{"id":12474,"date":"2021-01-07T20:40:14","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T16:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/?p=12474"},"modified":"2021-01-07T21:13:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T17:13:11","slug":"a-christmas-carol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/a-christmas-carol\/","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Carol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cBah,\nHumbug\u201d – an iconic line from a story we all love, said by a character that was\nwritten for us to hate. A week before Christmas in 1843, Chapman & Hall\npublished a novella by Charles Dickens that would become one of the most\npopular stories that still inspires millions of people. A Christmas Carol<\/em> turns 176 years old this year and over the course\nof its long life, it has become so iconic, that even if you\u2019ve never read the\nbook, you probably know what it\u2019s about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 A Christmas Carol <\/em>takes place on a cold, snowy\nChristmas Eve in London, England, during the Victorian period in the 1840\u2019s. It\nis a story of a man who feels no love or joy in his heart, the story of\nEbenezer Scrooge, the bah-humbug-shouting man who hates Christmas, charity, the\npoor, and everything besides his own goodwill. To be more exact, these are his\nown words at the beginning – \u201cIf I could work my will, every idiot who goes\nabout with \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding\nand buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!\u201d He is described\nas \u2018a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone\u2019, this metaphor suggests that\nScrooge works hard for his money but is very tight with it. Dickens also uses\nthe harshest weather to describe him \u2018the heaviest rain, and snow and hail and\nsleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect.\u2019 indicating\nhow horrible of a man Scrooge is, which shows the reader that Scrooge’s\npersonality will play an important role throughout the book.  The story unfolds when he is visited by three\nghosts – the ghost of the past, the present and the future. Over the course of\nhis three separate journeys with them, he evolves into someone different, a\nperson that he buried deep inside of him many years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Christmas Carol<\/em> could be considered as a metaphor\nfor life. The amount of life lessons that can be learnt from this book is\ntremendous. One of them being that as uncomfortable as we might feel about it,\ntime only moves in one direction – forward. So, we should live our lives to the\nfullest, for there may be no tomorrow. Another reason that makes A Christmas Carol<\/em> so beloved is its\nmorality, the way Scrooge remembers his lost humanity and is led to find it in\nothers. With the ghost of the past he re-experiences the loneliness of boarding\nschool, his father\u2019s cold disapproval and the kindness of his sister. He\nreminisces his most authentic memories, when he was still innocent and happy.\nOne more great lesson from this novel, that applies to all the generations is\nthat it shows us how easy it is to get caught up in the materialism that\nsurrounds us, especially during the holiday season. Nowadays, we fixate so much\non sales and buying many things, that we forget spending quality time with\nthose we care about, and that they are really what should be our priority.\nAnother aspect of Dickens\u2019s original tale is the idea of learning to be\ncompassionate, generous and kind, a timeless aspiration for every generation.\nDickens also speaks about ignorance and want. He demonstrates a world in which\nthe poor and suffering are ignored and taken advantage of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opposite\nfrom Scrooge\u2019s initial statement, this is what he has to say in the end  – \u201cI will honor Christmas in my heart, and\ntry to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the\nFuture.\u201d by which Dickens suggests to us the importance of carrying out that\nphilosophy year-round, not just for one day. A Christmas Carol<\/em> has withstood the test of time and will never\ncease to touch peoples\u2019 hearts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBah, Humbug\u201d – an iconic line from a story we …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1926,1925,731,1944],"tags":[284,283,43],"class_list":["post-12474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adults","category-articles","category-whichbookwouldyouread-bookoftheweek-themes-themeoftheweek-quotes-inspirationalquotes","category-writing","tag-a-christmas-carol","tag-charles-dickens","tag-christmas","cat_1926","cat_1925","cat_731","cat_1944"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12474"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12480,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474\/revisions\/12480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}