I have fond memories of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol. I first read it
before my age broke double digits, and Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol is still a holiday staple in my parents’
home (and let me tell you, I’ve seen several movie adaptations of Christmas Carol, and the Muppet version
sticks damned close to the book... with the exception of the puppets). It’s a
story that many know well, so well that pieces of it are now ingrained in Christmas culture.
Yet despite growing up with the story through the
book and the movies, never once did I stop to wonder why Scrooge was such a disagreeable character. It was
just an accepted fact. He’s a miserly grouch who stomps around saying, “Humbug!”
and people who hate Christmas are called Scrooges. But there’s far more to it
than that.
I’ve worked in food service now for almost four
years, and it didn’t take long to figure out it’s an industry that attracts
memorable characters. If I’ve learned nothing else from work and from my years
spent studying literature in undergrad and creative writing in grad school, it’s
that there’s always a reason people (or
characters) are the way they are. They don’t simply pop into existence as
miserly grouches who hate Christmas.
Dickens doesn’t expect readers to simply accept that
Scrooge is a terrible person just for the sake of being terrible. Through the
ghosts, Dickens shows readers why Scrooge is the way he is. I found
myself truly caring about Scrooge for the first time. Who knows how I’d be if
my family never wanted me around, or if I had my heart broken during what’s
supposed to be the happiest time of year. I also better understand why so many
have a hard time during the holiday season. I’ve been fortunate to only have
happiness to associate with the holidays, yet so many don’t have this same
gift. But the true masters of this revelation are the ghosts.
There is only one true ghost in the typical
understanding of the word: Scrooge’s seven years dead partner Marley. In the
interim leading up to Marley’s haunting, Dickens does a fantastic job of given
the story an eerie tone from how he uses darkness and hallucinations to distort
Scrooge’s perception. I found Marley to be the most unsettling of the spirits, as he was
someone Scrooge knew. Being a ghost in Dickens’ world was almost a Purgatorial
sentence, wandering aimlessly for who knows how long, dragging the weight of
earthly wrongs for the duration of the sentence. The image that remained most clearly in my mind was when Scrooge sees other ghosts outside his window who want to do good for
the living but can’t.
While the Christmas ghosts are the ones who help
Scrooge change so that he can avoid a similar fate to Marley’s, I’m not sure it’s
fair to call them ghosts. Maybe I have a narrow view of the term, but ghosts
are the souls of the dead who, for whatever reason, are stuck on earth. The
Christmas ghosts aren’t souls, but entities unto themselves, guides rather than souls stuck between the realm of the living and the dead. Yet
they work in their roles. I’m not sure how else Scrooge would have had a change
of heart. He is such a shrewd, cynical character that he couldn’t have changed without
supernatural intervention. Anything short he would have humbugged away.
All in all, A
Christmas Carol is one of those stories that referred to so often, it’s
almost necessary to know it. But if for some reason you don’t get a chance to
read it (even though it’s short, I promise), watch The Muppet Christmas Carol. Seriously. It’s on Netflix.
I appreciate that you explained the differences between the ghosts. I hadn't thought of it that way until I read your post, but I agree that Marley was the only true ghost. The others seemed almost to be spiritual manifestations of ideals--like the energy of those ideas coalesced into an archetypal figure.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated that Dickens showed us more about Scrooge's past. He really became a sympathetic character then. Easier, then, to understand his nephew's pity for his uncle, which in other adaptations felt sort of disingenuous and unbelievable. But if his nephew was privy to these stories from his past (presumably he's the son of Scrooge's sister who came to get him from school), then his sympathy is more understandable.
It's been so long since I've seen the Muppet version of this story. My favorite is probably Scrooged, but that's because Bill Murray can do no wrong. I'll give the Muppets another go , though.
Interestingly, even having read the story, I'm still not certain the ghosts show exactly why Scrooge ends up the way he does. We see that his family doesn't want him around, but we also see his sister come get him telling him how his father has changed. We could assume from this that at least from that point his family life takes an up-tick. Then we see him happily employed to a generous and friendly employer home he obviously likes and respects. Where his past takes a turn is when his finance leaves him. But the reason we're given for this is that he now loves money more than her. But we are never really shown where that change happens. Exactly when does money become the overriding ultimate and preeminent goal for him?
ReplyDeleteIn the end, it doesn't really matter to me when or how that happens. It does, and it is an easy thing for me to see. I've met too many people for whom how much money they make is the only determiner of their success. To the point that they cannot fathom taking a lower paying job even if it would provide more time with their families. It's sad, but totally believable.
I do agree that the spirits cannot be considered ghosts. But they do play their parts very well. And the muppet version is definitely the best. Just saying.
I also like how we got to see the reason why Scrooge was the way he was. Through his interactions with the spirits we get to see how he went from excited school boy to hardened young adult to a stoic, bitter old man. Then not only that, but because he was able to see his own progression, he decided to make a change and we get to see him come out of the darkness and embrace the idea of cheer and helping others and see how he managed to turn his life around. It was greatly done for the amount of pages it was done in. It's definitely still a classic because people can always learn that it's never too late to make a positive change and help someone else. I loved the word choice throughout, I definitely got the image of cold and empty in the beginning before Scrooge encountered the ghost, and it wasn't only how his surroundings were this way, but how he felt inside.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Marley was the only ghost. I actually saw the other three as angels of some sort. Their mission was to redeem Scrooge, and their appearances were strange and sometimes unsettling in the same way I’d think angels would be. As for Scrooge’s motives, I actually found him to be a very sympathetic character. Though I'm much more compassionate, and not particularly miserly, I'm not a big fan of the holidays either. Christmas always depresses me (and many others) so I can see why he was grinding an axe for Christmas, though I'm glad he learned not to take it out on others!
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