Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
One thing that has always disappointed me about the story, both in the book and the screen adaptations I've seen, is Scrooge's reaction at the end of the story. Not that he turns his life around, and not that he is transformed from a mean, small-hearted miser into a generous human being who learns the meaning of charity, but that he is transformed from a dispicable yet wholly recognizable character into a giddy, silly, prancing idiot. I would hate having the former in my life, but I'd secretly want to slap the latter.
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I am new to the forum, so please excuse me for jumping in.
First, the best version of A Christmas Carol made for the screen, or at least the best "Ebeneezer Scrooge" is the 1952 film starring Alistair Sim. I believe that film adds much to our understanding of the man. I might be prejudiced on two counts. First I think Sim was one of the great actors of all time, and second, I see elements of the story rarely expressed.
At the time of Dickens, economic Darwinism was a very popular attitude and the cut and thrust of business used very sharp weapons indeed. That was the world that Scrooge was living in.
However, when Sim quotes a joke, he chuckles a little, He is not really so hard hearted as usually described, but he is living in a world where any exposure of softness is exploited by his competitors.
It is also clear, and certainly a Puritan example, that Scrooge begrudged that softness even to himself. The other business people did not deny themselves the comforts of life, but they did deny them to their inferiors their inferiors.
As I see it, that is crucial to the story. Those others were knowing hypocrites and would never have done for the story. Scrooge was no hypocrite, but why not?
Did Scrooge believe if he showed a chink he would fail? Was he always aware of the hardships he was applying to others and felt he had to keep faith with those who were supplying him with so much?
Was he aware of just how close he was to the reverse?
To my mind, Scrooge was a good man in a bad world and the story was not illustrative of a bad world filled with good men. that seems more in keeping with the entirety of Dickens' work.
The ghosts need not be true, physical (sort of) manifestations, but true internal manifestations of his own true self. The turn was not really so surprising.
Yes, he had to exist in a pitiless world to accumulate his world. He feared poverty, as many did at the time, and this, and he was intelligent enough to be able to thrive in that world, or any other that he turned his hand.
Were the ghosts really just memories and emotions that were crowding to the surface? Was he coming to a conscious awareness of the world around him and coming to the knowledge that the wealth he had acquired might have been worth less than the coin to be found in human interaction?
I have more of a suspicion that Dickens was of the belief that Scrooge, rather than a unique character, a universal example, believing that the business of grasping at brass was crushing a humanity that existed deep within and most were aware of the hypocrisy and, deep down, cursed it.
That seems to be what Sim tried to present, and, If Dickens had written a longer book, may easily have illustrated far more clearly.
At least that is my opinion.