The true meaning of A Christmas Carol
While asking How did A Christmas Carol come to be?, on behalf of BBC Culture, Lucinda Hawksley notes that many adaptations of Dickens' classic story miss out on one of his most important messages:
What Dickens thought was the essence of A Christmas Carol is often left out of adaptations. When the Ghost of Christmas Present is starting to age and fade away, Scrooge notices something underneath the spirit’s robe. He thinks it’s an animal’s claw, but it’s a skinny human hand: “Two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable ... clung upon the outside of its garment ... a boy and a girl.... ‘Spirit, are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more. ‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘...This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree...’.” This was Dickens’s main reason for writing A Christmas Carol. He wanted his readers to realise that, if they continued to deny poor children the necessities of life – such as food, shelter, warm clothing, healthcare and an education – they would grow up to become dangerous, violent adults. The child born in a workhouse who was not as fortunate as Oliver Twist, or the impoverished child who didn’t die young like Little Nell, would grow up to become another Bill Sikes, Fagin, Little Em’ly or Daniel Quilp.
Lucinda Hawksley, BBC Culture
Which is precisely why those who know how to keep the true spirit of A Christmas Carol observe Alastair Sim's quintessential 1951 adaptation—AKA Scrooge. 'Tis the bestest. (nod)