A christmas carol
...les Dickens’ life were fairly typical. When Dickens was twelve years old his family moved to London where his family’s fortunes changed for the worst. His father was put into prison for not paying his debts while Charles was sent to work in a blacking warehouse. His job was to paste labels on bottles of black shoe polish. This was a mindless job that Dickens could do while watching the people of London on the streets outside the window. These sights were often reflected in his writings. After a few months, his father John Dickens was released from debtors’ prison. When his father was released from prison, he took Charles out of the blacking warehouse and sent him back to school at Wellington Academy in London to further his education. Charles’s mother felt that he should not return to school, but rather that he should continue working to help out the family. He never forgave his mother for not providing him with the love and understanding that he most desperately needed and wanted. At age fifteen, winning a prize for Latin, he finished at the top of his class and began a lifetime of work. Charles Dickens wrote several pieces before 1843 with hits such as The Pickwick Papers. But in 1843 “Dickens found a way to restore his sagging self confidence. Instead of beginning another novel, he tried his hand at a short fable also dealing like Martin Chuzzlewit, with the theme of selfishness. It was the first and best of his Christmas books, A Christmas Carol, which caught on at once and has become his most widely known piece (galegroup 21). In the story A Christmas Carol Dickens tries to show how a man can change he outlook on life in a one night chain of events. After losing his partner Marley, Scrooge, the main character, develops a hatred for joy and happiness and especially for the Christmas spirit. His hatred for Christmas is displayed in a statement to his nephew, “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough…every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas, on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!” (Dickens 5&6). Dickens illustrates the happiness of the commu...