[3] Indeed, Dickens experienced poverty as a boy when he was forced to work in a blacking factory after his father's imprisonment for debt.

Originally intending to write a political pamphlet titled, An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child, he changed his mind[4] and instead wrote A Christmas Carol[5] which voiced his social concerns about poverty and injustice.

In this novella, Dickens was innovative in making the existence of the supernatural a natural extension of the real world in which Scrooge and his contemporaries lived.

[1] The Ghost of Christmas Past is a strange, otherworldly creature that shimmers and flickers like a candlelight, constantly changing in appearance as it reflects Scrooge's memories, old and new.

[9] The Ghost's clothing continues in the same contradictory vein as it holds a branch of holly, which symbolises Winter while its robe is trimmed with summer flowers.

Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.

But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Scrooge shows a further awakening of his human nature when the Spirit asks: "A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude."

He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil.

[8] Scrooge has been allowed to consider the benefits of being a good and generous employer, as Fezziwig was, and comes to regret mistreating his clerk, Bob Cratchit.

"In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.