Dickens versus Malthus ~ It Must be Christmas

"Scrooge had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total   Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, Every One!"

It’s become somewhat of a personal tradition of mine to watch the film Scrooge, the 1951 version with Alastair Sim, on Christmas Eve night. It’s a great film and Sim is absolutely brilliant. During the scene when he awakens transformed, indeed liberated, it is hard not to laugh and tear up at the same time. And, the film is very faithful to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol,[1] much more so than many other film versions. I encourage you to watch it. But having said that, I really encourage you to read the original story. This is no sweet Jesus and adorable Tiny Tim Christmas story. In many ways, it is not for the faint hearted, and unfortunately it is still relevant today. So, here are some thoughts on A Christmas Carol...

One of the saddest events in popular culture is the continual distortion of a great literary character through the romanticizing of Tiny Tim, transforming him into a sentimental, sweet character, whom we can first pity and then exploit, using him like a sponge to soak up our spilt Christian goodness. In fact, Tiny Tim is one key to "Keeping Christmas well". He is a character of almost biblical proportions. In the child Tiny Tim, Dickens was representing all the people, but particularly those who are suffering in some way – Tiny Tim was, of course, both ill and poor.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843, the first of five "Christmas Books" written from 1843 to 1848. In each book a central character suffers from a loss of faith in human dignity, but is eventually brought to realize the value of the human spirit. The transformation each character goes through, and we must call it a transformation and not simply a change of mind or even heart, is accomplished through spirit intervention, or in other words, by spiritual means. It may not be stretching it to say that each character is transformed by a salvation through the Christmas spirit. In the preface to A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote he hoped the story would "Awake some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land." In fact, he wrote the story because, in his opinion, "Keeping Christmas well" was out of season all the time. Dickens' ultimate hope was, of course, that through the power of his narratives the reader would, like the main characters, be transformed as well.

A Christmas Carol is not about a sweet little crippled boy, but instead is about the social conditions of Dickens' Britain. The story had (and still has) a strong social message. In and through the story, Dickens was appealing in general to the people of Britain to lead less selfish lives, and in particular to the rich to take seriously their duty of care for those less fortunate. He had visited Cornish tin mines early in 1843 and saw children labourers at work. He visited the Field Lane Ragged School in London, one of several institutions trying to educate hungry and illiterate children. After these experiences, he wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks. During the writing of the "hymn" he said in a letter that he "wept and laughed and wept again...and in thinking walked the black streets of London...when all sober folks had gone to bed," indicating how deeply disturbed and moved he was. In fact, the magic and mystery of his literary hymn exhibited a "strange mastery" over him, but a mastery of joy and love which he was impatient to return to each working day.

Dickens had a lot to weep and laugh about. For years the poor had not only been neglected by society, but also lived under the burden of a social philosophy and political policies that actually justified that neglect. In 1803 Thomas Malthus wrote the essay entitled Principle of Population. In it Malthus argued that any human being that could not be supported by his or her parents, and could not provide labour that was useful and required by society, had "no claim or right to the smallest portion of food." He went on to say that such people also had "no business" even being in society and that their death would "decrease the surplus population."

When society refuses people food, shelter, and work, there is only one place for them to go, or to be, and Scrooge, the character representing the Malthusian position, had no difficulty in saying precisely where or what that place was -- death. For him, Tiny Tim, whose parents could not support him and whose ill health made it impossible for him to become a good labourer for society, could simply die. When just before Christmas Scrooge was asked to make a contribution to help provide for the "Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present," people in the thousands lacking common necessities and in the hundreds of thousands wanting common comforts, he responded:

"Are there no prisons?"

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman laying down his pen again.

"And the Union Workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then? said Scrooge.

"Both very busy. sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

The gentlemen not giving up explained to Scrooge that such provisions hardly "furnished Christmas cheer of mind or body to the multitudes" and that they were collecting funds to give the poor "meat and drink, and a means of warmth." But again Scrooge refused to give saying he wished to be left along. He then said, in full Malthusian passion:

"I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned--they coast enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Dickens wrote a Christmas carol, that is a literary hymn about the birth of Christ. He wrote about the hope found in one child, a child who came for all children and, of course, all people, through the character of another child, a child who represented all those people without place or food, swept away by society. The first child, Jesus, represented the salvation of all people. The second child, Tiny Tim, represented all those in need of such a salvation.

We are reminded of the need precisely because of the neglect of all the poor, ill, broken-hearted. It becomes clear, even through our sweet Jesus and Tiny Tim, that if the salvation of all people is to actually include the poor, the suffering, the diseased, the weak, the dispossessed, the neglected, that that very salvation will have to cause the downfall of a way of life that both justifies and actualizes exclusion and neglect, a way of life which which is rooted in both the intellectual philosophies and the political policies of the day. We can be quite certain that such a salvation will be "spoken against", or more properly, "contradicted," and, no doubt, with force. With the vision of the people of grass in our minds and a crippled, ill, dying child in our hearts, we can hear the echoes of at least one contradictory voice: But are there no prisons, and Union Workhouses, and the Treadmill, and Poor Laws, and if that is not enough, then let them die, decreasing the surplus population.

Hope and warning are powerfully told when Scrooge met the Spirit of Christmas Present. As the evening passed the Spirit took Scrooge to homes where they stood besides the bedsides of the sick who, nonetheless, were cheerful. They visited those who struggled and were still patient living in great hope. They visited those who lived in poverty and were rich in spirit. And they visited the almshouses, hospitals, prisons where people experienced misery but had not "made fast the door and barred the Spirit out" thus allowing the Spirit to enter their misery and give the gift of blessing.

As the long night unfolded before him, time and space seemed to lose meaning for Scrooge, except that he noticed the Spirit was growing visibly older. He asked if life was so short for all spirits and the Spirit replied that his life would end that very night at midnight. As the chimes rang three quarters past eleven, with death approaching, hope turned to warning. Scrooge saw something in the folds of the Spirits clothing...

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here!" exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand toward the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit if for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end!"

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no work-houses?"

The bell struck twelve.

Dickens speaks with passion and power about the Spirit of Salvation. We sing the Spirit's blessings, for where he visits there is health, joy, home, and hope. Where the Spirit smiles, needs are met and comforts are offered. Dickens does not, however, sentimentalize the vision, for wrapped within the very clothing of the Spirit of Salvation is the misery caused by human thought and deed. We shutter when we realize that the grotesque monsters revealed are the results of human exploits. We reel at the creatures before us because they are in fact human beings and, once again, children. We desperately reach for a self-defense, any self-defense, when we are reminded that such human suffering is our responsibility. We ache when we see how the suffering cling to the Spirit and look upon us with fear.

Dickens would have us believe that the salvation offered in Christ's birth is a liberating power that necessitates change in our philosophies and policies. If we were to "keep Christmas well" we would experience the wholeness of salvation's blessings. We would be filled with joy and pierced through the heart. In this world, both must be ours.

In A Christmas Carol Scrooge is liberated. he learned to keep Christmas well:

Scourge had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, Every one!

Copyright © 2014 Dale Rominger

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[1] The movie makes some changes from the original text, of course. The film gives more backstory telling of Scrooge’s rise in the business world, adding the character of Mr. Jokin, Scrooge’s greedy and corrupt mentor. In the film Scrooge’s fiancés is named Alice and worked with the homeless while in the book her name is Belle and her work is not mentioned. And in the movie we are told that Scrooge’s mother died while giving birth to him which lead to his father’s resentment, that his sister Fran died while giving birth to her son, thus resulting in Scrooges distance from his nephew. In the book Fran is much younger than Scrooge and the cause of her death is not explained. See: “Comparison with source material”.