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What was Dickens trying to say ?

Auguste | 21.12.2001 19:26

"A Christmas Carol" is probably the most falsfied piece of classic literature.

Adaptations of Dickens' story appear regularly in the media. Animations, pantomime, 'authentic' pageants, 'modernised' travesties, all obscure and dilute the point Dickens was trying to make, some deliberately so.
Not that most of Dickens work has been misused in this way, but "A Christmas Carol" has long been used for consumerist "spend-it" propanganda, when in fact, the story is a satire on POLITICAL ECONOMY, particularly on ROBERT THOMAS MALTHUS, whom Ebeneezer Scrooge may possibly represent.
Malthus is chiefly responsible for the notion of unlimited population growth, and is still occasionally in vogue, esp among starnds of the Greens. All ostensibly unproductive, 'excess' population is a burden upopn the health of the economy, and the 'surplus' is best left to wither away.
The implications of such reasoning (which gave rise to the Workhouse, Transportation, &c) horrified Dickens as much as Marx, the latter who departed from his usually measured texts to call Malthus a "Wretch".
Indeed. Marx had his own solution for this kind of policital economy, but Dickens was more hopeful (or naieve ?). The answer for Dickens lay in generosity to your fellow man, not condemning him and calculating his 'worth', or lack thereof. Tiny Tim is the main victim in the story (and beneficiary of Scrooges change of heart.)
The irony is that Christmas is actually 'humbug' (hypocrisy). Yesterday, the British Tree Growers Association reported christmas-tree sales up by 5.6%, exactly the kind of attitude that appalled Dickens so much, but perhaps we can concede that the festival was still a genuine event in the early 1800s. Of course it doesnt have to be christmas at all. Anytime is the time to start if you've spent your life condemning others and want to change, and bring some benefit to others.

Auguste