement the main character, Scrooge, who is a complete grouch (especially at Christmas) is visited by the ghost of his dead business partner who is there to warn him. The Ghost tells him that he will be visited by three more ghosts. And they take him on a journey through Christmas Past, Present, and Future to see the ups of Christmas and the downs of the way he is living to try to save him and many others from himself, and his huge Bah Humbug Attitude. This book is an eye opener and a sensation.- -Submitted by N. L. H. Dickens sets his novella in this the Christmas period to show the true meaning of sharing, giving and receiving. Through his representation of Scrooge, Dickens wants the reader to learn from his miserable personality and to encourage others to change their ways too. It seems that the reason why he wanted to do this was because the rich didn’t appreciate the poor; during the Industrial Revolution the gap widened between the rich and the poor – the poor being forgotten. This is why Scrooge then was visited by three different ghosts: the past, present and future. These ghosts highlight the need for Scrooge to change and value the poor and recognise their needs.- -Submitted by Jessica Hennell. Fan of this book? Help us introduce it to others by writing a better introduction for it. It's quick and easy, click here. A Christmas Carol at Audiobooks.org - Bah Humbug! That's how Ebeneezer Scrooge feels about Christmas - until the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future decide to show the crotchety old miser the error of his ways. Together they travel through time. Broadway heavy hitters, Alan Menken (Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Disney's The Little Mermaid, Little Shop of Horrors) and Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime, Seussical, Once on This Island), breathe fantastic new life into the classic tale of A Christmas Carol. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. With Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Steve Valentine. An animated retelling of Charles Dickens' classic novel about a Victorian-era miser taken on a journey of self-redemption, courtesy of several mysterious Christmas. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas (w. A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens - The complete text from 1843. A Christmas Carol guided tour It was someone's birthday last week, so we went into London. Apart from getting beered up, we went on a guided tour. It was sort of interesting. The tour was from Fenchurch Station through some alleys to the Bank of England. Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. With Alastair Sim, Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns. An old bitter miser is given a chance for redemption when he is haunted by. It was someone's birthday last week, so we went into London. Apart from getting beered up, we went on a guided tour. It was sort of interesting. The tour was from Fenchurch Station through some alleys to the Bank of England. I know Dickens was a London based writer, but somehow, while I was reading this book, I did not identify Scrooge with any particular place. The guide showed us the churches that might have been alluded to in the story (some were very gothic), where Scrooge may have worked, the tavern he went to, and the sort of street he may have lived in. I was surprised what you could find by following those alleys. The bleakest part of the tour is where Scrooge might have been buried. The guide said that the only places that were not built on by 1. Great Fire of London, and were subsequently used as burial grounds. A miserly and miserable man, Ebenezer Scrooge greets each Christmas with a “bah humbug,” until he is visited one Christmas Eve by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future. Through a restless night, the spirits show him happy. This particular plot was enclosed on three sides by other buildings. By Dickens' time burial grounds were so overcrowded, it would not be long before your corpse and coffin would be hacked through to make room for someone else. A very gloomy, anoymous end. The other thing that surprised me is that the events of the book took part in the City of London, i. My brother used to work about a quarter of a mile away when he was an accountant at one of those firms. I know Scrooge was an accountant of some sort, but I did not imagine him living and working there. I imagined him as some low level money grubber who might just as well have been based in Birmingham or Bristol or any British city. Posted By kev. 67 at Sun 1 Dec 2. PM in A Christmas Carol . I thought he was slow on the uptake. He should have twigged much earlier that the recently deceased person shown him by the Ghost of Christmas Future, who nobody cared about, was himself. He was upset to learn that Tiny Tim would die, but seemed more upset to foresee his own death (well I suppose I would too). Scrooge resolves to be a better person, but how much credit does this do him? Does he decide to become more generous in order to extend Tiny Tim's life, extend his own life, or so that people care when he does die? Scrooge is getting on. Becoming kinder is not likely to extend his life by very much. Posted By kev. 67 at Sun 2. Dec 2. 01. 2, 5: 2. PM in A Christmas Carol . Scrooge then says to the Spirit. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.? I looked up the notes on the back and it said. Between 1. 83. 2 and 1. Sir Andrew Agnew (1. Sunday Observance Bill in the House of Commons. This bill would not only have closed the bakeries on Sundays but would have prohibited many of the people's recreations while leaving the wealthier classes unaffected. In June 1. 83. 6, writing as 'Timothy Sparks', Dickens had attacked Agnew in a pamphlet called Sunday Under Three Heads. As it is; As Sabbath Bills would make it; As it might be made. In it he describes a working man emerging from a bakery on Sunday. Surely he was speaking to the wrong spirit anyway. He should have been speaking to the Spirit of Sunday. It seems odd that Dickens would interrupt his story to make his characters make a slightly clumsy political attack on a not particularly important politician. I gather people got the chance to use the bakers' ovens on Sundays because bakers were not allowed to bake or sell bread, but had to keep their ovens warm anyway (why would ovens have to be kept warm?) It was jolly decent- spirited of the bakers to let poor people use their ovens. If many people did not have ovens, did they eat any cooked food the rest of the week? Or did they mainly eat bread and butter like Pip and Joe from Great Expectations? Obviously this is supposed to be a miserly sum, but I am surprised Mr Cratchit can support his family at all. Bob Cratchit has a wife, who presumably is not earning, and from what I can make out, five children: Martha, Belinda, Peter, a small boy, a small girl and Tiny Tim. Fifteen shillings a week works out at . Dickens' father had the about the same size family (eight children but I think only five survived to adulthood) but earned twice that. Jane's school- friend Helen Burns said the fees at Lowood School were . In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Angel gives Tess . This all makes Great Expectations' Pip's . Inflation since the the 1. I think). This makes Bob Cratchit's annual salary . Using what I think is a more realistic equivalent of 2. Bob's annual salary comes to . This still seems way too low to feed a family of seven plus rent and everything else. The introduction said the book was set in the hungry forties, during a time of economic depression. I gather nearly everyone was poorer anyway. There was just less of everything to go around. All the same, I wonder why Bob does not try and get a better job. Even unskilled labouring or work in a factory would pay as much, I'd have thought. Posted By kev. 67 at Thu 2. Dec 2. 01. 2, 6: 5. PM in A Christmas Carol ? He was in a partnership of a counting house. The only other place I have come across the term is in a nursery rhyme: . Each year my wife picks up on a scene that is really out of place in the movie, & our only conclusion after watching the scene time after time is that Tiny Tim is really not Bob Cratchits's son. In the scene, they are sitting around the fireplace & Bob says that it was strange that he ran into Scrooges Nephew today. He says that his nephew gave him his card & says that he has a good wife & that if Tim needs anything to let him know. Crachit was a bit puzzled as to how Fred even knew of his wife & Tim. Earlier, Cratchit asks his wife . The presumption here would be that Fred bought the Goose & gave it to Crachit's wife. Normally, I would not mention this on literary forum, but the Patrick Stewart version of a Christmas Carol is as good as it gets, & I want to pose this question to some sharp analytical minds. If you have not seen it, have a look & let me know what you think. Now that I watch this movie, this scene is a blaring reference to something going on with Crachit. Scott CBS- tv version.) Having been scorned by our Pilgrim forefathers, Christmas wasn't even recognized as a national holiday until the mid- nineteenth century. Earlier in the century, Washington Irving's Bracebridge Hall, which described the holiday as celebrated in a English country house, made many of the former colonists nostalgic for a Yuletide with all the holly and ivy trimmings. Ebenezer Scrooge, whose surname has come down through the language as a synonym for a surly and flinty miser, is the ultimate comic- slash- tragic figure, a true protagonist because he changes: at the beginning of the story his character is one thing, and by the end has become the complete antithesis of what he formerly was. Even in pre- Christian times, the Winter Solstice was a supernatural symbol. I love all the symbolism Dickens uses. One of my favorite lines is when Scrooge asks the spirit to spare Tiny Tim and he replies quoting Scrooge . Also the quote on page 7. I am a student of history & English in Holland and I am trying to study Great Britain. All I still need to know exactly, is how the socio- cultural aspects are written down by Charles Dickens. Thanks to anyone who is able to help me! Pierre. Posted By Colleen. STP at Wed 2. 9 Mar 2. AM in A Christmas Carol.
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