Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Andrea Nováková

Social and Moral Issues in Christmas Books by

Charles Dickens

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.

2022
Bibliographic record

Author: Andrea Nováková

Faculty of Arts
Masaryk University
Chyba! Nenalezen zdroj odkazů.
Title of Thesis: Social and Moral Issues in Christmas Books by Charles Dickens
Degree Programme: Bachelor
Field of Study: Chyba! Nenalezen zdroj odkazů.
Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.
Year: Chyba! Nenalezen zdroj odkazů.
Number of Pages: 63
Keywords: Charles Dickens, Christmas, Christmas books, A Christmas Carol,
The Chimes, The Haunted Man, poverty, social problems
Abstract

The thesis focuses on the ways in which Charles Dickens explores and develops social and

moral issues in his approach to traditional forms of Christmas storytelling in A Christmas

Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man.
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only
the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
…………………………………………..

Author’s signature
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his time and valuable

advice which helped me during the writing process of the topic close to my heart.
Table of Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………...7

Chapter 1: Charles Dickens …………………………………………………………….10

Chapter 2: Christmas in the Days of Charles Dickens …………………………………17

Chapter 3: Christmas Books ……………………………………………………………23

Chapter 4: Social Issues in A Christmas Carol ………………………………...............26

Chapter 5: The Chimes ………………………………………………………............... 39

Chapter 6: The Haunted Man …………………………………………………………..45

Chapter 7: The Battle of Life and The Cricket on the Hearth ………………………….50

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………...............54

Resumé (English) ………………………………………………………………………57

Resumé (Czech) ……………………………………………………………………….. 58

Works Cited …………………………………………………………………………… 59

 Introduction
This bachelor thesis deals with the social and moral problems of Victorian society,

especially the lower working class, which struggled with as well as morally-oriented issues, as

depicted in series of five short stories know as Christmas Books by Charles Dickens. These

include A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and The Haunted Man, to which the main attention in

this thesis is paid, followed by a general analysis of The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle

of Life. Though the books contain a vast range of well-presented topics, the thesis focuses on

the most significant topics of poverty, political unrest, differences between the social classes,

inequality and bad treatment of the poor in the Victorian era and the impact the stories had on

these issues. Furthermore, the thesis also attempts to provide an insight into the way

Christmas books influenced the perception of Christmas not only in the era of Dickens, as

mainly depicted in A Christmas Carol, but also invoked understanding of the need of a social

change and conditions of the poor emphasizing the importance of charity. The thesis therefore

focuses on providing the analysis of the references of particular moral problem throughout the

stories and understanding of sociohistorical context for present-day readers.

The initial chapter focuses on the life of the author Charles Dickens from early

childhood to his successful career as one of the most popular novelists in history. During his

childhood, Dickens experienced most of the issues he later wrote about in his works. This

influenced his perception of society and provided him with a better understanding of the

social situation in his country. His personal experiences and memories brought him closer to

an audience often consisting of people from the working class, as to which he devoted most of

his literary talent. Becoming a writer not only brought Dickens immense fame, but also

helped him gain an impact on the relevant authorities as social critic to develop a sense of

justice, and the ability or even encourage for a social improvement. The criticism is not

7
always shown and expressed directly, so this thesis also attempts to explain those instances of

social issues which are hidden throughout the stories.

The second chapter is devoted to the topic of Christmas, its perception in the Victorian

era before and after the publication of Dickens’s most famous and influential Christmas story

A Christmas Carol. Through this book Dickens highlights the meaning of charitable acts as a

key to a happy life not only of an individual, but of a society as a whole. He further brings the

jolly Christmas atmosphere through vivid descriptions of fasting, traditions and family which,

to a large extent, have had a huge impact on how people celebrate Christmas even nowadays

and how the problems of society are perceived.

The third chapter of the thesis begins provides an analysis of the Christmas stories,

first as an overview of the general information about the series as a whole, their publication

and response of the audience. Then it moves to a more detailed study of particular aspects of

each individual book. The first of these is the analysis of the famous and successful novella A

Christmas Carol, to which the primary attention was paid, concentrating on the topics of

poverty, greed and benevolence. Based on his own experiences of hardship, Dickens created

the main character Ebenezer Scrooge as a juxtaposition of social ills, using his redemption as

an appeal to the need for compassion and charity.

The fifth chapter starts with analysis of the second Christmas story The Chimes with

an emphasis on social and political theories regarding the matter of the treatment and

punishment of the poor. Dickens depicts social unrest and the unfair, sometimes unbearable,

conditions people in certain spheres of society had to face through a supernatural narrative of

the importance of persistence. In the sixth chapter, the thesis aims to provide an insight into

the nature of an individual in the last Christmas book The Haunted Man, in which the author

projects the need for forgiveness of the painful past rather than the forgetting of it. A separate

chapter, chapter seven, is devoted to the two remaining stories The Battle of Life and The
8
Cricket on the Hearth which are not so rich in social and political topics as A Christmas

Carol, The Chimes and The Haunted Man. Overall, the thesis aims to vindicate that the

Christmas books are much more than just seasonal fairy-tale writings, and that they involve

the most serious problems in the Victorian society which, as Dickens emphasises in most of

his writings, needs to change for the better for the general prosperity of the society as a whole.

9
 Chapter 1: Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens, in full Charles John Huffam Dickens, (born February 7, 1812,

Portsmouth, Hampshire, England – died June 9, 1870, Gad’s Hill, near Chatham, Kent) was

English writer, journalist, editor and social critic. He is still considered one of the most

significant and influential novelists of the 19th century closely associated with Christmastime.

His writings and ideologies had a huge impact on Victorian society, “among his

accomplishments, he has been lauded for providing a stark portrait of the Victorian-era

underclass, helping to bring about social change” (Charles Dickens Biography, n. pag.). He is

the author of such world-famous novels as Pickwick Papers (1837), Oliver Twist (1838),

David Copperfield (1849), Bleak House (1852), Hard Times (1854), Great Expectations

(1861) and much more as well as the series of stories know as Christmas books. In the

Victorian period, his work enjoyed great popularity and he is still widely read and loved

today. Philip Collins is of the same opinion, as he states in an article “Charles Dickens: the

Critical Heritage” that “his [Dickens’s] writings had become classics even during his lifetime”

(n. pag.). Dickens’s books were inspired by his own experiences both in childhood and in

adult years as well as by social issues Victorian society was dealing with such as child labour,

poverty, justice and education system.

Charles was born the second of eight children of Elizabeth Dickens (1789–1863) and

John Dickens (1786–1851), who was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and owed large sums of

money when Charles was about ten years old. These financial difficulties caused the family to

move to Camden Town, a poor neighbourhood in London. When Charles was twelve, his

father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea, a debtors’ prison in Southwark and Charles was

forced to leave school to start working in a blacking factory to support his family’s needs. As

Peter Ackroyd mentions is his book Dickens (2002), this experience of poverty and hardship

“did not gradually fade and disappear”, instead was “preserved entire in the amber of
10
Dickens’s rich memory” (46) and had a significant influence on his view of the world and

contributed to his endeavour for social reform. Dickens depicted and criticised many negative

aspects of the society, which was, as Yamini Kalra writes in an article “Characters, Poverty,

Christmas – The Dickensian Interpretation” (2017) a part of “his literary genius and

empathetic acknowledgement of the treatment of the poor” (n. pag.). But this influence was

not only positive. Ackroyd points out that even after his father was released from Marshalsea,

Charles still “had an obsessive need for the security which money could bring” regarding his

family situation where money was a luxury he could not afford. As Ackroyd further suggests,

this longing for financial security did not come from misery or selfishness, but Dickens’s

“early experiences in the Marshalsea and blacking factory provoked an anxiety which only the

assurance of financial well-being could assuage” (106). This also created sense of “fear of

estrangement and separation which he had experienced so deeply in his younger days” (196)

later contributing to the atmosphere of darkness in some of his novels.

In many novels, Dickens emphasizes the importance of family by portraying the

characters as abandoned misers whose life could be very different and better having a

functional loving family. The most memorable example is undoubtfully character Oliver

Twist in eponymous novel in which Dickens reprehends the cruel treatment of orphaned

children, domestic violence and labour in London during the 19th century. Regarding A

Christmas Carol, for the main attention of this thesis is focused on this famous Christmas

story, the family turned out to be one of the means of change in the nature of Ebenezer

Scrooge. He isolates himself and treats other people badly, not excluding his own family,

which causes him sorrow he does not even realise. Still his nephew genuinely cares for him:

…he [Scrooge] loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm.

I am sure he loses pleasant companions than he can find in his own

thoughts…I mean to give him the same chance every year…he finds me

11
 going the, in good temper, year after year, and saying: ‛Uncle Scrooge, how

are you?’ (Dickens 54-55).

In this, true meaning of family is shown. Once Scrooge went through transformation and

opened his heart to his family, his life changed for better, “he was home…nothing could be

happier” (78). So, although Charles Dickens often portrayed family relationships with

“degradation and unsatisfactoriness” (Ackroyd 5), in the end, his novels and stories present

family as strong and supportive institution which can “withstand change and the world” (5),

something he never experienced in his own family.

Before becoming a writer, Dickens began his carrier by working in a solicitor’s office

as a clerk. He later became interested in journalism and became a parliamentary and

newspaper reporter. He also had a deep passion for theatre and entertainment and almost

became an actor himself. However, a better opportunity arose which opened him the door to

the world of fame in the field of literature. As Ackroyd states, Dickens’s literary career began

in 1833 with a short story A Dinner at Poplar Walk (1833) for the London periodical Monthly

Magazine (83). Three years later, after fulfilling his ambition to join the Morning Chronicle,

Dickens published a collection of short pieces, mainly sketches or periodicals, known as

Sketches by Boz (1836) in various newspapers attracting public attention. One of his first big

literary achievements came with the success of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,

also known as The Pickwick Papers (1837), which led him to full-time novelist career.

Being also a social critic, Dickens believed that literature had the potential to initiate

social reform and political changes, and, indeed, many of his writings served such a purpose.

During the hardest years of his life, Dickens had developed a strong social and moral

conscience and empathy for victims of injustice. In a letter to his friend Wilkie Collins in

September 1858, he wrote:

12
 Everything that happens…shows beyond mistake that you can’t shut out the

world; that you are in it, to be of it; that you get yourself into a false position

the moment you try to sever yourself from it; that you must mingle with it,

and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the bargain

(Marlow 132).

Dickens points to the fact that Victorian society turned a blind eye to many moral issues. The

situation, however, could not improve if it was left ignored and unseen. Consequently, it was

very important to involve and influence public opinion, which could have had an impact on

the decisions of the authorities. As Ackroyd indicates, Dickens achieved this by addressing a

large audience which included, besides the higher classes, the class of the labouring poor.

Ackroyd aptly called this “a voice which penetrated the heart of the high as well as of the

low” (110). A claim in an unsigned article The Death of Mr Charles Dickens, published in

Daily News in 1870, cited by Philip supports Ackroyd’s opinion by metaphorically saying

that “his [Dickens’s] writings…are suited alike to all classes, and have been as welcome in

the cottage as in the country house, in the Far West of America, and in the Australian bush as

in our English homes”. This was one of the benefits of Dickens’s literature that “in his works

there is a high moral aim, and we may surely add, a high moral teaching” (n. pag.) which

could apply to any sphere of society.

Social issues in the Victorian period were partly caused by the time itself, as it was a

time of big changes – the greatest of which was Industrial Revolution. Thousands of people

were drawn to the city to find a better way of living and new way of income. The increasingly

growing population sought employment in industry which helped manufacturers and

industrialists accumulate huge fortunes. Unfortunately, while the development of new

infrastructure and technology was rapidly increasing, the social conditions of lower classes

remained at a regrettable level. Housing was very expensive and not everybody could afford

13
it, a problem that persists to this day. As stated in Charles Dickens’ England (n.d.), many

people lived in a dreadful environment with abysmal sanitation which led to dangerous

diseases. There were no laws regulating labour, working conditions were very dangerous,

with people working for sixteen hours a day and children even at the age of three laboured (n.

pag.). The poor were very dependent on the help of others, which they often did not receive.

Another option were workhouses, which will be considered more closely in the following

chapters of this thesis. He was deeply moved by all these conditions, some of which he had

experienced himself. He felt empathy towards the misfortune of the lower classes and

“sympathised with the thrust of working-class grievances” (Ackroyd 188). As Baily claims,

Dickens would “strike a blow against injustice, oppression, and hypocrisy in high places, and

against all the wretchedness and pain that they brought upon gentle and innocent creatures”

(52). He points out to the helplessness of people who could not work, the sick, the abandoned

who could not defend themselves and mainly children. Anindita Dutta in her article Children

in Dickens’s Novels (2014) writes that “the children in his [Dickens’s] novels represent the

real children of the actual world with actual experience and a tragic background – they

experience poverty, orphanage, neglect and deprivation of education. They are a reflection of

Dickens’s own childhood experiences” (2). Indeed, Dickens was an intense supporter of

education, as his own schooling in the Field Lane school was, according to Ackroyd,

“wretched enough…a place of filth and disease and every kind of vice” (227). Dickens was

very concerned about these children’s issues and because of this, most of his characters of

children experience some kind of hardship in their lives to raise awareness about the negative

aspects of Victorian life, such as the treatment of children and bad system of education in the

period. He had, according to Dutta, an “abiding faith in the innocence and magic of children.

The characters he created were thus very close to his heart”. Still, as Ackroyd claims, Dickens

was often criticized for the number of child-deaths in his novels and novellas, which were,

14
despite the fact that the society was highly advanced, very common. This is what Ackroyd

calls “the forgotten aspect of Victorian London” (218), the city which offered plenty of

motifs, though many of them were negative and wretched, for Dickens to write about.

Ackroyd continues that “Dickens loved this alien city; he loved that unearthly darkness which

make it a place of fantasy a harbinger of night” (344). The London in his books serves as a

metaphor for some of the negative traits of Victorian society and country “of dirt and misery

with which he could bind his own past to that of the city itself” (Ackroyd 188). All the

problems mentioned above could be found in his works through the depictions of London. For

this purpose, Dickens sometimes uses word ‛fog’ that, like a pollution, covers the city and can

be frequently found mainly in Bleak House, but also in A Christmas Carol: “the fog came

pouring in at every chink and keyhole…(Dickens 8). In particular, in Bleak House Dickens

writes: “Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog

down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions

of a great (and dirty) city” (Chapter 1). Terms ‛fog’ and ‛pollution’ here symbolically mean

the moral pollution and impure value system of upper classes, as well as literally refer to

unsuitable sanitary and hygienic conditions in London. Still, the fog covers the city and its

inhabitants, pointing at, but also hiding, serious moral problems which the society overlooked.

Charles Dickens died in 1870, at the age of fifty-eight, as one of the most famous

novelists in England. Ackroyd observes that Dickens represented the “Victorian character in

his earnestness, …sentimentality…doubt, in his belief in work… For him life was a ‛battle’ to

maintain a vision of the coherence of the world…” (257) and after his death “one of its

moving spirits had crept away. Part of its soul had gone” (255). His demise, as Ackroyd adds

further, had a remarkable effect on the society - sense of loss and mourning, especially

regarding labouring people who felt that part of themselves was lost with loss of

understanding Charles Dickens provided to them (xiii). Daily News (qtd. in Ackroyd) wrote

15
on 10 June, the day after his death, that “he (Dickens) was emphatically the novelist of his

age. In his pictures of contemporary life posterity will read…the character of nineteenth

century life” (xii) which clearly shows how great was his impact on society.

Taking everything that has been said into consideration, the works of Charles Dickens

created the dominant perception of the Victorian age as it is known today. He was “the

chronicler of his age…the solitary observer, one who looked upon the customs of his time”

(Ackroyd xii). As Annabelle Collins says in her article The Lasting Social Legacy of Dickens

(2012), “Charles Dickens was undoubtedly a great observer of human nature. The vivid

characters and dark, complex plots he created have demonstrated an understanding of the

abuses within society and resulted in the enduring popularity of his publications” (n. pag.).

Apart from writing books, Dickens also supported charities and many health and educational

institutions and helped to establish Urania Cottage, a home for homeless and abused women.

What is important, as a result of his own period of hardship, he naturally showed empathy and

understanding to “those who felt themselves to have been actively neglected by ‛the system’”

(Ackroyd 188), including the poor and the disabled. Many of his writings, possibly almost all

of them, contained a certain message, a call to action to mitigate poverty and injustice in

society. Dickens’s books made both the authorities and ordinary people see the struggle which

others around them were constantly facing to initiate the changes he wanted to see in the

society of his time.

16
 Chapter 2: Christmas in the Days of Charles

Dickens
In considering of Christmas books by Charles Dickens, it is important to notice that

although not all the stories from the Christmas books deal with or even mention Christmas,

they are connected with Christmastime through the topics of family, charity, forgiveness and

traditions related to perception of Christmas in the Victorian era.

Christmas, as people know it in the 21st century, has undergone a long process of

development and change since the upsurge of Christian belief all over the European continent.

At first, it was solely connected with the commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, later on,

it gained more favour and importance in terms of celebration and tradition. The term

Christmas was not used until the 11th century. In England during the Anglo-Saxon period,

Christmas was originally connected with the pagan celebration of winter solstice known as

Yule which was much darker than the generally known vision of Christmas. “The darkest day

of the year,” says McDaniel about winter solstice “was seen by many as a time when the dead

would have particularly good access to the living,” pointing at the fact that Christmas in the

past was, instead of heart-warming atmosphere and fairy tales so standard nowadays,

connected with death, rebirth and ghosts. Kat Eschner in Why Do People Tell Ghost Stories

on Christmas? (2016) justifies it by saying that “at the edge of the year, it also makes sense to

think about people and places that are no longer with us” (n. pag.) which gave rise to the

tradition of Christmas ghost-storytelling. This may be where Dickens got the idea for the

“Ghost of Christmas Past” (Dickens 26) appearing in A Christmas Carol as well as other

spirits and ghost figures in his works.

Long before the Victorian period, still, Christmas was just a part of festivals celebrated

throughout the year (Lambert). Even at the beginning of the 19th century, Christmas was far

17
from being celebrated the way it is today, as many businesses did not consider it a proper

holiday and working classes were allowed only one day off. With the onset of

industrialization, mass markets and advances in technology in Victorian society, Christmas

gradually became a more established holiday. This was followed by the revival of old

traditions as well as introducing new ones which Britain took from other countries. These

include Christmas trees, Christmas cards and crackers, gift-giving, singing Christmas carols

or storytelling. Lambert points out that

“the first Christmas trees in England appeared in England in the early 19th

century but they did not become popular till Queen Victoria married a

German, Prince Albert. In 1848 they were shown in a picture in the

Illustrated London News with a Christmas tree. As a result, Christmas trees

became very popular” (n. pag.).

By this means, the Royal family became a symbol of Christmas and its celebration around the

Christmas tree spread wildly across the public. Decorations, such as holly, ivy, mistletoe or

paper decorations, enjoyed great popularity. One of the traditions of the Christmas season

which emerged in 19th century, having survived to this day, is the invention of the Christmas

card. According to Holly Hyams and her article Victorian Christmas Traditions (n. d.), the

very first commercially produced and printed one was designed and illustrated by John

Callcott Horsley for a civil servant Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843 (n. pag.). The

hand-coloured central picture depicted an idyllic Christmas theme of a family gathering

raising a toast to the recipient of the card, while also displaying acts of charity, such as

sharing food and clothing with poor children (Christmas Card n. pag.). This shows that the

awareness of the importance of charity was aroused before Dickens emphasized it in his

works. The card was considered controversial, as it also delineated a child drinking wine

along with its family which resulted in huge disapproval and criticism, because “at the time

18
there was a big temperance movement in England,” says Ace Collins (qtd. in Hyams n. pag.)

“so there were some that thought he was encouraging underage drinking”. At first, only a

limited number of cards, for one shilling each, was produced but with the development of

printing technologies, mainly chromolithography, the mass production of Christmas cards

started and prices dropped, making them accessible to everyone. With such a plenty of new

traditions and new Christmas-related items, people began to connect Christmas with merry

atmosphere and family, rather than with ghosts and death.

Singing Christmas carols, which were at that time on the decline due to rejections of

Christmas by Puritans, was reintroduced as music started playing a substantial role in the

Christmas atmosphere. Dickens shows its significance in the very title of his most famous

story A Christmas Carol. Though written in prose, instead of verses, the story symbolises a

carol, a song which is to be shared by all the people, just as the moral lesson of the story and

the traditions mentioned are supposed to be shared and re-read to bring back the true values of

Christianity. This is clearly shown in the novella itself when Scrooge, his heart being touched

be the first of the ghosts, mentions: “There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door

last night. I should like to have given him something: that’s all” (Dickens 29). It demonstrated

the pity of not professing the Christmas spirit which carols represent, as well as not helping

those who spread joy without expecting anything in return. Moreover, the story is divided into

five staves, instead of chapters, to match the structure of a carol with a memorable sentence

serving as a refrain, which is Tiny Tim’s blessing “God bless us, every one!” (49) used in

various modifications throughout the most important passages of the story.

With the rise of traditions, there was a desire for family gatherings at Christmastime,

and those became possible thanks to the development of railway networks. “Those who had

left the countryside to seek work in cities could return home for Christmas and spend their

precious days off with loved ones,” comments Hyams (n. pag.). Family members used to sit

19
down at Christmas dinner and give each other presents. As written in Christmas and the

Victorian Era: 5 Interesting Observations (2019), though the gift-giving at the beginning of

19th century considered a part of New Year’s Day celebration, with gradual development of

family-oriented traditions, it moved to December 25. The gifts themselves were rather

modest, including fruits, nuts or small gifts often put on the tree as decorations, later on

children, but still mainly of high and middle classes, were gifted dolls, books and handmade

presents placed under the tree (n. pag.). Another day of celebration was, and still is, Boxing

Day, on December 26. The name comes from the time when servants and the working classes

opened boxed up gifts from the rich as an act of empathy and charity. Also, churches played

an important role in the process of Boxing Day charity by collecting money from churchgoers

to give to the poor at Christmas.

An inseparable part of Christmas, notwithstanding the period, is family dinners and

feasts. And that is where Charles Dickens comes into the picture. Simon Callow remarks in

Charles Dickens and the Victorian Christmas Feast (2017) that “Charles Dickens’s

conception of Christmas is fundamentally connected to the idea of feasting, which is

profoundly expressive of the human happiness that he believed the festival should promote”

(n. pag.). Dickens certainly carried out remarkable descriptions of Christmas feasting which

created warm and touching atmosphere of Christmas joy in his books. One of many examples

of it is the depiction of Mr Fezziwig’s ball in Stave Two of A Christmas Carol: “There were

more dances…and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold

Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of

beer,” (Dickens 32). Food historian Pen Vogler (qtd. in Kirby) observes that “his [Dickens’s]

novels often contain innocent, hungry children - he wanted to show readers that good food

and nourishment were a human right, even if you were poor,” (n. pag.) which is clearly shown

in many of his most successful pieces. He points out that working-class people can enjoy the

20
holidays, no matter how modest, with the family that brings the happiness of the season. This

is manifested in a famous scene of A Christmas Carol portraying a Christmas dinner at the

Cratchits:

Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing

hot; Master Peter mased the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda

sweetened up the apple sauce…At last the dishes were set on, and grace was

said…as Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared

to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected

gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all around the

board…” (Dickens 48).

Being rather poor, the Cratchits have a goose for dinner, which was the highest Christmas

luxury they could afford, as turkeys were very expensive and belonged only on a rich family

table. Still, the Cratchits react to their feast with joy and gratitude and their positive approach

applies to the meal as well to the help with the preparation, as Mr Cratchit said “he didn’t

believe there ever was such a goose cooked” (48). He appreciates what he has and his

generosity is reflected in the scene when he wants to raise a toast to Scrooge, in spite of the

reluctance of his wife, for, though he is not paid enough, his wage pays for the dinner for the

whole family.

Although goose was more common for Christmas dinner because of its price, turkeys

were “the star attraction at Christmas dinner tables” (Evans, n. pag.). There is also a direct

reference to turkey in A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge’s first act after waking up after his

night spent with spirits is buying the biggest “prize turkey” (Dickens 75) in the Poulterer’s to

send it to Bob Cratchit’s house. This is his first act of charity, along with paying for a cab for

the poulterer’s man, for he knows that the Cratchits are poor and cannot afford such expensive

21
meal. Scrooge is pleased by what he has done, though Bob “shan’t know who send it” (76),

which shows the central message of the story – unselfishness and charitable act for the others.

So, summing up the last few paragraphs, though it was mainly moral issues and the

dark side of the society Dickens tried to reflect in his works, he also wrote his stories in way

which was pleasant to read. His representation of Christmas was simply merry, he highlighted

all that is good and love about the season and supported old forgotten traditions. The most

suitable to represent the Christmas spirit is probably the “Ghost of Christmas Present” (41)

who resembles the early-Victorian vision of Father Christmas, nowadays Santa Claus,

traditionally depicted with long beard, green robes and crown of holly surrounded by food

(Roud 385-387). This was also a base for John Leech, the British caricaturist and the first

illustrator of A Christmas Carol, who created the notorious hand-coloured illustration of this

“jolly Giant” (Dickens 41) sitting on a throne of “turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great

joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings…and

seething bowls of punch” (41) as well as of other famous scenes from the novella.

Regarding everything that has been said so far in this chapter of the thesis, Christmas

in the Victorian era had undergone considerable changes and processes of development, from

an underrated holiday to one of the most favourite celebrations. Some credit for this can be

surely attributed to Charles Dickens and his Christmas stories which helped to renew old

traditions and generosity. Although he did not invent Christmas, as it is often mistakenly said,

he contributed to a large extent to moral awareness and helped to bring “the spirit of the great

Christmas time” (Ackroyd 364) to more Victorian households.

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 Chapter 3: Christmas Books
“No one thinks of Mr Dickens as a writer. He is at once, through his books,

a friend… He keeps holidays with us, he helps us to celebrate Christmas

with heartier cheer, he shares at every New Year in our good wishes…”

(Charles Eliot Norton, qtd. in Watts sec. I)

As the above epigraph suggests, and according to Watts, it was the Christmas books that

increased popularity of Charles Dickens and public sympathies (sec. 1) because they restored

traditions and encouraged the celebration of Christmas in Victorian England. Philip Collins

remarks that Dickens’s Christmas books are “grand moral lessons” as well as “pretty and

innocent tales…precious allegories, containing, in his opinion, individual and social ethics of

transcendent value” (n. pag.).

The first one of the series came into being during the period know as ‛Hungry Forties’,

a decade of hardship, unemployment and economic depression for the British working classes

(Hungry Forties, n. pag.). A Christmas Carol, published on 19 December 1843, was

immediately an enormous success. It was followed by The Chimes, 1844, The Cricket on the

Heart, 1845, The Battle of Life, 1846, and The Haunted Man in 1848. They were initially

published as individual stories but in 1852 were assembled into a single volume known as the

Christmas Books and since then “these works established enduringly the association of

Charles Dickens with Christmas festivities and a spirit of generosity and good-will” (Watts

sec. 2).

Beginning with A Christmas Carol, it took Dickens a little over six weeks to create,

putting everything he had, both mentally and financially, into the production. Within a week

of its publication, all six thousand copies were sold out, though the profits were not extremely

high due to pirating and no copyright protection from exploitation of his works by fraudulent

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publishers. Moreover, the book was a huge hit, as Ackroyd remarks “the most successful

Christmas book of the season” (230). After its public popularity, Dickens was really keen to

write another Christmas-related story, The Chimes, which he was very excited and pleased by,

“could not rest until he had got it down on paper” (246), as Ackroyd says, and which, he

believed “would knock A Christmas Carol ‘out of the field’” (247). Indeed, The Chimes

enjoyed great popularity, and based on it, he wrote the other Christmas books mentioned

above with eager passion. These were very successful among the readers and sold well,

however, they also received negative comments from the critics. This is illustrated by an

anonymous reviewer in Macphail's Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal from January 1849 (qtd.

in Allingham, The Last of Dickens’s Five Christmas Books of: The Haunted Man and The

Ghost’s Bargain) depicting criticism of Dickens’s ultimate Christmas book The Haunted

Man: “Let us now have a few more returns of Christmas, and Mr. Dickens will have

destroyed his reputation as a tale-writer. We earnestly recommend him to quit the twenty-fifth

of December, and take to the first of April” (n. pag.). Also Ackroyd mentions that some critics

considered his stories to be “sentimental fancies” and the author himself to be a “man who

exhausted his talents before his time” (261). In fact, The Haunted Man, similarly to The Battle

of Life, digresses a little from the traditional theme of Christmas and holiday and also deals

with less serious topics than A Christmas Carol does.

Nevertheless, the books became almost a seasonal necessity both for him and the

readers which created his passion for public reading. Dickens loved the stage just as the

audience loved his narrative adaptations. Charles Dickens’s biographer Edgar Johnson (qtd. in

Perdue) noted of the author’s public reading: “It was more than a reading; it was an

extraordinary exhibition of acting ...without a single prop or bit of costume, by changes of

voice, by gesture, by vocal expression, Dickens peopled his stage with a throng of characters”

(n. pag.). His aim was to get closer to his readers and share the emotions more intensively

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through public performance, as he had an outstanding talent and delight for drama and acting.

Moreover, he shared a part of himself, since through the readings “we [the readers] may see

something of the pure nature of his genius” (Ackroyd 511). Individual stories took about three

hours each to read, which led Dickens to shorten them especially for public performances.

Among them, Ackroyd declares, A Christmas Carol was always Dickens’s favourite (361),

the one he read 127 times until his death and which has been adapted for stage, film and other

media more than any other of his works.

According to Dickens’s friend and first biographer John Forster (qtd. in Watts),

Dickens’s intention in this collection of books was, as he declared himself, to “awaken loving

and forbearing thoughts… [and] the good humour of the season” (Sec. 2). He created, as

Forster says further, the ‘Carol Philosophy’, a term which is associated with merry holidays

and kindness and, Forster continues, with “cheerful views, sharp anatomisation of humbug,

jolly, good temper…and vein of glowing, hearty, generous, mirthful beaming reference in

everything to Home and Fireside” (Sec. 2). Indeed, Dickens managed to create iconic pieces

of literature, which became representations of the Christmas spirit pointing to the importance

of goodness, humanity and altruism along with showing the delight connected to traditions

and celebrations.

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 Chapter 4: Social Issues in A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol, in full A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of

Christmas, is probably the most well-known novella of Charles Dickens, rich in topics of

everyday life in Victorian England, such as redemption, poverty, transformation and

Christmas traditions. Its aim was, as Michael Slater states in his website article Dickens,

Charles John Huffam (2004) to “open its readers' hearts towards those struggling to survive

on the lower rungs of the economic ladder and to encourage practical benevolence, but also to

warn of the terrible danger to society created by the toleration of widespread ignorance and

actual want among the poor” (n. pag.) The book presents a story about an old embittered

miser names Ebenezer Scrooge who is due to his selfishness and unkindness visited by three

spirits (four including spirit of Jacob Marley) who lead him through the process of

transformation and redemption showing him the true meaning of Christmas and goodness

which has more value that money which he longed for.

Its roots go back to 1843, according to Michael Slater in his video titled The Origins of

A Christmas Carol (2014), when Dickens was shocked after reading in the second report of

the Parliament on child labour - The Parliamentary Commission on the Employment of

Women and Children (1842) about the gruesome conditions of children working long shifts in

factories (00:00:14 - 00:00:41). The inception of industrial revolution, especially the mining

industry, created a demand for cheap workers. This resulted in children entering the

workforce at very young age, for they were cheaper than adult workers while they were

supposed to work the same hours in a dangerous environment. The report consisted of

interviews and testimonies of children with detailed depiction of the crucial treatment.

Dickens wrote (qtd. in Slater, The Origins of A Christmas Carol) that he was, as well as other

people, “perfectly stricken down” (00:00:46 – 00:00:47) by what he had read and with

aspiration to bring a change to society, for he believed “the labouring classes needed
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sustenance” (Ackroyd 367), he decided to use his talent as a novelist and write a literary piece

with a moral lesson. His first intention was to write a pamphlet titled An Appeal to the People

of England, on Behalf of the Poor Man’s Child (Slater, Charles Dickens 219) but he was not

sure if the pamphlet would have enough impact and reach a wide range of people, so, he

wrote a story that he believed would grab the attention of the public.

To enhance this impression, the characters of A Christmas Carol were based on people

Dickens had encountered in his childhood years or seen during his long night walks through

London. For example, the inspiration for Tiny Tim came from Dickens’s older sister Fanny

and her husband Henry Burnett whose child Harry, one of two sons, was disabled. Thanks to

that, Dickens realized the hardship not only of the poor, but also of destitute and disabled

children. Unfortunately, unlike the story of Tiny Tim “who did not die” (Dickens 78), the one

of his nephews did not have a happy ending despite the best efforts of his parents. Likewise,

these images of his childhood hardship, prisons, loss and the oppression of children were

often reflected in his literary works, such like the character of Scrooge has similar troubled

origins related to the troubled period of Dickens’s life. In fact, this similarity of abandonment

and despair can be seen in Stave Two when Scrooge is led by the first of the spirits back to his

childhood. They find

his [Scrooge’s] younger self…a solitary child, neglected by his

friends…intend upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments,

wonderfully real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window…

“Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy…One Christmastime,

when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first

time, just like that. Poor boy! (Dickens 28)

This shows the resemblance between the childhoods of the character and the author himself

and though his experiences were not quite the same, Dickens, too, was a “solitary child” (28)

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who, according to F. E. Baily’s Six Great Victorian Novelists (1947) “spent the majority of

his free time reading books” (49) and was preoccupied with creating his own world without

dealing misery. Dickens, as a child, was, according Ackroyd, “anxious, sensitive and quick to

anger, filled with apprehensions but never expressing them to anyone” as his childhood was

marked by fear and “experience of sudden terror” (35) just as Scrooge’s blood was “conscious

of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy” (Dickens 14). Through

him Dickens delineated common and unacceptable problems of the time in which he lived, as

well as issues the author himself faced and feelings he had, these especially occurring in scene

of Scrooge’s gradual transformation. In the book he is described thus:

He carried his own low temperature always about with him… External heat

and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, not wintry

weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow

was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul

weather didn’t know where to have him (Dickens 8).

Here the narrator demonstrates that Scrooge is a cold-hearted person whom metaphorically no

cold weather can affect. He lives a lonely, self-oriented life with strict feelings and ways of

behaving that cannot be changed by any external forces, not even by ordinary people. He

represents a typical rich man of Victorian society, self-contained and careless, through the

eyes of Charles Dickens.

Although the book is a celebration of Christmas, its main character is the complete

opposite. Ebenezer Scrooge is known for his hatred and rejection of this holiday, shown in his

famous reaction to Christmas wishes from his nephew: “Bah! Humbug!” (9). The cause of it

may be his obsession with business and money-making, though his wealth comes from misery

and greed rather than from being a successful entrepreneur, which is disrupted during

Christmas, as servants demand a day off and, instead of earning, people irresponsibly give

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money to charities without any profit. The most significant reason, however, is the number of

bad memories he connects with Christmas. As a boy, Ebenezer was neglected by his father

and left in school during the Christmastime while other children went home to spend holiday

with family. This indicates the resemblance with Dickens himself who was left alone while

his father was in Marshalsea debtors’ prison and Charles was on his own, as indicated in

Chapter 2 of this thesis. When Scrooge gets older, he aspires to make a fortune at the expense

of things that could make his life happy. This costs him the love of his fiancée Belle who

leaves him on Christmas because of his greed. Last but not least, his only friend and business

partner Jacob Marley, who shares the same lifestyle and manners, dies at Christmas, too. It

could be said that Scrooge blames Christmas for his unhappy life, but, as Dickens intended to

show, the reason for it is his money-controlled mind while Christmas and its values of

compassion and selflessness can help him find redemption. The danger of such a longing for

money is shown in the dialogue with his nephew continues, when Scrooge says: “What reason

have you to be merry? You’re poor enough,” to which Fred replies with: “What reason have

you to be morose? You’re rich enough” (9). Fred, though being rather poor, is happy because

of his family and empathic nature while his uncle lives in despair, though being surrounded

by wealth, by which Dickens emphasizes that money does not guarantee happiness.

Dickens uses the character of Scrooge who is, just like many rich people in Victorian

England, apathetic and indifferent towards those less fortunate. Moreover, he does not only

ignore the needs of people, he is also rejective of help though he has all the means to do so.

Scrooge’s hostile approach can be seen in the already mentioned conversation between him

and his nephew Fred when Scrooge contemptuously reproaches: “What right have you to be

merry?” (9). It was not an unusual attitude of the rich that people suffering from poverty were

at fault for their situation and had only themselves to blame and did not deserve to be helped.

Because of their wealth, people from upper classes saw themselves as superior to the poor

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seeing them as “another race of creatures bound on other journeys” (10), through which

Dickens indicates that the many of the rich only act in their own self-interest without taking

responsibility for fulfilling the needs of others, though the society eventually succeeded in

changing the deplorable condition. The perfect example of what has been said so far in this

paragraph is the scene from Stave One when two “portly gentlemen” (11) come to Scrooge

and Marley’s office to raise money for charities. By means of their arrival Dickens directly

points to bad conditions of life on the streets, where “poor and destitute…suffer greatly [and]

are in want of common comfort” (11). Looking at these men, the reader can see that Dickens

did not try to present being wealthy as a completely negative feature. The possession of

wealth itself does not deform society, the attitude and use of wealth does. Thus, Matthew

Caruchet states in ‘A Christmas Carol’: Sending the Poor to Prison (2017), though the

money-collectors are described by word “portly” indicating corpulent figures while there were

thousands of people starving on the streets (n. pag.) and “in want of common necessaries”

(Dickens 11), their intentions with money are to help solve social inequalities.

On the other hand, Scrooge hoards money for his own greedy purposes, even though

he does not really use it, instead of giving. This is evident from his response to the plea for

money to help the poor:

Are there no prisons? …And the Union workhouses? … The Treadmill and

the Poor Law are in full vigour then? …Oh! I was afraid, from what you

said first, that something had occurred to stop them from their useful

course…and those who are badly off must go there…If they would rather

die, …they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population (11-12).

The treadmill, Caruchet explains, was a penal appliance in prisons where the convicts were to

push a giant wheel in order to grind corn while walking on the paddle’s blades as if ascending

a never-ending staircase (n. pag.). Furthermore, Hugh Macatamney (qtd. in Eschner, In the

30
19th Century, You Wouldn’t Want to Be Put on the Treadmill) writes that “every two minutes

a bell sounded, and one prisoner stepped off and was permitted to sit still for a few minutes

while another took his place. In this manner the operation continued incessantly for several

hours” (n. pag.). Even the females and children were supposed to operate the treadmill being

exposed to danger and severe injuries. The work was exhausting, just as typical Victorian

punishments were designed to be, serving as a prevention from crimes, as it was believed that

nobody would want to be exposed to it again.

Furthermore, the Poor Law in Scrooge’s speech is in part a reference to theories and

economy of Thomas Malthus. As written in MacRae’s entry in Thomas Malthus (2021) in

Encyclopaedia Britannica, he was a British religious minister and economist who was

convinced that the production of food and sustenance would not match economy and the

demand of an exponentially growing human population, leading to suffering, want, reduced

living standards and increased susceptibility to diseases. Malthusian theory considered

population planning, birth control, delayed marriages and sexual abstinence as well as

positive checks like famine, war and premature death to be inevitable to restore balance when

the population outgrows the supplies of subsistence (n. pag.). Following this, Scrooge in his

speech shares the common misconception that institutions such workhouses and treadmill

help to solve the situation of the poor by keeping them employed and useful and most

importantly out of the view of opulent people. Pointing to prisons as suitable places for those

“who are badly off” (Dickens 12) demonstrates Scrooge’s belief that poverty was almost a

crime and should be treated as such. Calling poor people “idle” (12), Scrooge shares an

opinion that they are lazy and not working and therefore a burden to society, though many of

them were actually unable to work. Dickens criticizes this misconception pointing out that the

poor should be helped instead of punished. He also disagrees with the Malthusian idea of zero

population growth, having himself ten children, portraying the Cratchits as a family of eight

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and their most beloved child Tiny Tim as crippled while his survival without help and charity

is not assured. The criticism can be clearly seen in the scene where the Ghost of Christmas

Present replies to Scrooge’s concerns about Tiny Tim in his own words: “I see a vacant seat in

the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows

remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die… What then? If he be like to die, he had

better do it, and decrease the surplus population” (49). Dickens here suggests that if the

Malthusian ideas of reducing population were ever put into practice, the disabled would be the

first to go.

However, it is not only Malthusian theory Dickens criticizes in his works, but also the

ethical doctrine of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill call utilitarianism which comprises

of the belief that an action is moral and ethical if it helps a majority of people: “the greatest

happiness for the greatest numbers” (Driver n. pag.). It is debatable whether A Christmas

Carol touches on utilitarian approach, though some scholars consider Scrooge as a

representation of such an approach. Edgar Johnson in his essay “The Christmas Carol and the

Economic Man” (2015) remarks that the story criticizes “the economic behaviour of the

nineteenth-century business man, and the supporting theory of doctrinaire utilitarianism” (91).

In this sense, since Scrooge may be considered a utilitarian man, his redemption makes the

story seem to be anti-utilitarian, though this is not completely true. Since the value of thing

was measured by its usefulness, objects were becoming more important than people,

especially people from lower classes. Zachary Allentuck states in his article “A Dickensian

Utilitarianism” (2016) that “Dickens dislikes the idea of treating people as objects…

[therefore] his Carol Philosophy was intended to address the problems of the poor that the

utilitarians were, in his view, neglecting” (82). Allentuck, though, further suggests that

Scrooge’s redemption at the end of the book meets Bentham’s ideas of happiness, stating that

“in Bentham's eyes, a good employer, presumably, would be one who cares about his

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employees and treats them well. . . each charitable act towards the community, showing us

that charity adheres to the principle of utility, by producing happiness” (29-34). This shows

that the principle can work only if all the spheres of the society benefit from it equally, which,

for Dickens, to provide opportunities for working classes which kept being overlooked.

The issue plays a major role in Dickens’s famous novel Hard Times (1854) in which

he criticizes such a philosophy because of the establishment of social inequality, as high

profits go to the rich while working classes get only low wages. Apart from widening the gap

between the social classes and increasing the “growth in income inequality” (Allentuck

11-12), the utilitarian principle, as seen in the novel, focuses primarily on facts leaving no

room for imagination and creativity. Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main characters of the

Hard Times, is characterised as an “eminently practical father” (Dickens, Hard Times 8) has

an absolute control over his children and teaches them to think and behave only according to

facts and not based on the Utilitarian ideology and not according to logic. By these means he

also supresses their emotions, spontaneity, and imagination which make them human.

Gradgrind’s reaction to the children home immediately when he finds them watching the

circus might be an of the authoritarian behaviour and implementation of wrong principles of

education of utilitarian philosophy.

To return to A Christmas Carol, though using apparitions and supernatural

phenomena, Dickens’s message is clear and direct – the importance to help those in need. The

harbinger of his message is the character Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s deceased business partner

who lacks social responsibility and longs for money. While it may seem that Marley lives and

dies without being punished for his greed and carelessness, due to this, his spirit cannot rest

and is forced to roam the world and exposed to “incessant torture of remorse” (20).

Furthermore, as part of his punishment Marley also “wear[s] a chain [he] forged in life…

made of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel” (16-

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19) which are not a symbol of wealth but a mere burden to remind him of his sins. Outside the

window, Scrooge can recognize other ghosts lugging chains similar to Marley’s fettered with

objects of their sins and who also failed to help those less fortunate when they were alive, in

Dickens’s words: “they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and has lost the power

for ever” (22). These lost souls, just like Marley’s, wasted the chance to help those in need

while being alive and after death are “doomed to wander through the world… and witness

what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness” (19). The

ghosts have to watch the sorrow of the world desperately wanting to help but are unable to do

so, as it is too late for them to find redemption. Scrooge, on the other hand, has all the means

to be helpful and can avoid such a fate, and even a worse one, as he has been unknowingly

forging his chain for seven years, by changing for good. Though Marley is aware that his

damnation is inevitable, he tries to help Scrooge avoid it, if not for him then for the people he

encounters and treats badly. This shows that Marley has learnt his lesson that the wealth

which he has concerned his whole life with and which he must carry forever is no pleasure but

a mere burden if it is not used for good purposes. He has realized the true values of morality

and helping people which can be seen in his reply to Scrooge’s remark he was a good man of

business: “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy,

forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business” (20). These all were the issues to which

Dickens attached great importance and potential, if not the need, to change for the better, so,

Marley’s warning does not only apply to his surviving partner, but to Victorian society as a

whole.

One of the most significant and dark scenes of the story was instigated by Dickens’s

visit to Field Lane School, a charitable institution for the poorest children, whose dreadful

state and treatment, similar to the very school he, as well as Scrooge visited as a child,

prompted him to create the memorable characters of Ignorance and Want in A Christmas

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Carol (Slater, Charles Dickens 217). They are seeking shelter under the robe of the Ghost of

Christmas Present who explains: “They are Man’s… This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.

Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware the boy, for on his brow I

see written which is Doom” (Dickens 59). Each of the individual parts of this extract is

significant. Depicting these characters as children supplemented by characteristics such as

“wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable”, Dickens emphasizes how disastrously

poverty can affect especially the young, who are innocent and vulnerable. They were deprived

of their “graceful youth” (58) and childhood by destitution which was for Dickens like a

disease that must be treated. Without help and proper education the children are condemned to

the lifetime of hardship which has an impact on their behaviour in adulthood. Ignorance is

said to be even worse than Want because the Ignorance of the society to provide for the

children and the poor with possibilities for better lives and basic needs leads to Want – Want

of the rich to have even more and Want of the indigent for fundamental means to survive

which may lead to committing a crime. The ghost’s warning that the children “are Man’s”

(59) represent, Slater writes, “the idea of the State as a bad or neglectful parent to the children

of the poor” (Charles Dickens 218). It is society and mankind who have created Ignorance

and Want and therefore it is their obligation to treat it and find remedy.

Dickens also provides a moral example of how the rich should act and how important

the relationship between an employer and an employee is. Workers in the Victorian era, but

possibly in any era, were treated as inferior to their masters, being given much work for little

money without any benefits. Scrooge’s behaviour towards his clerk Bob Cratchit is callous,

neither does he want to give Cratchit a day-off on Christmas, nor does he provide him with an

appropriate work environment: “Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very

much smaller that it looked like on coal” (Dickens 9). Scrooge keeps the coal box out of his

reach, so no more than the necessary amount of coal is used as well no more than necessary

35
amount of money is wasted. He is indifferent to Bob’s needs, concerning himself only with

work to be done and profit. To show the readers, and to Scrooge as well, the undesirability of

such conduct, Dickens introduces the character of Mr. Fezziwig, Scrooge’s former master

who represents generosity, joy and true values, a model which Dickens wanted society to

follow. Though Fezziwig is a rich stern businessman, he is warm-hearted and beneficent,

throwing big parties for all his workers “shaking hands with every person individually” (13)

to celebrate Christmas every year. He is opposite of Scrooge in terms of caring about every

single one of his workers and does not mind spending money to bring joy to their lives.

However, his generosity is not primarily about money, but about the way he treats his workers

and the enjoyment he brings to the workplace. Even Scrooge is moved by this, shown in the

following scene from Stave Two:

“A small matter,” said the ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude”.

“Small!” echoed Scrooge.

“Why! It is not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money…is

that so much that he deserves this praise?”

“It isn’t that, Spirit…The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a

fortune” (34).

Here Dickens points out than the small amount of money and effort it costs Fezziwig, and

could cost Scrooge, too, to provide happiness and security for the workers and see their

gratitude and how even such a small gesture can have a great impact. This is crucial in

Scrooge’s transformation, as he, for the first time, realizes his ill-treatment of Bob Cratchit,

saying: “I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now” (35). Though

Scrooge is still a miser, the memory of his former master’s kindness and affection towards

him makes him praise his generosity. Ackroyd supports this by saying that according to

Dickens “there must be some mutual trust and regard between employers and employees

36
because they need each other, and in harmony between them lay all the hopes for the

prosperity of the country” (368). Indeed, if Scrooge actually used his money for something

good, like helping his clerk, both of their lives could be better and if all the people from upper

class behaved like Fezziwig, the whole country could benefit from it. This shows that

Dickens’s ideas were inspired by the Scottish Enlightenment, a period in the 18th and early

19th century Scotland, which put emphasis on the importance of rejection of any authority

which could not be justified by human reason. Through the redemption of Scrooge and his

transformation into a caring and benevolent person Dickens highlights the belief that people

are inherently good and the goodness eventually comes out, which complies with the values

of improvement, virtue and benefits both for individual and for the society as a whole,

characterizing Scottish Enlightenment.

As described in more detail in Chapter 2: Christmas in the days of Charles Dickens, it

is not only serious issues, but also the merry and cheerful atmosphere of Christmas spirit

Dickens creates in A Christmas Carol. Through vivid depictions of fasting, gatherings and

celebrations, he highlights family and virtues. Even the characters, apart from Scrooge, realize

the value of Christmastime, as seen in Fred’s memorable speech:

“I have always thought of Christmas time… as a good time; a kind

forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; … when men and women seem by one

consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below

them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave…” (10).

Dickens here points out that Christmas is time of goodness, bringing out the best in people

regardless of social class. The adjective charitable suggest that Fred is aware of the need to

help the others, while forgiving reveals his appreciation of family, as he comes to Scrooge

with open heart every year though being rejected. More significantly, Christmas is in this

passage referred to as a time when people are equal, though it certainly should not be only on

37
Christmas, notwithstanding the wealth or social class. Christmas is celebrated in the homes of

the rich as well as in homes of poor and both can enjoy it to the fullest. For instance, rich

Fezziwig held huge parties for Christmas for his friends and family and was happy. On the

other hand, the Cratchits, as Dickens writes, “were not a handsome family; they were not well

dressed”, had just modest dinner and could not afford much, but “they were happy, grateful,

pleased with one another, and contented with the time” (51). The amount of happiness of the

Cratchits is equal to that of Fezziwig, though very different, as all of them appreciate what

they have and cherish the time when all their loved ones can be together at one table. At the

end, Fred’s speech indicates further, money is useless when the life ends in misery. This is

especially true regarding the contrast between the death of Tiny Tim who is mourned,

remembered and loved, the vision of death of Scrooge which causes no compassion, instead

his servants rob him of his basic possessions. They justify this action by claiming to take care

of themselves, just as Scrooge always selfishly did, without causing any harm, as the man

died without anyone to miss him or his possessions (64-67). However, this vision of his faith

is not fulfilled because Scrooge learns his lesson and goes through the process of

transformation for better. He begins to “honour Christmas in [his] heart, and try to keep it all

the year” (73), appreciate and spend time with family and do good to other people. Moreover,

Scrooge himself finds lost happiness in his new way of life. Through the redemption Dickens

expresses his belief that everyone has the opportunity to change, not only himself but also

lives of other people, for good and hopes for better future for the society. Indeed, A Christmas

Carol is a story with a strong moral message involving dark and serious topics, as well as

pleasant atmosphere and as famous English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (qtd. in

Slater, The Origins of A Christmas Carol) said: “it seems to me a national benefit and to every

man and woman who reads it, a personal kindness” (00:10:06 - 00:10:14).

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 Chapter 5: The Chimes
In 1844, a year after publication and a great success of A Christmas Carol, a new

story, the second in the series of five Christmas books, came into existence titled The Chimes:

A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, commonly only

referred to as The Chimes. Dickens believed that it would “knock A Christmas Carol ‘out of

the field’” (Ackroyd 247), but this wish of his was not fulfilled, as the moral story of Scrooge

is still considered his most famous and favourite of all the novellas. Yet, the book, Ackroyd

continues, “caused something of a sensation…because of its overtly radical tones” and

showed that “Dickens really did despise the political system of his country as much as he

loathed its social mores” (247). The book, in fact, has much in common with A Christmas

Carol, dealing with spirits and apparitions and is rich in topic of social and moral

significance. Michael Slater in a biography Charles Dickens (2000) suggests the intentions

behind the stories: “he [Dickens] wanted to make the world a better place, to champion the

poor and oppressed, to ‘instruct’ readers in social justice matters and, as he later put it when

writing The Chimes, his most fiercely polemical story, ‘to shame the cruel and canting’” (93).

The story is very topical, concerning the most serious issues of the Victorian age, mainly

consisting of criticism of the political system and the inadequate treatment of the poor. Slater

calls The Chimes “a sensational exposé of the desperate lengths to which the poorer classes

were being driven, and for which they were then savagely punished” (Charles Dickens 229-

230). Indeed, Dickens deals with prostitution, suicide and infanticide and satirically sends a

message to authorities for unjust punishments of the poor regarding the matter.

The book provides an insight into the most pressing problems in Victorian society

Dickens himself encountered and denounced and which made him take action in the form of

socially-oriented writing. As Philip V. Allingham writes in his eponymous article The

39
Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang An Old Year Out and a New Year In (2007),

Dickens focuses on “the pressing necessity for a middle-class change of heart and the

development of a social consciousness as correctives for the ‘Condition of England’” (n.

pag.). Allingham continues:

Although the subject, the suffering of the poor and lack of social

consciousness among the more affluent classes, was reflected in the

newspapers daily, in The Chimes this suffering is transformed from

objective, detached reportage distributed across pages of newsprint, into a

subjective, pathetic narrative about people with whom we can identify our

own humanity (The Chimes n. pag.)

This shows that, as already stated in chapter 4, the works of Dickens carried a message and

urge for society to change its attitude towards the destitute and offer much needed help.

The main character Toby is well-developed and evokes sympathies in the readers,

having humble origins of working class and having his own both joyful moments and

moments of hardship. Dicken’s critique therefore does not focus on this central character, as

in A Christmas Carol, but rather on the social and political system. He takes into

consideration the struggles and issues happening in Victorian era in the Hungry Forties, the

political economy of Malthus, the “distracted England of 1840 which was alarmed by Chartist

riots and Anti-Corn Law agitation, wars in China and Afghanistan, and widespread social

distress at home” (Slater, Charles Dickens 143). Many of these are evident in the text, for

instance alderman Cute’s persuasion of Meg not to get married directly refers to the

Malthusian theory of controlling and reducing population growth connected with delays and

even restrictions of marriages, as depicted in Chapter 3.

40
 Less obvious, though an important detail depicting the social and political unrest, is

the scene of Will Fern’s last visit of Meg, when he is full of hatred and longing for revenge,

saying that “there’ll be a Fire tonight” (Dickens 147). This refers, according to Harrison, to

the riots of agricultural workers in 1830s in protest against mechanization which put many

people out of work and also against deplorable working conditions. These were called ‘The

Swing Riots’ which initially started in Kent, showing working class’ indignation of new

threshing machines, objections to the tithe system, the Poor Law guardians and rich tenant

farmers who were gradually lowering wages because of introduction of new machinery.

Those who were caught were punished by imprisonment or even by death penalty (249-253).

Although the riots and rebellion are not what Dickens wanted to highlight in his novellas, the

allusions to these social problems in The Chimes were certainly intentional to make people

see the problematic of Victorian England which many of them ignored and invoke much

needed change.

Regarding the plot, The Chimes tells the story of a “ticket-porter” (Dickens 86), a poor

elderly messenger, Toby ‘Trotty’ Veck on New Year’s Eve, a main character the readers

focus on and, similarly to A Christmas Carol, who is taught a moral lesson. He is unhappy

reading about “a woman who had laid her desperate hands not only on her own life but on that

of her young child. A crime so terrible, and so revolting to his soul…unnatural and cruel”

(118) and further injustice and immorality in the society. Furthermore, Trotty himself owes a

rent of “ten or twelve shillings” (110) to a local shop which he is unable to pay off. This

makes him think that he and other middle-class people are wicked and worthless: “No, no. We

can’t go right or do right…There is no good in us. We are born bad” (98). That night, the

church bells seem to call Trotty’s name and when he finds the tower door unlocked, he climbs

to the top of the belltower where the spirits of the chimes wait for him. He discovers that each

41
of the bells has its own goblin attendant who reproach Trotty for losing his faith in humanity

and its ability to improve:

Who turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of his kind; abandons

them as vile; and does not trace and track with pitying eyes the unfenced

precipice by which they fell from Good—grasping in their fall some tufts

and shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still when bruised and

dying in the gulf below; does wrong to Heaven and man, to time and to

eternity. And you have done that wrong! (125)

He is rebuked for not taking personal responsibility, hope and determination that life can ever

improve and for condemnation of those even less fortunate than him offering them neither

help nor compassion. He is also told to be dead by falling from the tower during the climb and

is forced to watch visions of the sorrowful lives of his daughter Meg, her fiancé Richard, a

friend Will Fern and his orphaned niece Lilian in subsequent years which he cannot interfere

with. These visions are meant to help Trotty reinstate his faith in destiny of humanity and to

prove him that people are not naturally born evil or wicked but may fall into such state when

they have no other alternative and faith in themselves.

The importance of visions is in the connection between self-worth and consequences

of its loss, as it can lead to desperate decisions. Here Dickens touches on the topic of suicide.

Barbara T. Gates explain in her Suicide, Bentley’s Miscellany’ and Dicken’s ‘Chimes (1977)

that Dickens “followed with care the story of unfortunate Mary Furley, who, destitute and

fearful of the workhouse, attempted to drown both herself and her baby. She was rescued, but,

since her child drowned, Mary was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death” (98) but

because of public opinion the final sentence was seven-years transportation. Dickens was very

concerned with the issue of suicide and questioned the justice of such a sentence.

42
 He created the character of Alderman Cute in The Chimes as a satire “directed against

the complacent and unfeeling magistrates like Sir Peter Laurie, a former Lord Mayor of

London, who had expressed his determination to ‘put down’ suicide” (Slater, Charles Dickens

230) “by ensuring punishment of surviving ‘offenders’ against the law that made suicide a

misdemeanour” (Gates 98). The expression “to Put suicide Down” (Dickens 101) occurs

several times throughout the speech of alderman Cute to emphasize this reference and has a

huge impact on the already doubtful mind of Toby, as he suddenly starts to hear the bells

saying “Put ’em down, Put ’em down” (102) instead of their usual friendly melody. It may

seem that for Toby, the tune of the bells represents something more than just a mere sound, he

recognizes it as the words of God speaking to him. So, the moment he starts hearing the echo

of the alderman’s attitude, signalizes his loss of faith and his idea that even the God agrees

that poor people “have no earthly right or business to be born” (100). Dickens here points out

to a significant fact which is crucial for understanding the story, that the spirit of human being

can only be ruined by the loss of hope and by the idea of one’s existence as worthless.

The goblins convey this thought to Toby through the desperation of his daughter to

show him the incorrectness of his belief that the poor do not deserve love and happiness. Meg

represents Toby’s hope and love for life with “eyes that were beautiful and true, and beaming

with Hope” (Dickens 90), so, when he sees her lonely and homeless, he realizes the harsh

consequences of his delusion. He witnesses the results of hopelessness on all the people he

cares about and who were happy despite being poor; Richard becomes an alcoholic, Lilian a

prostitute and Meg herself does not want to live such a life anymore. It is not poverty which

drives them to despair, but rather the lack of hope and the belief that they deserve happiness.

The spirits say: “Learn from her [Meg’s] life, a living truth… See every bud and leaf plucked

one by one from off the fairest stem, and know how bare and wretched it may be” (125)

signalling that all the good virtues of hers, the happiness and love, the metaphorical buds and

43
leaves, are born from self-worth and relentless hope. However, in the vision of her future

where the poor, according to Trotty, do not deserve any of that, Meg loses the good virtues

until she even loses the will to live on and wants to throw herself off of the bridge. The death

of his daughter is symbolic for the death of Toby’s own hope and makes him realize that

things he considers immoral do not need to come from the natural wickedness of people but

rather from unbearable situations: “Think what her misery must have been, when such seed

bears such fruit!” (150). He even feels understanding towards such actions drawn from

distress and pities what he once called “unnatural and cruel” (118). His hope in the world is

restored and he is awakened from what possibly could be a dream once he learns the moral

lesson that “we must trust and hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the Good in one

another” (150).

Taking this moral lesson into account, it is clear that the purpose of The Chimes is not

the condemnation of those in need whose actions were driven by despair; it is rather an

expression of the importance of pity for such cases. Furthermore, the story also provides

encouragement not to lose faith in humanity and life notwithstanding the hardship. However,

in this book, as in many other books dealing with social injustice, Dickens also criticises a

society in which people can feel so unwanted and miserable that they believe God did not

even intend their creation and have no purpose or meaning in life. Very similarly to A

Christmas Carol, Dickens shows his resentment about the prisons and punishments which

authorities saw as a suitable solution to the situation of the poor. He touches on serious social

and political issues, such as poverty, social unrest and injustice and differences between the

social classes which cause unfair treatment and sorrows. At the end, though, he reminds the

readers to persevere and to have hope for the life, humanity and happiness “our Great Creator

formed them to enjoy” (153).

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 Chapter 6: The Haunted Man
The fifth and very last of Dickens’s Christmas novellas is originally entitled The

Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time, better known and

hereinafter referred to only as The Haunted Man. As well as previously mentioned stories,

The Haunted Man also comprises a supernatural element, this time in the form of a phantom

“who brings forgetfulness” (Dickens 351) and is concerned with hope, redemption,

“memories of sorrow and the significance of time past” (Ackroyd 303). Again, Dickens uses

his literary works as ultimate manifestation of his social criticism. However, The Haunted

Man does not focus on the critique of the society as a whole or of a certain social class, but

rather on the critique and further understanding of the nature of an individual. Dickens

emphasizes the need to remember hardships and sorrow as important aspects of enjoying life

and of showing compassion to others, with wrongs being rather forgiven that forgotten.

Set on the Christmas Eve, the novella tells a story about a chemistry teacher Redlaw

who spends most of his time studying and, in his loneliness, contemplates wrongs and griefs

from a past which he would like to get rid of. This character is linked to Dickens himself, as

Redlaw’s “mournfulness is linked closely to the death of a beloved sister” (307), a tragedy

which Dickens also experienced only a few months before the publication of the story when

his older sister Fanny died of tuberculosis (Slater, Charles Dickens 279). The notion of

sorrow and pain from the past which he embedded in Redlaw’s mind came from his childhood

memories of neglect and blacking factory, as described in detail in chapter 1. Regarding the

topic of childhood abandonment, Redlaw, in particular the apparition of his resemblance,

proclaims a statement that could come from the character as well as the author himself,

confessing the true nature of his life:

45
 “I am he, neglected in my youth, and miserably poor, who strove and

suffered, and still strove and suffered… No mother’s self-denying love…no

father’s counsel, aided me… My parents, at the best, were of that sort whose

care soon ends, and whose duty is soon done; who cast their offspring loose,

early, as birds do theirs; and, if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the

pity” (317-318).

Dickens shows pity and sympathy with the character based on his own ordeal but more

significantly criticises his choice to escape problems instead of facing them and to not

reconcile them with happiness in life. The phantom who bears his likeness symbolizing the

embodiment of his own haunted past offers Redlaw a change to “forget the sorrow, wrong and

trouble you have known…to cancel their remembrance” (320) and promises him the power to

bestow the gift to anyone he encounters. The phantom speaks: “Your wisdom has discovered

that the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble is the lot of all mankind, and that mankind

would be the happier, in its other memories, without it. Go! Be its benefactor!” (321). In this

way, Redlaw believes that his own desire to vanish bad memories is also a general desire of

all the humanity and he is the benefactor who can fulfil this wish and heal the mankind from

its sorrows. However, the loss of bad memories eventually proves to be rather toxic to the

human soul, instead of being actually helpful. After meeting several people whose worries

made him bestow the gift, Redlaw starts feeling insecure about the gift being actually a curse

to those who received it. Nature of people changes after their pain is taken away, and, as the

readers notice during reading the novella, this change is not always for good.

Speaking of Redlaw’s desire to metaphorically heal the world from its pain, it is

important to mention a very specific aspect of the story providing a completely new

understanding of Dickens’s intentions. The novella can also serve, as much of his writing, as a

critique rapidly fast development of scientific discovery. The main protagonist is a chemist

46
with a longing to explain the mysteries of nature. After being offered the gift of forgetting the

bad, Redlaw states: “…if there were poison in my body, should I not, possessed of antidotes

and knowledge how to use them, use them? If there be poison in my mind, and through this

fearful shadow I can cast it out, shall I not cast it out?” (321). The antidote the chemist seeks,

in the case getting rid of bad memories, is more of a toxin to his soul and to every soul he

passes the gift to than an antidote. Through this, Dickens points out that trying to interfere too

much with the rules and order of nature may have dangerous consequences. He criticizes the

industrialism and modernity where people are treated as cogs in one big machine, while every

problem can be destroyed by the new discovery or existing political system, without the most

vulnerable parts of the society being taken into account.

To brighten the narrative, Dickens introduces a family of the Tetterbys, having many

children, being very poor and experiencing their own hardships and regrets. Mrs. Tetterby

regrets marrying Mr. Tetterby when she is confronted with their poverty and all the thing they

cannot afford; their little son Johnny feels anger for taking care for his demanding baby sister;

a young student Denham who is severely ill lives under their roof. Still, their behaviour is

mostly cheerful and brightens the narrative, similarly to the Cratchits in A Christmas Carol,

evoking in readers a sense of sympathy. Redlaw visits the house to bestow the gift to Denham

to help him forget his suffering, an act which helps the chemist learn his lesson. After the gift

is given to Denham, his behaviour changes. When Milly Swidger, a pure, generous and

hopeful character, who has been a caring nurse to him, visits his room, Denham’s behaviour is

dismissive and rude, which makes Redlaw realize the harsh consequences of his gift. Even the

conduct of the Tetterbys changed for the worse, as “they were fighting now, not only for the

soap and water, but even for the breakfast which was yet in perspective. The hand of every

little Tetterby was against the other little Tetterbys…” (366). Both the readers and Redlaw

witness them losing their kindness and cheerfulness, becoming twisted into something

47
callous. Redlaw is horrified by the fact that it was his wish and a gift he gave that made

people lose what was the best of best, the best of humanity itself. “Redlaw is reintegrated by

acknowledging the restorative power of memory and the emotional necessity for human

warmth and the cultivation of the inner life” (Allingham, The Last of Dickens's Five

Christmas Books: The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain n. pag.). He observes how

forgetting pain transforms people, not bringing happiness, but rather more sorrow to the ones

around them.

Dickens puts emphasis on moral lessons and transformation, as Redlaw realizes his

wish to eliminate memories has had a disastrous effect and begs the phantom to free the

others from this curse even if his own memories are never restored. He is aware of becoming,

Ruth Glancy observes in Dickens and Christmas: His Framed-Tale Themes (1980), “a man

without a soul, as incapable of compassion, artistic sensitivity or spiritual understanding as the

abandoned waif whose neglected short life is equally barren of memories” (57). His mind

becomes blunt with no empathy for others. He regrets his decision, learning that harmony of a

soul comes from reconciliation of suffering and joy, as the two cannot exist one without

another. Moreover, the pain shows the true value of happiness which would otherwise not be

experienced if there was no sadness to compare with. Dickens explains his idea in a letter to

Forster (qtd. in Slater, Charles Dickens), in which he states: “…my point is that bad and good

are inextricably linked in remembrance, and that you could not choose the enjoyment of

recollecting only the good. To have all the best of it you must remember the worst also”

(280). He tries to show the complexities of the human personality in dealing with pain of loss

which can hurt even more than the physical pain or poverty providing forgiveness of wrong as

a key to a blessed life. The most eloquent overview of it is provided by Ackroyd:

The theme itself revolves around Dickens's belief that memory is a softening

and chastening power, that the recollection of old sufferings and old wrongs

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 can be used to touch the heart and elicit sympathy with the sufferings of

others. . . For it was his suffering and the memory of his sufferings which

had given him the powerful sympathy of the great writer, just as his

recollection of those harder days inspired him with that pity for the poor and

the dispossessed which was a mark of his social writings (553).

Indeed, Dickens sympathizes with the character of Redlaw and has empathy for his suffering,

yet also criticizes his choice to rather escape the pain that to face it. Dickens himself

experienced suffering and hardship from early childhood and though it has also a negative

impact on his perception of the world, it also evokes a strong feeling of affinity and

understanding of misery of others from all the spheres of society. The remembrance of his old

bad memories induces the need for serious social and moral themes to highlight problems

which were ignored by the higher classes and elicit compassion and help for those in need.

Therefore, only after the realization that the pain he has been through may help him to support

others in a similar situation, does Redlaw find balance and joy in life.

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 Chapter 7: The Battle of Life and The Cricket on

the Hearth
Since the third and fourth of five Dickens’s Christmas books The Cricket on the

Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home (1845) and The Battle of Life: A Love Story (1846) are less

topical and less concerned with social issues than the previously mentioned ones, the thesis

analyses them together in a single chapter. They are focused on individual and family

relationships, rather than on the society and the problems social classes had to face. Unlike the

other stories, these two do not contain a significant presence of spirits or supernatural

reference helping find redemption, though the cricket on the hearth in the eponymous novella

seems to possess some hidden powers that guard the Peerybingle family. Both novellas can be

considered Christmas books only in a broad thematic sense or by Dickens’s indication of time

of the year but are not directly concerned with Christmas events.

Beginning with The Cricket on the Hearth, the story is based on a folk-tale, which

Dickens believed “would allow him to enter people’s homes in a winning and immediate

way” (Ackroyd 256). It was associated with his notion of “Carol philosophy, cheerful views,

sharp anatomization of humbug, jolly good temper; papers always in season, pat to the time of

year” (Slater, Charles Dickens 235), which, he wrote to Forster (qtd. in Slater, Charles

Dickens) “people would readily and pleasantly connect with [him]” (235). Indeed, the story

was a huge commercial success with many favourable and praising reviews. In this book,

Dickens abandoned serious social criticism, the issues of his time and political topics in

favour a domestic story which he described as (qtd. in Slater, Charles Dickens) “a delicate

and beautiful fancy for a Christmas book” (236).

50
 The plot captures the lives of a carrier John Peerybingle and his much younger wife

Dot living with their baby and a nursemaid Tilly Slowboy. On their hearth, the cricket chirps

and acts as a “little household god – silent in the wrong and sorrow of the tale, and loud again

when all went well and happy” (Slater, Charles Dickens 236) who guards the whole family

and its heart-warming atmosphere, and can sense the oncoming danger. One day, a mysterious

stranger visits the family, staying with them for few days. The conflicts appears when a miser

Mr. Tackleton, who is about to marry May who does not love him, plants a seed of doubt in

John Peerybingle’s mind about his wife’s infidelity. The crisis reaches its climax when

Tackleton manages to show him a secret scene when Dot embraces the stranger who is, in fact

much older than he seemed in his disguise as an old man. John is heartbroken, and since he

loves his wife very much, he decides to “release her from the daily pain of an unequal

marriage” (Dickens 212) which shows not only forgiveness, but also understanding. The

power of the cricket helps bring the love and joy back to the family, revealing the stranger is

Edward, a son of Caleb Plummer, a poor toy maker employed by Mr. Tackleton. Dot proves

she has always been a faithful wife to her husband and happiness, as well as cheerful chirping,

returns to the family. Just few hours before her marriage to Tackleton, May marries Edward

and the festive cheer melts the heart of Tackleton, as he let her be with her true love.

Based on this, The Cricket on the Hearth can be primarily seen, apart from the

previously mentioned books, as a tale of family and love rather than a moral and

socially-oriented tale. Nevertheless, the story contains some of typical moral elements of

Dickens’s writings, such as misery, poverty, hope, happiness or redemption. Very significant

is especially the portrayal of Bertha Plummer, a blind daughter of Caleb Plummer, living in a

“little cracked nutshell of a wooden house” (179). Her father, however, describes it her as a

charming place to live and cold-hearted Tackleton as “eccentric humourist … the Guardian

Angel of their lives” (179) to make her life easier and happier concealing the harsh truths of

51
the reality from her: “his poor Blind Daughter [lived] somewhere else—in an enchanted home

of Caleb’s furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered”

(179). The blindness of Bertha serves as a tool for Dickens to use his social criticism pointing

out to the blindness of people from upper classes to the situation in the society. Moreover,

Victorians believed that disabilities were inherited which made the marriage socially hardly

acceptable for blind people. Although Dickens’s intentions were to point out to and criticise

stereotypes about blindness and femininity that linger into the twentieth century” (Holmes n.

pag.) and soften the hearts of the readers by introducing a disabled character. However his

“representation of Bertha Plummer as tragically removed from the world of courtship” to

some extent participates in such misperceptions. It shows that this novella by Dickens is not

one of his social writings, since it does not invoke a change or improvement of social

problems.

Not the last of Dickens’s Christmas stories, but the last the thesis deals with, The

Battle of Life is certainly the least socially-oriented tale with no supernatural elements and

revolutionary topics. However, it still includes author’s typical style with mixture of humour,

cheerful moments and mystery. The book attained much less popularity than its predecessors

and the reviews of critics were not favourable. Even Dickens himself was unsure of the book,

since it “was more like the leading idea for another novel than for any Christmas ghost-story

or fairy-tale” and the purpose of absence of such apparition was to create “a simple domestic

tale” (Slater, Charles Dickens 261). The story takes place in an English village standing on a

site of a “fierce and bloody battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in

the great fight” (Dickens 232). The main protagonists themselves draw attention to this place

referring to the battle as a metaphor for their own struggles and sacrifices of live. Slater

supports this suggestion by claiming that Dickens “wanted to contrast such carnage with the

nobler moral and emotional battles fought out every day in the hearts and minds of ordinary

52
men and women” (Charles Dickens 261). In this case, the life challenges concern two loyal

sisters Marion and Grace and the fact that Marion’s birthday is on the same the as the great

battle long ago, may suggest that it is primarily her battle the readers will witness. Indeed,

Marion gives up her love for her suitor Alfred noticing that Grace loves him even more

believing that after her departure he will fall in love with Grace who has been sacrificing

herself for Marion’s happiness all her life. The participants seem confused about their own

mixed feeling. Dickens here accentuates the idea of the real battle of life, which, in this case,

includes finding the right partner to ensure happy life.

Though not concerned with social issues, the story surely had its personal significance

for Dickens. Complicated love affairs of the two sisters must have had, according to Slater,

“an intense personal resonance for Dickens, relating in some convoluted way to his memories

of Mary Hogarth and his current relationships with Catherine and Georgina” (Charles

Dickens 261), daughters of George Hogarth, a music critic for The Daily News founded by

Dickens. This may be supported by the initial ‘G’ for Grace as initial letter for Georgina

Hogarth and initial ‘M’ for Marion as well as for her younger sister Mary who was a loved a

valued member of Dickens’s household looking after his children. As previously mentioned,

and since his range of memories of Hogarth sister was very wide, Dickens felt frustrated by

the narrow limits of a simple Christmas story within which he had to create a story with a

potential for a whole novel, as he told Forster (qtd. in Slater, Charles Dickens): “What an

affecting story I could have made of it in one octavo volume…” (262). This almost resulted in

him abandoning the story in the middle of writing process, but eventually he realized that

Battle of Life was “too good to be thrown away”. Even though the book did not achieve much

success, in this story as Ackroyd suggest, “lies the real importance of Dickens’s creed where

he suggests that all life is a struggle” (282) and therefore also the notions of love, family and

hope.

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 Conclusion
Victorian novelist Charles Dickens was not only one of the most famous authors, but

also a social critic and a commentator. He based his criticism of the society on the hardship he

experienced during his childhood while working in a blacking factory and on the issues the

working classes faced on the daily basis. Being well aware of the effects of poverty, Dickens

stressed the importance of compassion and charity in many of his books whose critical

messages and lessons have had significant impact not only on the Victorian England. In

particular, this thesis aims to analyse his five Christmas books, namely A Christmas Carol,

The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man to provide

the reader with the information and understanding of the social and moral problems Dickens

emphasized in the stories to invoke social changes and improvement in the Victorian society.

Specifically, the first and certainly the most successful of the novellas, A Christmas

Carol, narrates a story about a cold-hearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge whose longing for

money and reluctance to help those in need serve as a tool of Dickens’s criticism of an

attitude of the upper classes. Scrooge undergoes a process of transformation thanks to three

magical spirits and his deceased business partner Jacob Marley who warns him to help the

others while he still can and to escape a certain punishment. Though Scrooge represents the

rich of the Victorian society, it is not the wealth that, as Dickens shows, worsens the

prevailing poverty, but rather the greed, ignorance and not spending the money for noble

purposes. Dickens also directly criticises public institutions of that time that served rather as a

punishment of the poor than as a solution of their situation.

Apart from the serious issues, the novella also depicts a heart-warming atmosphere of

Christmas, jolly celebrations, family gatherings and topics of hope and happiness. Indeed,

with new Christmas traditions coming into being at that time, Christmas became more

54
recognized holiday and Dickens’s stories helped to bring Christmas spirit to more Victorian

households and contributed to the way people celebrate Christmas even today. In his famous

A Christmas Carol Dickens established the ‘Carol Philosophy’ comprising the idea of love,

mercy, hope for a better life, charity and compassion.

After the success of the first story, Dickens created his second story, The Chimes,

which, similarly to A Christmas Carol, contains supernatural phenomena and is

socially-oriented. The story provides a contrast between the loss of faith in humanity and hope

for better life and happiness. Dickens touches on the topics of self-worth and the meaning of

life in connection with suicide and despair. He criticises the view that the poor and destitute

do not deserve happiness, as they are in fault for their own situation. Such an approach makes

people feel unwanted and doubt their own worth; actions driven by despair, Dickens shows,

should be understood with pity and compassion rather than punished.

In his The Haunted Man, Dickens slightly turns away from his focus on the society as

a whole and pays more attention to the nature of an individual. The story depicts a chemistry

teacher Redlaw who deals with pain and bad memories of the past caused by the death of his

beloved sister, a tragedy based on Dickens’s own experience. Redlaw wants to get rid of the

sorrow and accepts a gift that enables him to do so. The story depicts how such a gift can

cause more harm than good, as it changes human behaviour and robs a person of actual

happiness causing even more sorrow to the people around them. Dickens criticises Redlaw’s

desire to escape from the pain rather than face it and support others. The central message,

Dickens shows, is that happiness and harmony lies in the remembrance of the bad memories

and forgiveness of the wrong, as they cannot exist one without another.

In the last two of the Christmas books, The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle of

Life, Dickens puts aside his social criticism and serious political issues in favour of the topics

of family and love. Both stories put emphasis on the family as a leading force which a
55
withstand any adversity as long as the members trust and support each other. Dickens

manifests that the real battle is to find the true love which can persevere despite any

challenges, since the path to finding it is usually full of obstacles.

Overall, the thesis aimed to show that Dickens’s Christmas books are not just seasonal

fairy tales but contain his portrayal and critique of the most serious issues of the Victorian

society and era. These issues most of all include poverty, unfair treatment of the poor and

children, horrible working conditions, ignorance of upper classes and much more. Dickens’s

stories stress the importance of justice, charity and helping those in need as fundamental

pillars of happiness of the country and of an individual as well. Moreover, his career and the

message of the stories helped Dickens gain an impact on pertinent authorities to make them

see the problems which were often ignored or overlooked. The characters of his stories

undergo a process of transformation and learn a moral lesson in order to find the true values

and happiness. To find redemption, Dickens shows, is possible for anyone and an

improvement of any problem can have a significant impact on the whole country.

56
 Resumé (English)
This bachelor’s thesis focuses on a series of five short stories known as Christmas

Books, including the famous story A Christmas Carol by the well-known Victorian writer and

critic Charles Dickens. The main goal of this thesis is to analyse a number of problems and

negative aspects of the society of that time, which Dickens, both directly and indirectly,

captures in his works in order to raise an awareness and encourage the need for an

improvement. This mainly includes the prevailing poverty in the lower classes of the society,

linked to the fact that rich people from higher classes have overlooked and ignored the issues,

which has resulted in, among other things, poor working conditions, class differences, child

labour and a poor quality of education. This work attempts to depict and explain how Dickens

criticizes these issues in his Christmas Books, emphasizing the need for charity, compassion,

help, and hope through moral lessons and the theme of Christmas.

The bachelor’s thesis also deals with the life of Charles Dickens and the events that

fundamentally influenced his socially-oriented work. A separate chapter is devoted to the

development of Christmas in the Victorian era, as these Christmas stories, especially A

Christmas carol, have significantly contributed to the popularization of Christmas as a

holiday associated with celebration, joy and family. The following chapters analyse the

individual stories and specific references to the problems that are related to the topic of this

bachelor’s thesis.

57
 Resumé (Czech)
Tato bakalářská práce se zaměřuje na sérii pěti povídek, známých jako Vánoční

příběhy, zahrnující slavný příběh Vánoční koleda, jejichž autorem je známý viktoriánský

spisovatel a kritik společnosti Charles Dickens. Hlavním cílem práce je poukázat na řadu

problémů a negativních aspektů tehdejší společnosti, které Dickens, přímo či nepřímo,

zachycuje ve svých dílech s cílem zvýšit povědomí a nabádat ke zlepšení. Jedná se především

o převládající chudobu v nižších vrstvách společnosti související s faktem, že bohatí lidé z

vyšší společnosti se k problému stavěli zády, což vyústilo, mimo jiné, ve špatné pracovní

podmínky, třídní rozdíly, dětskou práci a nedostačující kvalitu vzdělání. Tato práce se snaží

zachytit a vysvětlit, jak Dickens ve svých Vánočních příbězích kritizuje tyto problémy. Také

klade důraz na potřebu dobročinnosti, soucitu, pomoci a naděje prostřednictvím morálního

ponaučení a tématiky Vánoc.

Bakalářská práce také pojednává o životě Charlese Dickense a událostech, které

zásadně ovlivnily jeho společensky orientovanou tvorbu. Samostatná kapitola je věnována

vývoji Vánoc ve viktoriánské éře, jelikož Vánoční příběhy, zejména Vánoční koleda,

významně přispěly k popularizaci Vánoc, jako období spojenému s oslavami, radostí a

rodinou. V následujících kapitolách jsou rozebrány jednotlivé povídky a analyzovány

konkrétní odkazy na problémy, které spadají pod téma této bakalářské práce.

58
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