Marriage, Parenthood, and ‘A Christmas Carol’, by John M. Grondelski

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is often regarded as just a children’s story or reduced to a lesson in seasonal greed versus generosity.  But Dickens was writing for adults in 1843, and we moderns would be wrong to limit or flatten its various meanings.

The Carol has a lot to say, for example, about marriage, parenthood, and money.  The way the story unfolds tells us more than just what early Victorian England might have thought about those things; it can speak a lot to us today.

People are more important than things.  While that seems obvious as a principle, it isn’t – and not just because of our current Christmas riot of consumption. …