“‘A Christmas Carol’ is most of all a tale of transformation” Discuss.
“A Christmas Carol” is a short Christmas story, written by Charles Dickens during the period of Victorian England. Dickens portrayed a symbolic character of the upper class of the society at that time, Ebenezer Scrooge, who was a stingy, pessimistic miser, and eventually transformed into a warm-hearted, optimistic old man. Undeniably, Dickens demonstrated his transformation as the dominating part of the novel. As well as expressing the process of his change, there are other themes and lessons that Dickens delivered to us along his journey of spiritual reconstruction.
Undoubtedly, Scrooge’s transformation is the clue through the whole book. At the beginning of the story, Scrooge was a person that sharp and hard as flint, solitary as an oyster. He hardly helped anyone, viewed Christmas as merriment for “idiots”. Accompany by the visitations of Christmas spirits, they veritably gave Scrooge a warning of change, a revelation of redemption. His transformation was propelled by interruption, fear and pain. Nobody would feel comfortable when someone, or in this case, it’s ghost interrupts his/her ordinary life, so do Scrooge. Throughout the one-night visit of his lifetime, the agony was overwhelming to Scrooge. The pain of having been isolated in his childhood; the pain of witnessing how he lost his love; the pain of realising piteous Tiny Tim was closer to death; the pain of the misery ending of his own worthless life. Gradually, his cold heart softened; he felt the warmth he hasn’t felt for long time. The misery act as a catalyst to his transformation, in fact, inspired his longing for a caring and a joyful life. As a result, the story ends with his salvation. However, the intention of the book is unlikely to focus only on his transformation.
In the process of reconstruction, Dickens delivered to both Scrooge and the readers that being a person who owns the