It's that time of year again, when Charles Dickens arguably most accessible work gets brought out once more for the holidays. A Christmas Carol has become something of an icon, a morality play that has had effects that transcend the season in which it is set. First published in December 1843, it is more timely than ever, in an age when we now have crushing inequality and Dickensian social policies to match.
Some discussion follows below the Orange Omnilepticon - and a poll.
Dickens is seen as a great storyteller, an exposer of the darker side of the times in which he lived, and something of a romantic. A new film about his life, The Invisible Woman, suggests he was just a bit more complicated than his popular image. Nonetheless, his works still retain a great deal of power even today.
He's renowned for his novels: lengthy works with memorable characters, sometimes convoluted plots, and soap operish twists and turns. A Christmas Carol is different in that it is a much shorter work, self-contained, one that happens over the course of roughly 24 hours (if you don't count a flash back in time, and one flash forward), with a limited cast of characters. The main character around whom it turns, Ebenezer Scrooge, has become an archetype for mean-spirited miserly creatures, a man of wealth who gets no enjoyment from his riches, is notably poor in spirit, completely lacking in charity.
There's small risk of spoilers in talking about the plot - the original work still remains popular and it has been a fountain of derivative works based on the original tale for decades. The initial passages depict Scrooge as a man of business and little else. He has no friends, is estranged from his relatives, is unpleasant to all, and has a dark view of humanity. He turns down his own nephew's invitation to join on Christmas Day for a dinner and party. He scolds his clerk Bob Cratchit for asking for the day off. He has no use for Christmas, neither the festivities surrounding it, nor the deeper spiritual message. He's a man in need of an intervention.
And he gets one. His deceased partner Jacob Marley visits him that night, demonstrating for him the fate that lies waiting for Scrooge's soul with his own horrifying example, and promises that three spirits will visit to give him a chance to save himself. In the course of the evening that follows, they do so.
The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge the promise of his younger life as well as the darker things that colored it. Friendship, fellowship, even love - all these things and more were available to the younger Scrooge, yet he chose to turn away from them all, making choices that may have seemed right at the moment, but collectively set him on the road to the misanthropy and misery of his present life.
The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge out of himself to the larger world he has turned away from. Celebration, sharing, joy - all that and more is in the world he has closed his eyes to. He sees the lives of his nephew, his clerk and his family from the outside, and is forced to confront what is lacking in his own. Further, in the original version of the tale, the Spirit takes Scrooge on a flying tour of people of all classes and situations, yet making merry in the spirit of the season.
But, the Spirit also shows him the darker side of things. His clerk's son, Tiny Tim, he is told will probably not see another Christmas. When he asks if nothing can be done, his own words are quoted back to him about 'decreasing the surplus population'. Further, the Spirit reveals to him two orphans of Mankind, a boy and girl, who are sheltering under his robes: Ignorance and Want. The Ghost admonishes Scrooge "Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy (Ignorance), for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased." While it is a warning to Scrooge, it is also a larger warning to society in general that it ignores the least of its members at its peril.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is perhaps the most fearsome of the three. It shows Scrooge a vision of the future. In this future, Tiny Tim has gone and his family is still in mourning. They have lost, but they yet still love. In contrast, another man who has recently died is mourned by no one; it fact there are those who seem ghoulishly delighted at his passing, but most are indifferent at best. Scrooge has been reawakened to the humanity he had set aside; he is increasingly horrified that all of a man's life should come to nothing and less than nothing. The Spirit speaks not, even when Scrooge discovers that this disregarded man is his own self. He implores the Spirit to tell him if this can be changed, if he yet can redeem himself….
He awakes in his own bed, and discovers that these experiences have all taken place in one night; it is now Christmas Day. He sets at once to act on the lessons he has learned. He dispatches a feast to his clerk's house anonymously; he goes to beg forgiveness of the nephew he had scorned earlier and asks to be allowed to join with him in celebrating the holiday among family and friends. When Bob Cratchit is late to work the next day and in fear of losing his position, Scrooge leads him on - then reveals he is going to give him a raise, try to assist him with his family, and be a far better employer in the future. Very late in life, Scrooge has rediscovered his humanity and is determined to make the best of it in this world while he may. And he does.
It's a powerful message, and not least because the lessons can be applied by anyone willing to look honestly at their own life and the lives of those around them. It doesn't have to require Ghosts to intervene. The choices we make, the priorities we set - the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge shows that as individuals and as a community, those things are vital. They have consequences.
On a secular level A Christmas Carol helped revitalize celebration of the holiday. (It's troubling to wonder what Dickens would make of the spectacle of mass consumption it has become.) On a spiritual level, much work remains to be done. The unredeemed Scrooge of Dickensian times is no match for the modern Scrooges - the ones who have set up think tanks to promote their reactionary social policies, the media machinery that blasts their message 24/7, the political establishment that plays lickspittle to their Galtian dystopic view of the world. Too many realizations of the story focus on the sweetness and bury the larger social message.
In some ways, one of the most powerful reworkings of the elements within A Christmas Carol is Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. Again, a Heavenly intercession occurs, complete with flash backs and flash forwards, but this time the errand is to rescue a good man who has fallen into despair. The social message is far more explicit. Considering the state of affairs today, the greatest gift we could get this year would be someone with the gifts of a Dickens or a Capra to get the message out once more. Bill Moyers and Elizabeth Warren can use more allies.
So, to close this out, do you have a favorite version of A Christmas Carol? It has been turned into plays, cartoons, musicals, dramatic readings, movies, and television presentations. Have you watched one recently, or read the original?
My own particular preferred dramatization is one that came out in 1984, featuring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. Scott gives an initially contained performance as Scrooge, avoiding the more over the top stylings of the Alastair Sim 1951 film version, and yet his Scrooge is not lacking in energy or intensity as the story develops. He comes across to me as far more credible and less a caricature of Scrooge, and the screenplay is a bit more faithful to the original tale in my opinion. The period settings (in the English town of Shrewsbury) come across as rich and authentic. It's a powerful version that does not stint the deeper message of Dickens.
The rest of the cast includes such notables as: Frank Finlay - Jacob Marley,
Angela Pleasence - Ghost of Christmas Past, Edward Woodward - Ghost of Christmas Present, Michael Carter - Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, David Warner - Bob Cratchit, Susannah York- Mrs. Cratchit, Anthony Walters - Tiny Tim, Roger Rees - Fred Holywell / Narrator. There's a Youtube version at http://youtu.be/... that promises the full show for those who might not have seen it. It's also available on DVD.
Have a Happy - and Thoughtful Holiday