When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as a pot-boiler – a book written merely to generate enough money to get his family through, has become a perennial pot-boiler for the film and theater industry. The latest, as you might have heard, is Disney’s 3D film starring Jim Carrey.
There are several themes from a Christmas Carol that might warrant a dissertation on the subject (and probably have), I’d like to highlight just a few.
1) Ignorance and Want, aka the Children of Man
‘Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,’ said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, ‘but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?’
‘It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,’ was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. ‘Look here.’
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
‘Oh, Man! look here! Look, look, down here!’ exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
‘Spirit, are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more.
‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And abide the end!’
One of my greatest complaints with the new Disney version of the film is this scene is completely butchered; at this point the Ghost of Christmas Present becomes far more frightening than the Ghost of Christmas yet to come. The fact that Ignorance is to be feared more than want is left out completely; a crucial point. Of course, many other renditions have left the Children of Man out of the Carol completely.
Indeed, Ignorance, “in all of [its] degree” will be, in any scenario, the doom of mankind and of each individual human. We are all ignorant on some level, sometimes even willfully, but Ignorance is an enemy of truth regardless of the topic or level. Its fatality lies in the fact that it can be treated only from within; where as Want can be addressed by charity from others.
2) Fear of the World
Belle’s reproach, during the shadows presented by the Ghost of Christmas Past, are very telling of the motives of Scrooge:
‘You fear the world too much,’ she answered, gently. ‘All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?’
While it is implied that Scrooge has means (he is, after all a landlord, owner of his own business, and a cheap miser) it is never said in Dickens’ Christmas Carol that he is rich, or wealthy. This distinction is lost in film versions, who have often portrayed him as hiding some great wealth. Greed is not Scrooge’s cardinal sin; rather, fear drives him. The cold hard fact is one can be a miser without money; one needs only to fear the world more than providence, or to fear for your own nearness to poverty than your fellow man’s welfare.
This is why the appearance of Ignorance and Want are so important in retelling A Christmas Carol; Scrooge knows of Want and its terror, but he fears it so completely he willingly seeks consolation in Ignorance, the more vicious monster.
3) Scrooge on Population Control
It is a marvel that at the time of yet another Christmas Carol version is released, there is a UN conference going on in Copenhagen, in which China is trying to convince the world to adopt a one-child policy to control the population.
Of course, logically speaking, China and developing nations have it all wrong. Rather than spend money on aid to the poor, and more money on education and birth control funding, they need only to stop the former practicve to achieve the results of the latter. Or, to quote Dickens’ story:
‘At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,’ said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’
‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Scrooge.
‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
‘And the Union workhouses.’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in operation?’
‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman,’ I wish I could say they were not.’
‘The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?’ said Scrooge.
‘Both very busy, sir.’
‘Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Scrooge. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
‘Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,’ returned the gentleman, ‘a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?’
‘Nothing!’ Scrooge replied.
‘You wish to be anonymous?’
‘I wish to be left alone,’ said Scrooge. ‘Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.’
‘Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.’
‘If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides-excuse me-I don’t know that.’
‘But you might know it,’ observed the gentleman.
‘It’s not my business,’ Scrooge returned. ‘It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!’
The poor make Scrooge uneasy; they remind him of what he fears. Further, they threaten his own security. The more of them there are, the more they ask for his charity. He ignores the Want of others, and enshrouds himself in Ignorance. The poor are the scapegoats for the insecure, particularly a working class that sees them only as a burden. Indeed, the world is busy making plans to thin their ranks, while no government has the gall to take the only logical approach to the “problem,” instead sacrificing their posterity in Ignorance.
“Most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom.”
Merry Christmas, and as Dickens quoted in his immortal Carol: “May God Bless you, merry gentleman, let nothing you dismay.”
Pray for Revolution.
