and blessing of the story ... lie in the great furnace of real happiness that glows through Scrooge and everything around him. ... Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us." Analysing the changes made to adaptations over time, Davis sees changes to the focus of the story and its characters to reflect mainstream thinking of the period. While Dickens's Victorian audiences would have viewed the tale as a spiritual but secular parable, in the early 20th century it became a children's story, read by parents who remembered their parents reading it when they were younger. In the lead-up to and during the Great Depression, Davis suggests that while some saw the story as a "denunciation of capitalism, ...most read it as a way to escape oppressive economic realities". The film versions of the 1930s were different in the UK and US. British-made films showed a traditional telling of the story, while US-made works showed Cratchit in a more central role, escaping the depression caused by European bankers and celebrating what Davis calls "the Christmas of the common man". In the 1960s, Scrooge was sometimes portrayed as a Freudian figure wrestling with his past. By the 1980s he was again set in a world of depression and economic uncertainty. See also List of Christmas-themed literature Dickens Christmas fair The Man Who Invented Christmas Notes References Sources Books Online resources Newspapers, journals and magazines External links A Christmas Carol read online at Bookwise A Christmas Carol at Internet Archive A Christmas Carol e-book with illustrations A Christmas Carol Project Gutenberg free online book Using Textual Clues to Understand A Christmas Carol 1843 British novels 1840s fantasy novels Articles containing video clips Books illustrated by Arthur Rackham British fantasy novels British novellas British novels adapted into films British novels adapted into plays British novels adapted into television shows Chapman & Hall books Christmas novels English-language novels Ghost novels Novels about time travel Novels adapted into ballets Novels adapted into operas Novels by Charles Dickens Novels set in London Novels set in the 19th century Victorian novels Works about atonement Books illustrated by John Leech