51 pages • 1 hour read
Samantha SilvaMr. Dickens And His Carol
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella A Christmas Carol is a story about a cold and unkind miser named Ebenezer Scrooge who experiences redemption after being visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. The novella is divided into five chapters, which Dickens calls “staves.” In the first stave, Ebenezer Scrooge rejects his nephew Fred’s invitation for Christmas dinner and refuses to donate money to the poor when two men ask him to do so. He also pays his clerk, Bob Cratchit, very little money and only gives him paid leave for Christmas Day. That night, he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who is forced to carry chains due to his greed and neglect of the poor in life. Marley tells Scrooge that three ghosts will visit him and that he must listen to them or suffer a worse punishment than Marley. In the second stave, the Ghost of Christmas Past visits Scrooge and compels him to revisit his childhood and young adulthood. He remembers Belle, whom he planned to marry until she realized that he was too greedy. The ghost also shows him Belle’s family on the day that Jacob Marley died. This makes Scrooge regret how poorly he treated her. In the third stave, the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge the Christmas markets, Fred’s Christmas party, and Bob Cratchit’s Christmas dinner with his family. The ghost then tells Scrooge that Cratchit’s son, Tiny Tim, is ill and will die if the family’s prospects do not improve. In the fourth stave, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge a funeral of a man for whom nobody has any sympathy. The ghost also shows him a vision of Bob Cratchit at Tiny Tim’s grave before showing Scrooge’s grave, which nobody ever visits. Scrooge then promises to change his ways. In the fifth and final stave, Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning and begins donating to the poor. He attends Fred’s Christmas party, gives Cratchit’s family a turkey, increases Cratchit’s pay, and befriends Tiny Tim. Scrooge changes his life permanently, becoming a charitable and kind man.
A Christmas Carol was critically acclaimed and loved by British audiences upon its release. While Chuzzlewit’s depiction of Americans turned many American readers against Dickens, A Christmas Carol nonetheless became popular in the United States. The book was adapted into stage productions numerous times, and in 1901, decades after Dickens’s death, the first silent film adaptation was released; it was titled Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost. The original story was also adapted to other media, including radio, opera, musicals, and visual art. Multiple film adaptations have been released to date, some of the most notable of which include Scrooge in 1951, Scrooged in 1988, The Muppet Christmas Carol in 1992, and A Christmas Carol in 2009. Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is also known for having revived the mainstream celebration of Christmas in Victorian England and it has also encouraged both contemporary and subsequent audiences to embrace a spirit of generosity during the Christmas season.
Historical Context: Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was already a widely popular writer during the time in which Silva’s novel is set, but he experienced a decrease in popularity following the commercial failure of Chuzzlewit, which insulted many American readers who objected to his depictions of Americans. In these details, Silva is true to the real-life history of Dickens’s literary struggles, and she also accurately reports the historical fact that Dickens’s father was sent to debtor’s prison. Likewise, Dickens’s own financial troubles are accurately represented. However, unlike in the novel, Dickens started writing A Christmas Carol in October rather than November, and the child born close to the book’s release was his fifth child rather than his sixth. In addition, while William Thackeray is portrayed as a rising novelist and Dickens’s rival in the novel, the real William Thackeray was not yet famous when A Christmas Carol was written in 1843 and would not become so until the publication of his own novel, Vanity Fair, four years later in 1847. (Silva’s novel anachronistically mentions the title of this book.) Historically, Thackeray was also good friends with Dickens and would not begin feuding with Dickens until Dickens’s separation from his wife Catherine in 1858. However, the two writers reconciled shortly before Thackeray’s death in 1863. In her Author’s Note, Samantha Silva explains that she has “twisted, embellished, and reordered the facts (and even [Dickens’s] children) to serve the plot” (233) but defends these decisions by asserting that she only takes these artistic liberties “with abundant good cheer, admiration, and affection for the man who is [her] subject” (233). She also explains that the novel is meant to be a “love letter” (233) to Charles Dickens.
