This is an essay on the book A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens on the theme of Christmas. This is an essay for students that take their GCSEs. This brought me good grades when I was in year 11.
Dickens presents Christmas as one of the main themes in the
novella. He wrote the book before 1843. The story takes place on
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and uses the ideas of generosity
and compassion that we associate with Christmas.
The theme of the novella is clear from the title “A Christmas
Carol”, which refers to the traditional carols that are sung at Christ-
mas time. The novella has an unusual layout, using five staves
rather than chapters. The five staves reflect the structure of a carol
and link the story to the joy of singing.
Dickens uses Fred’s character to show generosity towards oth-
ers, especially at Christmas time. This is seen when we first meet
Fred when he arrives to wish Scrooge “A Merry Christmas, uncle!
God save you!”. Through this quote we get the impression that he is
the opposite of Scrooge. Dickens’ use of exclamations emphasizes
Fred’s generosity of spirit towards his uncle and to Christmas. Fred
is persistent in his cheerful approach to Christmas as he invites
Scrooge to celebrate Christmas at his house, “ Don’t be angry, un-
cle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow”. Although Scrooge was being
very cross with him, he still showed him happiness and hospitality.
He fully embodies “Christmas Spirit”.
The Cratchit family celebrate Christmas even if they are poor.
Just because they are less fortunate and are part of the lower class
that doesn’t stop them to be happy.
“A merry Christmas to us all, my dears, god bless us” states Bob
Cratchit. This toast suggests the importance of family and what a
privilege it is to have a safe, loving home. We infer that, as long as
you have a united family, you have people who love you no matter
what your wealth amounts to. In all these ways Dickens presents us
with a poor yet very happy family.
When Bob Cratchit states that it was a “wonderful pudding!” imme-
diately implies that they are grateful and easily excited. Despite it
being a “small pudding” for a “large family”, they all regarded it as
a “success”. Perhaps this is because they usually did not have the
luxury of a pudding, so any pudding at all was seen as a blessing.
The fact that Tiny Tim is ill and they can’t treat Tiny Tim’s illness
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