"A Christmas Carol"

“A Christmas Carol” is a wonderful tale about a miserly elderly man who dislikes Christmas. I have decided to focus on a major theme that comes across from this story: the theme of redemption, and the willingness to change.  Ebenezer Scrooge the protagonist of this story is a mingy creditor who believes Christmas is a day like all the others.  He rejects a Christmas dinner invitation offered by his nephew, screams at charity workers, and refuses to donate something.  Scrooge then encounters Jacob Marley his old business partner who died seven years ago, in form of a ghost. Marley predicts the visits of three ghosts that will take Scrooge in different journeys that will change his fate. When the “Ghost of Christmas Past” brings Scrooge to revisit his past, Scrooge is able to visualize his life from a different perspective. Scrooge then sees schoolboys, and recognizes each one of them; he then is “filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas (…) several homes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? (..)  What good had it ever done to him?”. Scrooge is perplexed about his feeling of gladness and does not understand it. Then, Scrooge sees himself as a child and consequently gets emotional. After seeing his schoolmaster he  describes him with the “ most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.” Scrooge then regrets not to have given something to the boy singing at his door, the night before.

Scrooge then encounters the third ghost who introduces himself as the “ghost of Christmas present”.  In this stave Scrooge assists at numerous Christmas dinners. The ghost tells Scrooge that  Timmy Ti, the crippled son of Bob Cratchit will die if the future is not changed. In addition Scrooge encounters a boy and a girl who are “ Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish”. The ghost warns Scrooge about the boy who, “for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased”. The ghost implies that the future can be altered.

The last ghost that visits Scrooge is named “Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come”. He takes him in town and listens to businessmen discussing someone’s death. They then get to a poor and underprivileged part of town. In a store, people are gathering up items from an individual who has recently died. Scrooge wonders why the Ghost is showing him all this, and hopes he does not end up like this. When Scrooge is shown the bed of the corpse, he is incapable of reviling the body, afraid of seeing his own face. It’s only when the Ghost shows Scrooge the tombstone that he realizes he was the dead man from before. It’s at this point that Scrooge redeems himself. Scrooge comprehends it is not too late to change the future. It is alterable and it can change his fate completely. He swears he will honor and love Christmas in his heart. As his travels with the ghosts were progressing, his redemption was growing. The fact of seeing himself dead was the epiphany that made him realize he needed to change his manners.