Timeless morals in Charles Dickens’s christmas stories.

Abstract

This essay will focus on the different guiding principles become uncovered through Dickens’s use of the time travel narrative within his Christmas stories. Among the many moral messages that Dickens advocates, the principles that will be discussed will be as follows: the need to play as a child, to love unconditionally, to bond contently in eating, to remember the dead and to give charitably. These are selected because I feel that these principles surface most prominently when viewed through the time travel perspective. As such, this essay will use the texts A Christmas Tree, Christmas Festivities, What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older, A Christmas Carol. Hence in this essay, I will argue that Dickens successfully engages the concept of time travelling during Christmas to uncover moral lessons in life.