Let's Read a Compound Sentence About Charles Dickens from Author John Irving

"The intention of a novel by Charles Dickens is to move you emotionally, not intellectually; and it is by emotional means that Dickens intends to influence you socially."

                                -- John Irving "The King of the Novel"

Is the Carol a Christian "Conversion" Story?

    Some scholars and other thoughtful people see a Christian "conversion" story in the Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge, they argue, is "saved" by the end of the book in the religious sense. That's not at all what I see. First of all, G-G-G-G-GHOSTS! If Dickens intended for God to take time away from his busy day to personally challenge Scrooge's worldview, the traditional way was to choose angels (or sometimes demons) or vision of some sort. Not ghosts.

     On the other hand, God has been pretty handy in the past with locusts, whales and rain. Still, except for a couple of allusions to Christianity, including the ultimate, "God bless Us, Every One!," there's a marked absence of Christian cant.    

     I believe that one of the reasons that the Carol is important in our time is because it can convert people from religion. Dickens spent a great deal of time lampooning the evangelicals of his day. He used quite a few words in his prefaces to printed volumes of his works explaining his attacks on them. That's not to say that Dickens was an atheist or an agnostic, just that he despised the extremes of religion. Charles Dickens can explain this best, himself:

"Lest there should be any well-intentioned persons who do not perceive the difference ... between religion and the cant of religion, piety and the pretence of piety, a humble reverence for the great truths of Scripture and an audacious and offensive obtrustion of its letter and not its spirit in the commonest dissensions and meanest affairs of life, to the extraordinary confusion of ignorant minds, let them understand that it is always the latter, and never the former, which is satirised here. Further, that the latter is here satirised as being, according to all experience, inconsistent with the former, impossible of union with it, for the time being, in Exeter Hall, or Ebenezer Chapel, or both. It may appear unnecessary to offer a word of observation on so plain a head. But it is never out of season to protest against the coarse familiarity with sacred things which is busy on the lip, and idle in the heart; or against the confounding of Christianity with any class of persons who, in the words of SWIFT, have just enough religion to make them hate, and not enough to make them love, one another."

Charles Dickens, THE PICKWICK PAPERS (Preface to the first Cheap Edition; 1847). Written more than 169 years ago, it could be a rebuke of Jerry Falwell, Jr. tomorrow, or any number of television evangelists and mega-church shepherds. Dickens' Carol can be read as a present-day attack on the prosperity gospel, greed and the lack of empathy among certain religious folk.

Children's Story or Camouflaged Economic Polemic?

     Adam Smith. Thomas Robert Malthus. Economists from Scotland and England, respectively, who were not respected by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge is said to be a parody of Malthus, especially with pronouncements like this:

"If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." 

     Malthus was the eternal skeptic; whereas Dickens was the immortal optimist. Malthus wrote in An Essay on the Principle of Population that future human improvement was unlikely given the growing population, and, moreover, he championed the "there will always be the poor" idea.

     If you are Charles Dickens, you would have to take both of those ideas rather badly.

     [SPOILER ALERT] It is a bit ironic that the survival of Tiny Tim seems to vindicate a small part of Malthusian theory, but the overwhelming lesson, dressed inside an innocuous little children's book, was that human lives can be changed for the better if we help each other, that enough fat turkeys exist to feed the entire population, and why not let them eat cake!  

   

Coming to America

     For those who believe that the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge is not believable, let me tell you the story of Laura Bridgman. In 1842--the year before he wrote A Christmas Carol--Charles Dickens traveled to America. During this visit, you might say that Dickens was treated like the Beatles were treated in 1964. But you'd be wrong. The Beatles were treated the way that Dickens was treated.

     But there was one young lady who was immune to the Dickens charm.

     In Boston, Dickens visited the Perkins School for the Blind, where he met a young girl by the name of Laura Bridgman. She was 13 at the time and very animated and conversational. This was not just rare but unique, as she had been blind and deaf from the age of two. Fifty years before the world would hear of Helen Keller, Bridgman had been taught sign language and had been removed, forever, from a dark prison.

     That was an unbelievable transformation, and it had to have affected Dickens for the rest of his life. The story is told in his book American Notes, but Dickens didn't write it. He left that honor to Samuel Gridley Howe--the person who patiently taught Laura Bridgman sign language and changed her life forever.  

     Surely, Scrooge, fettered by only habit and cynicism, had less to conquer.

Still More Carol Research

     John Irving claims that the best writer to grace our planet was Charles Dickens. He's right, you know. In an interview in the Paris Review, the name Charles Dickens appeared four times. This was one of those times:

More Christmas Carol Research

     Perhaps my third favorite review of A Christmas Carol comes from valuesandcapitalism.com. I like it because it is funny. You see, the folks at valuesandcapitalism value capitalism, and they are affronted when others fail to value capitalism as they think capitalism should be valued. The existence of a book that seems to indicate that spreading wealth may not be a grave sin must be responded to. So, our friends at valuesandcapitalism want it to be known that, 

"There would not have been a story if Scrooge and Marley were not successful businessmen. If they had been unhappy poor folk, instead of unhappy rich folk, the beginning would not have been possible.

 More importantly, the conclusion would not have been possible if Ebenezer Scooge had not been a successful businessman...."  

     Do you see now why I find that quite funny? It is like claiming that the glorious moments of the Civil Rights Movement would never have occurred if it weren't for Slavery.

     This smacks of desperation, and it reminds me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In his book, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, Douglas Adams created a professional lady with an interestingly niche market. It went like this:

“Do you want to have a good time?” said a voice from a doorway.

“As far as I can tell,” said Ford, “I’m having one. Thanks.”

“Are you rich?” said another.

This made Ford laugh.

He turned and opened his arms in a wide gesture. “Do I look rich?” he said.

“Don’t know,” said the girl. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you’ll get rich. I have a very special service for rich people…”

“Oh yes?” said Ford, intrigued but careful. “And what’s that?”

“I tell them it’s OK to be rich.”

    The folks at valuesandcapitalism, who, we have seen, so desperately need to value capitalism, continue as follows: "None of this generosity would have been possible had not Scrooge been a successful business man and had not there have been a system of wealth creation such as capitalism." So long, Capitalists, and thanks for all the alms!