The Practice of Benevolence {A Reflection on Dickens' A Christmas Carol} by Karen S. Wiesner

The Practice of Benevolence

{A Reflection on Dickens' A Christmas Carol}

by Karen S. Wiesner

One of my all-time favorite stories is and always will be Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843. I imagine it's a story nearly everyone everywhere has heard in one form or another. For my part, I try to read the novella and watch one of the countless film adaptations every year around Christmas. Dickens wrote, "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it."

The messages in this story are timeless. I did an internet search asking what the major themes in this undeniable classic are, and almost none of the offerings that came up could focus on just one because there are so many good messages in this one little tale. Here's my attempt at coming up with a motif for the story:

The spirit of benevolence and goodwill toward our fellow human beings throughout the year is in the eternal need for compassion, kindness, and mercy to all, as well as the transformative power of change coming from within.

Benevolence is the disposition to do good, embodying a genuine desire to promote kindness, charity, and positive attitudes toward others along with an inclination to perform acts of goodwill or extend help to those in need. A benevolent person actively seeks opportunities to benefit others, often without expecting anything in return.

Our world and the people in it often aren't a very good reflection of that description, wouldn't you agree? Selfishness, putting one's desires first, despising one another because of our differences looks like the norm in this day and age--as, in truth, it was at the time Dickens wrote the story and probably has been all throughout time. Does this description of Scrooge (written 180 years ago!) from the narrator of the story sound like anyone you know? I can think of several (including myself) who fit some or all of the points:

"Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster… But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance..."

I thought it would be illuminating to explore the many good lessons taught, in quotes, by the characters in A Christmas Carol as they reflect on life. Draw what conclusions you will from each quote, but I think most of the truths are self-evident.

Jacob Marley's Reflections of Life:

“I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."

"...no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused!"

"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Fred 's (Scrooge's Nephew) Reflections of Life:

"...I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time...as...the only time I know of...when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave..."

“…his offences carry their own punishment… I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always."

Bob Crachit's Reflections of Life:

Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge’s nephew… "…he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard… 'If I can be of service to you in any way,’ he said, giving me his card, ‘…Pray come to me.' "Now, it wasn’t for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way..."

Ghost of Christmas Past's Reflections of Life:

"Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it…

 “What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!”

Ghost of Christmas Present's Reflections of Life:

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

“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!”

Ghost of Christmas Future's Reflections of Life (note: this ghost didn't actually speak out loud, but Scrooge inferred its intentions based on the things shown to him by it):

"Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! … No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge’s ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly! … He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him... “Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope! ... Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”

Ebenezer Scrooge's Reflections of Life:

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

Narrator's Reflections of Life:

"He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew…"

We live in a world that's ever in need of the very things that are least evident in it. Hatred, intolerance, and violence over things that shouldn't but inevitably and inescapably do divide us against our fellow human beings have become our daily bread. Every day, each one of us commits offenses against others in some way, shape, or form. As I reflect on this sad commentary, I often consider how much good benevolence would have on us and our world throughout the year, if only we practiced it.

Instead of fighting over all the wrong we see others doing, what if we as a whole didn't specify wrongdoing (as in transgressions, flaws, weaknesses, vices, and regrets) into its unlimited categories, instead generalizing wrongs as "wrongs"? We're all carrying around a big bag of those wrongs. If we didn't look inside everyone's "bag of wrongs", wouldn't we have to conclude that we're all equal in the eyes of God as well as each other? Would we then conclude--since we're all carrying around a bag of wrongs, regardless of what's inside--that maybe we should have compassion on one another and accept that we individually are not the only one in need of grace, forgiveness, and unquantified mercy? At that point, could we minister, show kindness and empathy for each other in the name of goodwill toward all? Consider also that, if we realize it's not our place to punish others for their perceived wrongs, a tremendous weight is lifted from our shoulders, leaving us free to pursue peace instead.

We're all on the road to death, and every single road in life inescapably leads to that conclusion. If we're all on even ground, then no one is better or more righteous than the next one, right? In the same vein, no one is more sinful than another either. We're all the same. If we each deserve unilateral hatred and scorn, then, by the same token, don't we all deserve unbiased love and tenderness? Shouldn't we then practice benevolence as our common ground? In this way, respect and courtesy could and should be given to every single person on the planet regardless of who we are and what's inside our particular bag of wrongs.

For as long as breath remains in our lungs, life in our bodies, blood in our veins, it's not too late to live out the benevolence of A Christmas Carol to the world around us every single day. In this way, we each do our part in sowing the world with life immortal.

Read A Christmas Carol free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm#link12.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

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On Character Growth

There's an essay on the WRITER'S DIGEST website called "The Importance of Character Growth in Fiction," by bestselling author Annie Rains:

Importance of Character Growth

She lists and discusses vital elements in showing the transformation of a character over the course of a story: Goal and motivation; backstory and the character's weakness or fatal flaw, arising from features of the backstory; the plot and how its events force the protagonist to struggle, plus the importance of pacing so that growth doesn't "happen in clumpy phases"; the "ah-ha" moment when the character realizes the necessity of taking a different path; importance of showing through action how the character has changed to be able to do "something that they never would have been able to do at the book’s start."

As vital as all these factors are, and as much as I love character-driven fiction myself, I have slight reservations about Rains's opening thesis: "If your character is stagnant, there is no story. . . . Your character should not come out of your plot as the same person they were before their journey began." Doesn't good fiction exist to which this premise doesn't apply? Classic detective series, for example. What about Sherlock Holmes? Hercule Poirot? Miss Marple? What about action-thriller heroes such as James Bond? Through most of the series, Bond survives harrowing adventures that would kill ordinary men many times over, with no discernible change in his essential character. (In the last few books, he does begin to change.) Even in stand-alone novels, as mentioned in the WRITER'S DIGEST essay to which I linked in my blog post on July 20, static characters (as opposed to the negative term "stagnant") have their place. In A TALE OF TWO CITIES, Charles Darnay doesn't change, whereas Sidney Carton does. In THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, the Russian submarine captain has already made his life-changing decision before the story begins and never veers from his goal. In A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Scrooge transforms, while Bob Cratchit is a static character. So, arguably, is Romeo, who's still the same impulsive, emotion-driven youth at the end of the play as at the beginning, thereby possibly triggering his own tragic end.

I'd maintain that, while Rains is self-evidently correct that a character's circumstances have to change in the course of a narrative, he or she doesn't necessarily have to undergo a transformation, depending on the genre. The character must either attain the plot's stated goal or fail in an interesting, appropriate way. Without a change in his or her situation, whether external, internal, or both, there's no story. But an internal transformation isn't a necessary feature without which "there is no story."

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Posthumous Unfinished Writings and Whether Characters Have a Life of Their Own

Last week I read TERRY PRATCHETT: A LIFE WITH FOOTNOTES, by Rob Wilkins, who worked as the Discworld creator's personal assistant for many years, right up to the end. Two points in this biography distressed me, as a reader, writer, and occasional literary critic. (Well, aside from knowing in advance about the sad conclusion, Pratchett's premature death from a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.) I reacted most strongly to the ceremonious crushing of the hard drive from Pratchett's computer, purposely obliterating his unfinished works. Pratchett ordered that his unpublished writings should stay unpublished and that there would be no posthumous Discworld fiction from other authors. Of course, an author has a right to express that wish and have it obeyed by his heirs. But utterly destroying every trace of those uncompleted stories? Very well, as per the author's instructions, don't publish them. However, I shudder at the thought of the loss to SF and fantasy scholarship. A library could have preserved them in an archival collection for academic study of Pratchett's work.

Some readers of Harper Lee's prequel to (or first draft of) TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD declared it should not have been published, that it only tarnished the reputation of her classic novel. "That isn't the point," I mentally screamed at the time. The point is the value of that prior work to scholars of her writing. Consider the abundance of posthumous publications and unfinished works by C. S. Lewis available to fans and academics. I would hate to have missed all that. And then there's the case of J. R. R. Tolkien, whose son spent decades compiling, editing, and releasing Tolkien's many surviving stories and fragments. What a loss to scholars and readers the withholding of that material would have been.

In one of my second-tier favorites of Stephen King's novels, LISEY'S STORY, I of course sympathize with the fictional bestselling author's widow, who has been constantly pestered since his death by academics demanding access to his manuscripts and other files. I also feel for those fictional scholars, though. While reading the book for the first time, I did wonder what the heck was taking her so long to get around to the obviously necessary task of releasing his papers for study. Granted, most of the people making those demands were portrayed as pushy, presumptuous, and often downright contemptuous of Lisey herself. I trust Pratchett scholars wouldn't act that way, and I mourn that we'll never know the contents of those destroyed files. If publication had been allowed, I would have paid a considerable sum to read even a fragment of a story about Susan Sto Helit as headmistress of her old school (one example mentioned in the biography).

Second and less important was a casual remark of Pratchett's quoted in passing, which nevertheless I felt like protesting. Once a fan asked him what Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork city Watch was doing in between two particular novels. Pratchett answered, "Nothing. I made him up." If a fictional character becomes vivid enough for readers to imagine he or she has a life outside the printed pages, isn't that a good thing? Pratchett himself certainly must have understood the fanfic-creating impulse, for he admits to perpetrating fanfiction at least once: As a teenager, he composed a PRIDE AND PREJUDICE rewrite set in the world of LORD OF THE RINGS. (It involved orcs.) Not only fanfic but also professional fiction attests to the irresistible desire to expand on the imagined lives of favorite characters.

I know of at least one novel speculating on what Heathcliff did in his years away from Wuthering Heights and how he made his fortune. A recently published book explores the wartime service of the March girls' father during the early chapters of LITTLE WOMEN. So many classic works leave gaps and unanswered questions. What was the full backstory of Bertha, the mad wife in JANE EYRE, and was she actuallly insane before Rochester locked her in an upstairs suite (not, as commonly said, the attic) with only one companion (THE WIDE SARGASSO SEA)? What happened to Ishmael after his rescue at the end of MOBY-DICK. (Jane Yolen recently published a YA novel spun off from that question.) What's the story of Captain Ahab's wife, fleetingly alluded to in Melville's book? There's a novel about her. In A CHRISTMAS CAROL, how do the events look from Marley's viewpoint? Several works have addressed that question. Why did young Ebenezer Scrooge's father detest him? (Ebenezer's mother couldn't have died in giving birth to him, as one classic film states, because his sister Fan is younger; if Scrooge senior was that bitter about his wife's death, he wouldn't have remarried.) Why is Ebenezer too "poor" to marry Belle right away? His father must have been prosperous, since he enrolled Ebenezer in an apparently respectable boarding school and eventually sent a carriage to bring him home; what happened to the family money? What happened to Fan's husband, the never-mentioned father of Scrooge's nephew? What is Tiny Tim's illness, which has to be something chronic but ultimately fatal and yet curable by nineteenth-century medicine? At the time of Scrooge's death in the future scenes, where is his nephew? It's hard to believe Fred, as portrayed in the present-day scenes, would ever give up on Uncle Ebenezer.

These are the kinds of questions deeply involved fans of stories ask. Speculating on the answers is a vital part of the fun of being a reader.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Modernizing Scrooge

Many of Shakespeare's plays have been transmuted into modern settings, such as WEST SIDE STORY (from ROMEO AND JULIET), SHE'S THE MAN (from TWELFTH NIGHT), and 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (from THE TAMING OF THE SHREW), not to mention at least one animated animal drama, Disney's THE LION KING (from HAMLET). Jane Austen's novels have become a source for modern romantic movies, e.g. BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) and CLUELESS (from EMMA). The classic film of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS was updated to the time when it was made (1950s) rather than its original 1890s setting.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL, of course, boasts a huge number of film adaptations, some of which have contemporary settings. Three movies illustrate different ways of approaching such a project: A DIVA'S CHRISTMAS CAROL obviously takes place in an alternate universe where Charles Dickens's novel was never published. Nobody in the cast seems to find anything odd about a Black superstar singer named Ebony Scrooge with a dead partner named Marley (one member of the female trio Ebony belonged to at the beginning of her career) and a manager named Bob Cratchit who has a sick child called Tim. Ebony has a niece, rather than a nephew, with whom she reconciles at the end. This retelling is fun and, in my opinion, surprisingly good. The characters in the comedy-drama SCROOGED, on the other hand, are thoroughly genre-savvy, being involved in a production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL themselves. Its star's happy ending has one feature most adapatations don't; he wins back his former lover, the movie's Belle substitute. AN AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CAROL, whose Christmas Present action occurs during the Depression, completely revamps the story with new names and backstories for the characters within the familiar basic plotline. Although the Scrooge figure, Ben Slade, is aware of the book, he hasn't read it. It's clear he's not much of a reader, especially given his decision to destroy the repossessed contents of a bookstore for the books' paper and leather components. When he glances through the novel, he pronounces it "claptrap" and is even more resistant to belief in spirits than old Ebenezer.

Of the three, I like the last one best. The Depression-era setting resonates with the wealth-and-poverty dichotomy of the original story's Victorian background. Ben Slade (played by Henry Winkler -- very effectively, too) has similar financial power over the less fortunate characters as Scrooge in Dickens's book. In fact, Ben has more power, since the action takes place in a small New England town, where he's virtually the only rich, influential person. The wintry landscape visually enhances the story, too.

Like many classics, A CHRISTMAS CAROL can be reimagined to a considerable extent while still keeping the fundamental plot and characters recognizable (Mr. Magoo? Mickey Mouse's Uncle Scrooge?), even if a modern milieu is chosen and requires omitting the "Bah, humbug!"

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt