MARTIN ANDRUCKI · BATES COLLEGE ·
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Charles Dickens.

​Charles Dickens, one of the greatest novelists in the English language, was born in 1812 into a middle-class family of precarious economic status.  His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at the time of Dickens's birth; by the time Charles was ten, however, his father was in debtor's prison, the result of bad luck, mismanagement, and irresponsibility.

In order to help support the family during this time of crisis, young Dickens went to work in the packing department of a factory that manufactured blacking--a compound of charcoal, soot, sugar, oil, and fat used to polish boots.  This was a period of dirty and draining labor which one critic has described as an experience of "heartrending monotony and ignominy."  Throughout his life Dickens would remember the harshness of the working conditions imposed on him and the other boys in that blacking factory, and would direct much of his energy as a writer and moralist toward the reform of such oppressive conditions.   He would also always resent the humiliation and pain caused by his father's imprisonment, despising both his parent’s folly and the cruelty of the legal system that punished it so harshly.

Thus, Dickens's outlook on life was shaped by an intimate awareness of poverty, filth, social humiliation, legal oppression, adult irresponsibility, and industrial squalor.  It was also shaped by a powerful sympathy for the victims of these forces.

Following the dire experiences of his childhood, Dickens moved on to more rewarding forms of employment, becoming a clerk in a law office, a newspaper reporter, and a recorder of Parliamentary debates.  Eventually he began to publish sketches and stories, achieving his first great success as a novelist in 1837 with the publication of The Pickwick Papers, a collection of humorous stories and character studies.  Over the next thirty years he created a vast outpouring of fiction, including Oliver Twist (1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), David Copperfield (1849), Bleak House (1853), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1861).

“A Christmas Carol” was published relatively early in his career, appearing in 1843 when Dickens was 31.  The tale is one of a series of short stories on a subject that had long preoccupied its author: the importance of celebrating Christmas.  One of Dickens's earliest published works was a defense of this holiday against its enemies, both religious (the Puritans), and secular (the Utilitarians).  The former objected to the pagan unseemliness of feasting and frolicking in celebration of the birth of Christ.  The latter objected to the waste of time and money involved in having fun at all.

Dickens saw in Christmas a moral opportunity, a moment in time occurring each year when the grinding pursuit of wealth and the ruthless competition to succeed might be suspended in favor of kindness and generosity, especially toward the poor.  He saw in it a time when the bonds of human solidarity might be renewed under the auspices of the Prince of Peace, and when the unfortunate in particular might be allowed a day of rejoicing at the birth of the poor child in the manger.  "All his life," says G.K. Chesterton, Dickens "defended valiantly the pleasures of the poor. . . ."  Dickens himself says of his Christmas stories that his "chief purpose was . . . to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land."

In the end Dickens triumphed, and indeed many historians credit his stories with helping to create the institution of Christmas as we now know it: a holiday of caroling, tree-trimming, family feasting, gift-giving, and universal goodwill. Before Dickens, Christmas in England and America was a day of religious significance without much secular celebration.  (In fact in Massachusetts and other Puritan jurisdictions the public observance of Christmas was legally banned until quite recently.)  After Dickens, Christmas became the emotional centerpiece not only of our religious calendars, but of that secular extravaganza known as "The Holidays."

Throughout his life and work, Dickens showed enormous interest in the theater, displaying, as one critic says, "affection for showmen and vagabonds, entertainers of all sorts."  One of his greatest fictional creations is the traveling theater troupe of Mr. Vincent Crummles which appears in Nicholas Nickleby; and one of Dickens's greatest pleasures as an artist was reading his own works aloud from the stage before enormous and enthusiastic audiences.  His readings were really one-man performances of his fiction, with Dickens taking on a different voice for each character, and declaiming the passages of suspense and melodrama with high passion.  In fact the last years of his life were given over almost entirely to such bravura performances, including a tour of readings throughout the United States.  Many critics believe that the exhausting pace and emotional intensity of these readings hastened his premature death in 1870 at the age of 58.

These performances were successful largely because Dickens's fiction is itself so theatrical in nature.  Many of his novels have been adapted to the stage and screen, including Oliver Twist, which became the musical Oliver, and Nicholas Nickleby, which was turned into a theatrical epic by the Royal Shakespeare Company.  The novels Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities have been made into first-rate motion pictures.

No work of Dickens, however, has been as successful in the theater and on film during this century as “A Christmas Carol.” (During the Nineteenth Century, Oliver Twist was the most often dramatized of Dickens's stories.)  As of 1984, there had been eleven movie versions of A Christmas Carol, including several made during the silent era.  There had also been 357 documented adaptations of the story to the stage.  In the decade since 1984, there have been many more.  Within the past two years, the story has been staged in extravagant productions at Madison Square Garden, as well in major theaters on Broadway and in the West End of London.   Farther from the metropolitan centers, annual productions of A Christmas Carol provide the centerpiece of the holiday season in many communities--including Lewiston/Auburn.
  • Home
    • About me
    • Resources
  • The Public Theater
    • Titles A thru G >
      • A >
        • All in the Timing
        • Almost Maine
        • Animals Out of Paper
        • Around the World in 80 Days
        • Art
      • B >
        • Betrayal
        • Biloxi Blues
        • Blithe Spirit
        • The Book Club Play
        • Broadway Bound
        • To Build a Fire
        • The Business of Murder
      • C >
        • A Christmas Carol
        • The Cocktail Hour
        • Collected Stories
        • Communicating Doors
        • The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged
        • Crossing Delancey
      • D >
        • Dancing at Lughnasa
        • Deathtrap
        • Doubt
        • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
        • Dracula
        • Driving Miss Daisy
      • E >
        • Educating Rita
      • F >
        • Fallen Angels
        • Fiction
        • The Foreigner
        • Fuddy Meers
      • G >
        • The Glass Menagerie
        • Good People
        • Gun Shy
    • Titles H thru O >
      • H >
        • Hedda Gabler
        • Holiday Memories
        • The Hound of the Baskervilles
        • Humble Boy
      • I >
        • Indoor/Outdoor
        • An Infinite Ache
        • Italian American Reconciliation
      • L >
        • The Language Archive
        • Last Gas
        • The Last Mass
        • The Last Romance
        • Lend me a Tenor
        • Lips Together
        • Lost in Yonkers
        • Love/Sick
      • M >
        • Manny's War
        • Marjorie Prime
        • Marvin's Room
        • Miss Witherspoon
        • A Month of Sundays
        • Moonlight and Magnolias
        • Moonshine
      • N >
        • The Nerd
      • O >
        • The Old Settler
        • On Golden Pond
        • Orphans
        • Outside Mullingar
        • Over the River
    • Titles P thru W >
      • P >
        • Pavillion
        • Prelude to a Kiss
        • Private Lives
        • Proof
        • Psychopathia Sexualis
      • R >
        • Red
        • Red Herring
        • The Revolutionists
        • Rough Crossing
        • Rumors
      • S >
        • Seascape
        • Shirley Valentine
        • Side Man
        • Skylight
        • Sleuth
        • Southern Comforts
        • Steel Magnolias
      • T >
        • Terra Nova
        • 13th of Paris
        • Three Days of Rain
        • Tigers Be Still
        • Time Stands Still
      • U >
        • Under the Skin
      • V >
        • Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike
        • Visiting Mr. Green
      • W >
        • Wait Until Dark
        • What Rhymes with America
        • The Wind in the Willows
        • The Woman in Black
        • Wrong for Each Other
  • Portland Theater
    • Season 93 94 I
    • Season 93 94 II
    • Season 94 95 I
    • Season 94 95 II
    • Season 95 96
    • Season 96 97
    • Fool for Love
    • Ghosts
  • Playwrights
    • Albee to Coward >
      • Edward Albee
      • David Auburn
      • Alan Ayckbourne
      • Truman Capote
      • John Cariani
      • Noel Coward
    • Dickens to Harris >
      • Charles Dickens
      • Joe DiPietro
      • Arthur Conan Doyle
      • Tom Dudzick
      • Christopher Durang
      • Brian Friel
      • A.R. Gurney
      • Richard Harris
    • Ibsen to Nolan >
      • Henrik Ibsen
      • David Ives
      • Rajiv Joseph
      • Ira Levin
      • David Lindsay-Abaire
      • Jack London
      • Ken Ludwig
      • Donald Margulies
      • James Nolan
    • Pinter to Shue >
      • Harold Pinter
      • Yasmina Reza
      • Willy Russell
      • Susan Sandler
      • Robert W. Service
      • John Patrick Shanley
      • Larry Shue
    • Simon to Zacarias >
      • Neil Simon
      • Mat Smart
      • Craig White
      • Tennessee Williams
      • Karen Zacarias