A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
On a dark winter’s night, while damned spirits wail in an empty cobbled street a lementing chorus about their wasted lives, Ebenezer Scrooge looks into the eyes of his previous business partner, coming to the realization that death may be at his doorstep in a chain that wraps his hanging jaw to his head. All fleeting hopes of his mind playing illusions to the shadows of the night or some crafty trick fade, and fear replaces them, like the creeping ticking of the cold, stiff clock on his wall. As his friend departs by leaving through the open window, Scrooge tries to consider that three other spirits will be visiting him soon as he watches the ghost fade into whatever pit they remorsefully clawed themselves out of. The haunting notion that he will join the same fate as his gruesome, dead partner scares him, but he is also thankful that he is being given one more chance by three spirits that he has yet to meet.
As Ebenezer Scrooge looks into his past, present, and future with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future, he realizes just how damnable he truly is and how he wants to change.
Artistry and Craft
A Christmas Carol is superbly written, all from the perspective of Ebenezer Scrooge. This is my first Charles Dickens book, and I regret not picking up his work sooner. Linguistically, his writing is solid, seaworthy in every way. Charles Dickens doesn’t venture into descriptions a whole lot, but where this might have been a setback, he makes it a strength by utilizing only a modest amount of descriptive language to support the readers' imagination and not to overfill it, highlighting the story's themes and character arcs.
I also feel like the length of A Christmas Carol is just perfect. I feel like sometimes authors feel like, in order for their book to be important, it needs to be long, but in contrast, A Christmas Carol is only 100 or so pages, which is engaging all the way through, leaving the reader with a sense of neatness with regard to the text.
Charles shows you what he wants to show you in a way that every part of the story holds meaning, giving the story extra weight and depth.★★★★★
Themes and Messages
The main theme centers around charity. This includes charity and material wealth, as well as relational charity. As this book has been a classic for many years, it has notoriety for the latter, but not so much for the former, which I was surprised by while reading. There is also a profound reflection on the power of remorse and the transformative power of repentance, as well as the immense value it brings to a life when met by grace.
The book also tackles, in a roundabout way, a question that many people struggle with: if you are on your deathbed and accept Christ, is that too late? Ebenezer Scrooge is at the end of his life, and a final opportunity is set before him. Only a supernatural intervention can shake him from his merciless and cruel ways that are indifferent to goodness.
The book suggests that perhaps the question of being on one’s deathbed isn’t the right one to ask. Instead, we might ask: at what point is a heart ready to be torn down and remade into something else? At what moment are we willing to become something other than what we are? At what moment are we ready to repent?★★★★★
Final Thoughts
Overall, I loved reading the A Christmas Carol, and I hope to re-read it in the future at some point. I’ve been reading it around the Christmas season, and I find it’s really wonderful for getting into the mood for Christmas.
I also hope to be reading more of Charles Dickens' work in the future, so make sure to stay tuned. Overall, I would highly recommend this book for specifically around the Christmas season giving it a rating of five out of five stars.
Content Discretions:
Mild gore, Ghosts.
That’s all folks! If you’ve read A Christmas Carol, feel free to tell me what you thought about it in the comments below. ❤❤❤
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