Cabinet of Subversive Books, Christmas Edition: Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’

“Cabinet of Subversive Books” profiles fiction and non-fiction, both popular and underground, children’s and transgressive, poetry and tomes, comic books and even romance novels. And if you don’t see one of your favorites now, don’t despair, for it might well make an appearance in due time.

While Charles Dickens’ great debut novel “The Pickwick Papers,” in all its anarchic glory, is certainly my favorite, “A Christmas Carol” is as finely a written subversive tale as one could possibly want. Yes, it is a tale of redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge, and a worthy comic ghost story, but it also quite subversively, amidst the pathos and the humor, registers the idea of social good in the industrial age.

This entry in “Cabinet of Subversive Books” will not consider “A Christmas Carol” in its totality, but instead fix itself to a more specific task: the social commentary as laid forth by Charles Dickens, and more particularly as it is relates to Scrooge, Cratchit and Tiny Tim, in “The Second of Three Spirits” stave.

“A Christmas Carol” & The Social Good

In “The Second of Three Spirits” stave (chapter), Dickens transports Scrooge and the reader to various locations, but most importantly into the home of Scrooge’s employee Bob Cratchit. It is here that we encounter Cratchit’s ill son Tiny Tim, who cannot receive proper medical care because Scrooge does not pay Cratchit a fair wage. Scrooge is a notorious miser, of course, but the usual reading of “A Christmas Carol” is deceptive, because the miserliness is essentially secondary to Scrooge’s moral character. Much more concerning is the fact that Scrooge hasn’t the ability to empathize with Cratchit because of his obsession with profit. We hear these echoes even now as those who plunged the world into financial crisis display no regret for their actions. They are a legion of Scrooges.

A more open and kind-hearted man would have known of Tiny Tim’s condition through conversation with Cratchit and, likewise, might well have attempted to do something about it. But Scrooge’s moral character is again eclipsed by his love of money and the attendant misery, or lack of satisfaction, that it produces in his being.

Scrooge is truly moved by the lame and ill Tiny Tim and, turning to the Ghost of Christmas Present, engages in the following conversation:

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before,”tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit. Say he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

“Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.”

The Spirit does not let Scrooge live down his belief, or at least very recent past sentiment—that humanity is reducible to goods, to business, and that it is better for the invalids to shuffle off their mortal coils so as to better prime the engines of human progress. Let the following words echo through your mind, “Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.”

That it takes a phantom, an apparition or, indeed, an hallucination to propel Scrooge back to the realm of morality, of social and self-awareness, is a major thrust of the story. He is quite clearly governed by a sociopathology, an affliction that we see far and wide along the financial corridors of Wall Street. However, if we define Scrooge’s visions as mere hallucination and not supernatural illumination, then Scrooge deserves not a little credit for his moral evolution. Perhaps he sensed this moral and ethical transformation was something he wanted. We must then credit Scrooge for attaining the type of self-awareness that eludes many successful businessmen—men who lost it or never had it in the first place.

Consider as well the fact that Bob Cratchit must work such punishing hours for Scrooge and yet take home so little, though he must support a large family. Cratchit could, you say, go seek employment elsewhere, but in this Darwinian industrial age, nothing is guaranteed. Ah, but every man’s lot in life is of his own making: Cratchit has no one to blame but himself, you might say. That is only partially true, for no man, not even Ebenezer Scrooge himself, is a self-made man. We are social creatures. The history of humanity is one long example of human beings existing in solidarity with one another to perpetuate the species and make life tolerable.

And so Scrooge and Cratchit are not so very different: both have relied on the help and professional charity of others, with vastly different trajectories. Scrooge’s upward momentum was a result of determination and a certain ruthlessness in business transactions and associations, while Cratchit sought to conduct himself in as upright a manner as possible to provide for his family.

Dickens didn’t seem to be calling for social programs, or the dread idea of socialism, in “A Christmas Carol,” but he most certainly was calling on those who have benefited the most to engage in individual charity and the spreading of the wealth through a fair wage, compassion, understanding and the like.

And so we can say that Dickens’ social objectives are clear in “A Christmas Carol,” and it deserves a much more thorough rendering than this article will allow. Indeed, an entire book on the subject would be useful and socially beneficial to not only Dickens fans but to all peoples of the world.

To those now confronted and in disagreement with the reality of Dickens’ classic, try not to burn the book, okay?

Read Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of “Cabinet of Subversive Books.”