History Literature / AChristmasCarol

* AcidRefluxNightmare: What Scrooge thinks Marley is at first.

** It's never too late to change your ways and become a better person.

** Actions have consequences.
* AffluentAscetic: It's made clear that Scrooge could live very comfortably if he wanted to, but his obsession with hoarding money and spending as little as possible means that his home is quite spartan.

** The Ghost of Christmas Present doesn't like it when Scrooge confronts him on having the bakers shut down on Sundays. (The poor of London didn't have ovens at home, so they needed to use a baker's oven for anything they couldn't cook over a simple fire.) The Ghost replies that it wasn't ''his'' idea.
** Mrs Cratchit confronts her husband when he announced Mr Scrooge the 'founder of the feast' and she had a point as they are on low income thanks to him.
* BewareTheSillyOnes: The Ghost of Christmas Present initially comes across as a very jolly fellow. He offers a seemingly-endless buffet, invites Scrooge to get to know him, and appears ready for a laugh at any moment. However, once he and Scrooge observe the Crachits, Present becomes downright nasty towards Scrooge (justifiably so) and giving repeated [[IronicEcho ironic echoes]]. Of the three spirits, Present is the one that comes across as downright angry at the kind of person Scrooge is.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: When the two gentlemen putting together a fund for the poor visit Scrooge and Marley's and are informed that Marley has been dead for seven years, one optimistically remarks that "we have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner" - a fully accurate statement in the sense that in life Marley was just as much a miserly skinflint as Scrooge and would have refused to make any such donation, just as Scrooge proceeds to do.

* SavedByTheChurchBell: The book famously ends with Scrooge waking up to church bells ringing, letting him know that his haunted night is over and Christmas day has come at last. After the horrid vision of the future he's seen, Scrooge is overjoyed and takes the opportunity to turn his life into something as beautiful as the holiday knell.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Most of the story lays somewhere in the middle until the end where it becomes one of the most idealistic stories in classic literature.

* MoneyIsNotPower: Marley died a rich man but it did him no good terrible afterlife where he can do nothing but see the tired masses suffer. He and the other ghosts warn Scrooge that his hoarded wealth won't save him from a lonely and miserable death.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Scrooge gets this quite a bit through the visions from the spirits, but what really breaks him is seeing the EmptyChairMemorial for Tiny Tim in the future. Scrooge realizes that the boy's early demise is indirectly his fault by Scrooge's staunch refusal to pay a fair share.