Dennis Gerard Embo
"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that." And so begins undoubtedly the most well-known and beloved modern novel in the English language.
The Carol He Never Knew
I don’t think Charles Dickens, when he delivered the manuscript of A Christmas Carol to his publisher that day in 1843, anticipated that his small masterpiece would far outdistance the popularity of any of his other works. The main character in A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge, has taken his place among a handful of other universally recognizable fictional characters given to us by other English-language authors in the last two hundred years (Frankenstein’s monster, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes or Alice of Looking-Glass fame).
Another indication of the immense popularity of A Christmas Carol is that, since the advent of the medium of motion pictures and television, playwrights, screenplay writers and composers of musicals have brought us at least three musical adaptations of A Christmas Carol, a stage play version, and a score of motion picture and made-for-TV productions. One wonders what Dickens would have thought had he been given the thankless task of sitting through marathon screenings of such Christmas Carol wannabes as Rich Little’s Christmas Carol, The Flintstone’s Christmas Carol, Scrooged, or the very forgettable 1984 production entitled Scrooge’s Rock & Roll Christmas, which featured such standout American musical talent as Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Association, and entertainer Bobby Goldsboro.
Why the Universal Appeal?
It would be no exaggeration to ascribe A Christmas Carol’s great success and popularity to the utter simplicity of the story, and the message of hope and redemption for even the seemingly most incorrigible among us. Literature has served up few characters as cold and pitiless as Ebenezer Scrooge — a man who did not seem to possess a single aesthetic bone in his body. Dickens writes, "Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in London, even including — which is a bold word — the corporation, alderman, and livery." Scrooge is also a crass materialist. A late-night visit by the ghost of his long-dead business partner, Jacob Marley, (wearing long, thick metal chains to which were attached weighty "ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel") prompts Scrooge to protest, “There’s more of gravy than grave about you, whatever you are!” To which Marley retorts, “Man of the worldly mind!”
Once he convinces Scrooge of his real (but ghostly) existence, Marley then informs Scrooge that he (Scrooge) is not without hope, that he “ha[s] yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring.” Marley then tells Scrooge that there are three more ghosts that will visit him on three successive nights. Scrooge protests, but Marley replies, “without their visits you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.” (Scrooge actually encounters the three spirits in succession on Christmas Eve. By Christmas morning the ordeal will have ended.)
The Ghost of Christmas Past picks up where Marley left off by telling Scrooge plainly when asked what business brought him to Scrooge’s bedroom, “Your welfare!” Realizing Scrooge still doesn’t quite grasp the implications in his words, the Ghost tells him, “Your reclamation, then.” Much of the rest of the book details Scrooge’s guided astral-like tour of his past, present, and likely future, each revealed in little Christmas vignettes.
After an uncomfortable apparition of a couple of disturbing incidents from his childhood, Scrooge is next treated to a revisiting of an experience he had as a young, ambitious, businessman "who had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice" with "an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root." Scrooge’s would-be fiancée laments to Scrooge that she perceives his “nobler aspirations fall off one by one,” until the “master passion, Greed, engrosses you.” It is from this point on in the story that we watch Scrooge slowly come to the painful realization that he had very simply sold his soul for mere material gain.
Scrooge Finds Redemption
Scrooge’s guided tour of his life concludes with Scrooge standing in a weed-choked churchyard cemetery, staring at his name etched into a gravestone. Scrooge implores the Ghost of the Future to be told how he might escape the horrible fate awaiting him. “Good spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it, “your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life!” He asserted to that same spirit at the start of their journey, “...I hope to live to be another man from what I was.” Scrooge begs to be granted redemption. His willfulness broken, his heart feeling a contrite sorrow not merely for his insensitive behavior of the past toward those who had the misfortune to work for him, but for what he had become in his innermost self, pledges, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, Present and Future.” Dickens concludes that chapter with a vivid image of Scrooge "holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed."
Isn’t that what we do when we make a sincere Act of Contrition, especially if the offense was grave and deeply troubling? And do we not experience immense gratitude and elation upon receiving forgiveness, as we see Scrooge experience as he "walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield pleasure."?
A Christmas Carol is much more than merely a sentimental Christmas tale (and aren’t we served up with a multitude of those during the Christmas season!). Rather, it is a story with a universal theme of a tragically fallen character led through the process of repentance, redemption and conversion. In short, it is the story of God’s love for, and redemption of, fallen humanity itself. Tiny Tim expresses it as best as anyone: “God bless us, Every one!
- Dennis Gerard Embo is the author of The God That Prevailed. He lives in Garner, North Carolina.
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