Reading A Christmas Carol in the Twenty-First Century

The mirror, in the Parker House Hotel, Boston, 

where Dickens practiced A Christmas Carol

before giving public readings

Although published nearly 175 years ago, A Christmas Carol remains essential reading. While it may not immediately seem to be a book about travel, Charles Dickens, a prodigious traveler himself, has his protagonist travel through time and space to review the consequences of his action. Because the Christmas season is both a time of charity and reflection, Dickens takes this opportunity to remind his reader about the necessity of both. The book is a critique of Victorian England, but the genius of the book is how it transcends time and place to think about our lives and others.

The opening paragraph of the novella set the scene: There is a broad discussion of how mean and cruel Scrooge is to his fellow man. His general disposition is so unkind that even the blind man’s dog finds no favor with him. When confronted by his nephew with his unpleasant nature, especially given it is the Christmas season, Scrooge asks how can he not be? He considers himself surrounded by fools and people who do not understand the driving force of the economy. The holiday season marks a time at which people spend lavishly money they do not have; engage in celebration, while they have nothing to celebrate. In short, they foolishly spend their money to make others happy. His nephew retorts, on the contrary, the season is one in which people open their hearts and treat their neighbors charitably. He implores Scrooge to think of people, those less fortunate, as “fellow-passengers to the grave;” we all share the same mortality and the existential plight of this reality. We may not have profited from those less fortunate, but the Christmas spirit instructs us to treat them charitably nonetheless.

A few pages later, Scrooge is visited by two men who are seeking subscriptions for the poor: “Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.” His reply is telling: he queries about whether prisons and workhouses still exist. When he is told how horrible the places are, that many would prefer to die than be sent to those institutions, his response that those unfortunates should die, it would have the benefit of reducing the surplus population. The words written by Dicken, throughout his career, helped to highlight the plight of the poor, the tragedy of child labor, and the degradation of poor houses. It would be easy to tell ourselves that this was in the past, part of nineteenth century Dickensian Britain; however, these problems continue still shape our world, economies and lives.

Scrooge claims not to know of the dismal nature of the poorhouses. It is a willful neglect. It was not his business to concern himself with such things; his business kept him occupied to the extent that he could not, nor did he want to, take a concern in the plight of the poor. When his dead former business partner, Marley, appears to him, Scrooge doubts the apparition, instead choosing to believe the facts (as relayed by his senses) cannot be trusted. It might be a case of indigestion caused by mustard, cheese, or an undercooked piece of potato. His rationalization of what it could be, rather than what the facts lead us is all too familiar with the current fascination of fake news. All too often we choose to believe what fits our heuristic of how the world works and reject out of hand data contrary to our beliefs.

Scrooge compliments his former partner on his business acumen; however, the ghost of Marley counters that his actual business should have been the welfare of humans, benevolence, and charity. Instead he, and Scrooge, chose to focus on the trade by which they accumulated wealth. Yet, “The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business,” Marley laments. It is a recurring theme in the works of Dickens, telling his readers repeatedly that a person’s worth is not predicated on their ability to make money. When confronted with the probable death of Tiny Tim, the Ghost of Christmas Present reminds Scrooge of his comment that such deaths would reduce the “surplus population.” It is a funny thing that, in modern society, we place rhetorical emphasis on those who forego remuneration in order to help other humans or the world in general. Yet, we privilege and celebrate those who make a great deal of money as being wise or insightful. Where is our concern for those less fortunate?

The pursuit of money, while forgetting the humanity around him, leads to the end of Scrooge’s morals, kindness, and happiness. We can even see this as an enlightened self-interest: karma, or what goes around, comes around. It is a point not lost on the traveler either: a generosity of spirit yields an abundance in return. In the opening chapter (stave), Scrooge is clearly unhappy: he offers no charity and receives none in return. Dickens points to his avarice as the source of his difficulties. His pursuit of money means that he loses his chance at love. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows him how a young woman, Belle, puts an end to their relationship because he places more emphasis on the idol money than her. She Admonishes him, “I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?” Clearly disturbed by this vision of the past, Scrooge is forced to endure the vision of her as a grown woman, basking in the love of her daughter and the adoration of her husband. The path not traveled, martial contentment with Belle, is the price Scrooge pays for his avarice.

Dickens uses the voice of the Ghost of Christmas Present to remind is readers of the hypocrisy of Victorian England. There was a bill introduced in parliament to close bakeries and other entertainment venues on Christmas and Sundays, which would have deprived poor people of a hot roast and a day of leisure. Proposed by Sir Andrew Agnew, the Sunday Observance Bill was designed to enforce a certain amount of piety for religious holidays; however, the burden would have fallen particularly hard on the working class. Since bakeries were forbidden to use their ovens to bake bread on Sundays, many allowed their ovens to be used to cook roasts for those who did not have the means to so in their own homes. Sundays were the only day off for most of the working poor, thus the law would deprive them of their recreation opportunities. Scrooge asks the apparition if these moves were not done in the name of Christmas spirit. But the ghost explains that those who were attempting to do so were using bigotry and hatred in the name of piety to further their interests and do not speak for the spirit of the holiday itself. Dickens was particularly keen to advocate on behalf of the working class and their leisure time. In a tract against the Sunday Observance Bill, he wrote: “The idea of making a man truly moral through the ministry of constables and sincerely religious under the influence of penalties, is worthy of the mind which could form such a mass of monstrous absurdity.” Dickens goes on to argue that the minister who buys sports equipment for children was doing more to make people happy, religious and moral than any legislation could ever hope to achieve.

The use of Christmas as a setting implies a certain religious dogma. But to think that the lessons from Dickens applies solely to Christians would be a mistake. The lessons of kindness and charity, of treating others well, of being patience and kind, transcends a single religion and a specific holiday. The traveler knows that acts of kindness while on a journey is repaid several times over.