The moral of A Christmas Carol has
everything to do with the transformation of the main character, Ebenezer Scrooge. He
begins the story as a miserly, closed-hearted man. Through the events of the novel, he
is transformed into a man whose heart is open to the pain and struggle (and love) of
others, a man who has become someone who will participate in the world around him,
rather than withdraw from it.
Dickens wrote his novels
during a time when the society around him was changing rapidly. The working world,
especially the world of a city like London, was becoming more mechanized, more
factory-based, and it seemed to Dickens that the needs and good of the common man were
slipping through the cracks. In all of his works, he appealed to his readers to
empathize with those who are without -- the poor, the destitute and the
orphaned.
The moral can be found in Scrooge's
transformation at the end of Chapter Four. Scrooge
says:
'Good
Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: 'Your nature intercedes
for me and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by
an altered life!''I will honour Christmas in my heart, and
try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The
Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they
teach.'
His appeal shows the
moral, which is that it is never too late to begin to act in a loving and caring way
towards one's fellow man in, as Dickens saw it, the necessary Christian spirit of love,
forgiveness and generosity.
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