A Most Seasonal Argument

At this time of year, there are many personalities who spring to mind: from the infant Christ (and indeed all the players in the Nativity story) and Father Christmas to George Bailey and, of course, John McClane. Yet there is one who is constantly misrepresented: Ebenezer Scrooge. He has appeared in many guises, played by (among others) Albert Finney, Michael Caine and Bill Murray (sort of). The sadly oft-forgotten fact is that, as those Muppet ladies sang, there is a sweet man inside; one who deserves to be recognised.

After all, Scrooge changes entirely by the end of A Christmas Carol. In fairness, this is not an easily-overlooked detail; the entire point of the book is that Scrooge changes his ways (partly because he's faced with eternal damnation, it must be said). In point of fact, Dickens tells us that: "Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset". Presumably it is the descendants of these easily-amused folk who now think of Scrooge only as a mean-tempered miser. We're also told in the book's final paragraph that "[h]e had no further intercourse with Spirits", which is rather comforting (if a little troubling in its implications).

Despite Scrooge's change (he even sings; why yes, I am treating the Muppets version as definitive. Why not?), the idea of him is so bound up with the notion of miserliness that we even have adjectives such as "Scrooge-like"; he is the very form of mean-spiritedness, in the popular imagination. This can be seen, for example, in a recent Meteor ad, where the boss of the ad's protagonist (such as he is) is compared to Scrooge. Part of this probably comes from Dickens's propensity to attribute names to characters which seem to fit their character's personality; it must be said that the name "Scrooge" does sound more like a tight-fisted moneylender than a generous, kindly celebrant of Christmas.

The fact is that A Christmas Carol is very bound up with Christian notions of sin and (more importantly) redemption. Now, I'm not one of these people who is obsessed with the whole myth of "Winterval" and the secularisation of Christmas, you'll be pleased to hear. It is true, though, that society in general has become more secular since the publication of the book; it's not surprising, therefore, that it has acquired a different emphasis in the popular imagination. It remains a morality tale, of course, but it seems almost as though the focus has shifted to Scrooge as a "what not to do" type figure, rather than an ideal of redemption to aspire towards. This may not even be to do with secularism; maybe it's just a general pessimism in human nature. At any rate, though, it is at odds with the central idea of the book. Unless, of course, it's entirely inspired by the time Dickens met gaseous aliens with the Doctor, which is also entirely possible.



[8 days until Christmas!]