The Haunted Universe of Dickens in A Christmas Carol : There are many more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5 I want to make your flesh creep - Fat Boy. The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 8

The paper deals with the way Dickens presents the concepts of social responsibility, self-transformation, western time, literary phantoms, civil society and unequal distribution of wealth in A Christmas Carol. Dickens uses the literary phantom both as narrative device and ventriloquizing moralism to campaign for the rights of the poor and bring about reformed thinking amongst the smug English well-to-do classes. Obviously Dickens speaks in the authorial voice and also through Marley and the three ghosts. By looping time Dickens presents two dimensions of dynamic present, a nostalgic past and a troubled future. He uses the literary ghost to sermonize about the ill effects of the capitalist economy, the self-made individual and the exemplary poor of Victorian society. The autodidactic nature of character transformation in the protagonist is less orthodox Christianity and more humanistic realism. It is not through belief in Christ but an understanding of past and future that Scrooge is able to change his destiny. However Dickens is very much rooted in the nation and national identity privileging imperialist England over the colonial subject. The passionate sentimentality and spectral surprises allow the story to remain indubitably Dickensian in nature and leave a haunting residue even after 150 years of its writing.departmental bulletin pape