Opinion | Why ‘A Christmas Carol’ Endures

Since its publication in December 1843, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens has been a cherished presence during the holiday season. The novella — which Dickens wrote to make money when he was broke — has not gone out of print once in more than 180 years and has been adapted into dozens of movies, stage productions, musicals and mini series, attracting stars from Alastair Sim to the Muppets. Today one can hardly think of Christmas without thinking of Scrooge, the Cratchits and Tiny Tim’s “God bless us, every one.”

In some ways, the story’s enduring appeal is easy to account for. “A Christmas Carol” is, first and foremost, a ghost story — a genre that never seems to go out of fashion. But what’s less easy to account for, and more interesting, is how this 19th-century tale has continued to speak to modern readers, offering moral lessons that have only grown more relevant over the decades.

At its core, it is a story about the forces that exist within all of us: greed and generosity, hatred and love, repentance and forgiveness. It doesn’t hurt that it concerns one of literature’s most compelling characters: Ebenezer Scrooge.

The name Scrooge has become a synonym for a misanthrope. He treats his employee terribly, disdains those less fortunate than him and turns away those collecting donations for the poor. His sole concern is his own material enrichment.

Why does such a figure appeal to us today? Why, despite his depravity, do we still root for his redemption? Guilt, I think. Scrooge speaks to us because in many ways, he is us.

Around 1980, the phrase “bottom line” wormed its way into the culture as the standard of achievement. To one degree or another, the bottom line has made Scrooges of us all.

Think, for a moment, about the recent presidential election. If you stand back from the campaigns — a healthy distance from all the passions felt and expressed — it is possible to see that both sides, Republican and Democratic, were, in a way, telling similar stories and implying similar sympathies.

Donald Trump rhetorically asked, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” echoing Ronald Reagan in 1980. Kamala Harris told her audience, “I grew up a middle-class kid,” as she spoke of improving the financial lot of middle-class America.

The styles of the candidates were antipodal, Mr. Trump’s being crass and on occasion cruel, Ms. Harris’s usually dignified. But both were essentially asking Americans the same question: Is your material life what you want it to be?

Politics has not always been thus.

John F. Kennedy said at his inauguration in 1961: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” George H.W. Bush based his 1989 campaign on the idea of a “compassionate conservatism.” Both men implied that personal contentment, as well as national prosperity, lay in what one does for others.

We are all capable of narrow-mindedness, of selfishness and greed. We are all concerned for our own material enrichment. But so too are we capable of fantastic generosity and selflessness. Dickens understood this, and it was in demonstrating the benefits of raising our moral consciousness that the quiet genius of “A Christmas Carol” most shines through.

Of course, in the story, Scrooge is visited by three spirits — the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future — which demonstrate to him the consequences of his actions and the potential for a better, more fulfilling path. Selfish and flawed though he is, Scrooge is moved by what he has seen and repents, transforming into a kind and charitable man.

Nothing satisfies a sinful reader (that is, everyone) as much as a tale in which we are given a chance to vicariously work off our sins — particularly when redemption comes fairly easily, after the scare of a single night and three brief sermons. We look at the repentant Ebenezer and think: C’est moi! From now on, I shall live differently, more honorably. I shall reform.

Entire religions are based on what Scrooge experiences and on what he vows.

There is no doubt that we have become an increasingly self-concerned society. But there is something counterfeit and insincere at the center of our self-involvement. Like Scrooge, we may behave worse, but we know better. We do not ask ourselves what more we can do for others, and we suffer for our selfishness because it is when we live our lives for others that we are most satisfied.

This is what Dickens sought to teach us nearly 200 years ago, and it is why his message resonates all these years later. “A Christmas Carol” has endured both because it is a great story and because it offers us an eternal example of the joy that is possible when we turn toward our better angels.

We will take to “A Christmas Carol” in this season, as have the millions before us, but with a special thump of the heart. Because the story believes in our better, more generous inner selves. And the actions of those inner selves are the only way we will be truly blessed. Every one.

Roger Rosenblatt is an author of memoirs, novels and meditations, the most recent of which is “A Steinway on the Beach: Wounds and Other Blessings.”

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