Feminist literary theory often examines how women’s identities are shaped and restricted in literature, particularly within patriarchal traditions. This study provides a comparative study of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and Nick Murphy’s 2019 television adaptation through the lens of Luce Irigaray’s theory. The research is rooted in a broader feminist literary theoretical discourse on the construction, containment, and representation of feminine identity within patriarchal narrative traditions. Even though in Dickens’s novel women appear as mysterious and emotional, they still remain two-dimensional figures defined by their sympathetic function and how they are related to Scrooge. This study argues that the tale pushes women to the margins, reducing characters such as Belle and Mrs. Cratchit to two-dimensional figures whose sole existence and function is to serve Scrooge. Murphy’s adaptation responds to this by giving voice and agency to figures like the Ghost of Christmas Past, who is reimagined as a haunting, motherly presence. This analysis shows how Murphy’s version breaks from the male-centered structure of Dickens’s text. The film does not only show the hidden work and pain of women that the original story depends on, but it also introduces a female view point that questions the male authority. In the end the adaptation uses the ghosts not just to challenge Scrooge but also to challenge the gendered foundation of the classic tale itself.
