AñSong o by richard g. wilkins ReÑemtion charles dickens’short novella, A Christmas Carol, is a masterpiece of English literature revered by many for its central role in reviving (and reinventing) English (and American) Christmas traditions. Unknown to many, however, is that Dickens’ “little ‘Carol’” was conceived as “A Plea To The People Of England On Behalf Of The Poor Man’s Child.” Underlying the fable of Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim is a biting critique of a society that dismissed humanity in the quest for economic effi- ciency. But Dickens’ solution for this still ongoing tragedy was not the creation of judi- cially enforceable individual rights for Tim. Rather, the answer was a more intimate (and perhaps more necessary) focus on the communal responsibilities of Ebenezer. O December 17, 1843, a slim Christmas traditions, it is fascinating that red volume with gilt edges and when he took pen in hand, Dickens did not hand-colored lithographs first appeared in have the restoration of “those golden days of 7 Lonndon bookstalls. The little volume was yore, when Christ’s Mass was a high day,” Charles Dickens’ masterpiece A Christmas as his primary goal. Rather, he wrote the Carol. The world—and Christmas—have book to strike a blow against child labor never been the same. and a suffocating lack of education among Few readers 160 years later realize that the poor. Indeed, some months prior to this short book is perhaps responsible for the publication of the Carol, Dickens had saving the Christmas holidays from extinc- promised to write a pamphlet entitled “A tion. Following the English Civil War in Plea To The People Of England On Behalf 1 8 1642, the Puritans abolished the holiday. Of The Poor Man’s Child.” The Carol Although the English monarchy was later became his plea. restored, Christmas—with its carols, feast- The plea was sorely needed in 1843. ing, and warm good-heartedness—was not The conditions of the poor—particularly similarly refurbished and went into further the children of the poor—were intolerable. decline with the coming of the Industrial Dickens was incensed by reported descrip- 2 Revolution. Indeed, G. K. Chesterton, in tions of parish orphans and other children his introduction to the 1924 edition of A of the destitute, employed generally at Christmas Carol, observed, “If a little more seven years, some as young as three, who success had crowned the Puritan movement were brutalized, ill-fed, and ill-clothed of the seventeenth century, or the Utilitarian during their 15- to 18-hour workdays. movement of the nineteenth century,” the Equally appalling was the uniform lack of old holiday traditions would “have become educational opportunities afforded the merely details of the neglected past, a part poor. In early 1843, Dickens assisted a of history or even archaeology. Perhaps wealthy friend and philanthropist in dis- the very word carol would sound like the tributing funds to the Ragged Schools 3 4 9 word villanelle” (italics added). , of Field Lane, Holborn. These schools But English Christmas traditions sur- existed to provide some meager training, vive—and have been transplanted to but even this endeavor seemed nearly America—because of what Dickens fondly futile. As Dickens wrote: called his “little ‘Carol.’” Michael Hearn, notes that Dickens must be “credited with To gain [the students’] attention in any way . almost single-handedly reviving the holiday is a difficulty, quite gigantic. To impress them, 5 customs.” Hearn, in fact, relates that by the even with the idea of a God, when their own time of his death, “Dickens had already condition is so desolate, becomes a monstrous secured so sure a place in the mythology of task. To find anything within them . to which the holiday that a story circulated about a lit- it is possible to appeal, is at first, like a search for tle costermonger’s girl in Drury Lane who, the philosopher’s stone. My heart so sinks on hearing of his funeral, asked, ‘Dickens within me when I go into these scenes, that I 6 dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?’” almost lose the hope of ever seeing them changed. Considering the book’s historical set- Whether this effort will succeed, it is quite 10 ting and its effect on English and American impossible to say. 4 clark memorandum On October 5, 1843, as Dickens was for- mulating his social tract attacking child labor and ignorance, he was invited to give an oration at a fund-raising soirée for the Manchester Athenaeum, a charitable insti- tution for the working class. Dickens began his oration by congratulating the people of Manchester for creating the Athenaeum, a place where “the immortal mechanism of God’s own hand, the mind, [would not be] forgotten in the din and uproar [created by] 11 the whirl and rattle of machinery.” The high purpose of the Athenaeum, Dickens stated, was to provide “a little learning” and, therefore, “self respect.” [T]his I know, that the first unpurchaseable bless- ing earned by every man who makes an effort to improve himself in such a place as the Athenaeum is self-respect—an inward dignity of character which once acquired and righteously maintained, nothing, no, not the hardest drudgery, nor the direst poverty, can vanquish. Though [a man] should find it hard for a season even to keep the wolf of hunger from his door, let him but once have chased the dragon of ignorance from his hearth, 12 and self-respect and hope are left him. Dickens, in short, argued that society pacing his room, and upon returning to would improve and mankind would flourish, London he “wept and laughed and wept Thus, according to Dickens, once the not when men and women were imbued again, and excited himself in a most extraor- “dragon of ignorance” was “chased . from with sufficient rights to facilitate full auton- dinary manner in the composition, and think- [the] hearth,” even the cold, hard specter of omy, but rather when educated members of ing whereof he walked about the black streets want would recede and be replaced by “self- the polity recognized the reciprocal benefits of London, fifteen and twenty miles many a 16 respect and hope.” But how was such an end flowing from mutual obligations. night, when all sober folks had gone to bed.” to be achieved? By educating each individual Newspaper accounts report that the The rudimentary plot came from 17 that he or she is part of an interdependent speech was greeted with shouts and a thun- Dickens’ earlier writings. The prototype 14 community. The more a man learns: the bet- derous ovation. That night as Dickens left was his short story “The Goblins Who Stole ter, gentler, kinder man he must become. the Trade Hall, his “mind still burning with A Sexton,” in which goblins reveal scenes of Understanding that the relations between thoughts of Ignorance and Want and the Christmas cheer to an “ill-tempered grave 18 [men] involve a mutual duty and responsibil- necessity of throwing himself ‘upon the truth- digger named Gabriel Grubb.” However, 15 ity, he will discharge his part of the implied ful feelings of the people,’” he determined the unlike the goblin story, A Christmas Carol contract cheerfully, faithfully, and honourably; form in which he would deliver his “Plea To is infused with the communitarian message for the history of every useful life warns him The People Of England.” He would write the and hope in mankind so forcefully delivered 13 to shape his course in that direction. Carol. Dickens spent the night in Manchester at the Athenaeum. Although Scrooge and clark memorandum 5 Scrooecret towarÓs it, trem±in as e wen; anÓ ñoowin e finger, reaÓ uon e stone of the Ñ ebenezer scrooge ne ec e grave is own name, . Tiny Tim dominate the tale, they are but “Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s say . Christmas among the rest. But I am sure lenses through which Dickens focuses his nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure.” I have always thought of Christmas time, when it plea to the people of England. “I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! what has come round . as a good time: a kind, forgiv- Scrooge is initially presented in broad, right have you to be merry? what reason have you ing, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know melodramatic strokes: to be merry? You’re poor enough.” of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and “Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. women seem by one consent to open their shut-up Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- “What right have you to be dismal? what reason hearts freely. And therefore, uncle, though it has stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.” never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and Scrooge having no better answer ready on I believe that it has done me good, and will do 22 sharp as flint, . and solitary as an oyster. The the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and me good; and I say, God bless it! cold within him froze his old features, nipped his followed it up with “Humbug.” pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; “Don’t be cross, uncle,” said the nephew. Scrooge, of course, will have none of it, 19 made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. “What else can I be . when I live in such a and after taking his “melancholy dinner in world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon his usual melancholy tavern; and having But Scrooge is more than a cardboard cutout.