A Christmas Carol
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.
I have finally dipped my toes into Charles Dickens. And what a way to start the festive season and my introduction to a fabulous Dickensian Christmas. ‘A Christmas Carol’ has been an excellent read and has finally got me in the Christmas spirit! And I say finally, because it has not felt like Christmas the past couple of weeks, life has just been getting in the way!
Scrooge is the original Christmas Grinch, with a Bah! Humbug with every “Merry Christmas” that comes his way. He is a good old-fashioned miser and the amount of Christmas cheer he has would fill a Gnats bidet. That is until he is visited by the ghost of his old work colleague, Jacob Marley who warns him of the horrible path Scrooge is on which will lead to damnation! Three ghosts will visit on this night and show Scrooge the error of his ways!
Dickens was known for his dramatics and loved the stage; you can see why this particular story is one of his most famous and has been redone many a time. What a way to enchant an austere but gothic Victorian audience than with a classic ghost story. I think that with this book's language, Dickensian London and Dickensian Christmas really came into its own. The lush descriptions of bright cheer, whatever the circumstances the characters - rich or poor, found themselves in, add to the setting. Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, bringing bright cheer to the dark and dank offices of Scrooge's workplace is good old-fashioned Christmas cheer to the T!
There is an interesting point that this novella has to offer, and that is the character of Tiny Tim. Perhaps I am reading into this the wrong way. But Dickens seems ahead of his time in depicting and understanding disabilities. Tim has one; he is there to inspire our hope and our pity for the character and the Cratchit family. From one angle, it can be seen as problematic, using his disability as a foil to inspire pity and to highlight the Cratchit’s poverty. But on the other hand, in the face of disability, Tiny Tim is the most hopeful and joyful of them all - to Dickens, he is the epitome of Christmas cheer.
The ghosts of Christmas past, present and future give meaning to the very essence of Christmas, which is why this book resounds and has survived the test of time. They show joy in the face of adversity, give hope to hopelessness and offer insight into the consequences of our more devious actions. Scrooge endeavours to turn it all around and spread good cheer to all men. We end with the iconic line from Tiny Tim “God bless us, everyone”
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year!