A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens’ cautionary tale about the emotional blackmail behind Christmas is often misinterpreted.

December is here and yet again Christmas makes its horribly garish intrusions onto our winter horizon. The nightmarish swindle now infests every nook and cranny of daily life so perhaps we should take a little time to remind ourselves of the real warning behind Dickens’ obliquely crafted tale.





It is the night before Christmas and at the end of a working day Ebenezer Scrooge, a thrifty and conscientious businessman has a few words with his clerk Bob Cratchit who timidly but firmly insists on having Christmas off with full pay.

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge.

"If quite convenient, sir."

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd

think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

The clerk smiled faintly.

Later that evening Scrooge encounters the ghost of his erstwhile partner Marley. As any good friend would do, Marley’s ghost warns Scrooge that three more spectres will try to entice his old friend away from the paths of sober competence and do their supernatural best to persuade him to initiate the welfare state single-handedly. Lots of dismal wailing and rattling of spectral chains hammer home the message. Understandably Scrooge is somewhat uneasy as he takes to his bed that night.

The first spectre to appear as foretold by Marley is the ghost of Christmas past which appears at Scrooge’s modest bedside during the night. This first spectre takes Scrooge into his own past, showing him how he first set foot on the rungs of the business ladder, wisely ditching a clingy and potentially expensive fiancée at an early stage.

Unfortunately these pleasant scenes of his early years only serve to upset Scrooge’s moral equilibrium to such a degree that he almost regrets his outstanding success as a businessman. In particular, a former tightwad employer named Fezziwig is shown in a highly favourable light as he entertains his staff on Christmas Eve with minimal expenditure and no lost production.

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said, "Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

A small matter indeed. Crafty old Fezziwig - although by now Scrooge is so stunned that he does not see that it is indeed a small matter.

The second ghost of Christmas present is initially more promising in that he is introduced as being surrounded by a vast heap of Christmas goodies of the edible variety. It is worth mentioning at this point that Scrooge’s diet is possibly a little narrow so the abundant if ghostly Christmas fare may contain a reasonable dietary message.

Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know me better, man!"

However the initial promise is not maintained as the ghost of Christmas present manages to insinuate the suggestion that such goodies and much, much more might be given away to feckless folk who have not paid for them. Still stunned by the whole experience Scrooge seems inclined to agree with such reckless extravagance.

The third ghost of Christmas future in more of a realist who by dramatic devices manages to suggest that Scrooge is surrounded by thieves who after his death would strip his dead body, steal his bed hangings and sell everything they could lay their hands on. So far so good but there is a sting in the tail. The ghost of Christmas future somehow manages to leave Scrooge with the impression that he may as well give things away now because after his death they will be stolen anyway.

For some unaccountable reason all this ghostly propaganda leaves Scrooge in a state of manic elation when he finally wakes up on Christmas morning. Neither narcotics nor alcohol are involved because Dickens clearly intended to highlight the perils of the most intense and unrelenting propaganda on an otherwise sober mind.

By Christmas morning Scrooge is so out of it that he even sends a large turkey to that financially feckless employee Bob Cratchit. Small income but a large family – that’s Bob Cratchit. If only we had imbibed this key message from the master story teller, but we never did.

And so began the first stirrings of emotional incontinence. One might almost suggest that Dickens invented it as a warning to us all, but somehow we turned it into soppy sentimentalism and have suffered for our mistake ever since.