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Scrooge's fears
Dec. 11th, 2018 10:23 pm
I recently saw a theater performance of "A Christmas Carol," which was performed as a one-person show. A lot of it was quoting Dickens' narrator in the book, so it was third-persony at times, but still had different voices for various characters.
This isn't specific to this production, and maybe is just a fluke of how my brain works, but it's interesting to me how the different chapters sort of build on each other, with Scrooge at first skeptical/freaked out when Marley appears, and by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come really terrified and determined to change his ways. Some of his "I will be a better person" starts before that, of course, but I think we're supposed to take away that the climax/biggest element in getting him to repent is the Future chapter, and in particular, the gravestone.
My question is...why? In particular, why that compared to, say, the Marley scene?
The future section tells us that, if things continue as they are, Scrooge will die alone and unloved, nobody will mourn him, people will steal his bed curtains, etc. Would Scrooge as portrayed at the beginning of the story actually...care about any of that? He's gonna be dead. Marley's death was similar, and Scrooge didn't seem to mind.
We also see the Cratchit family mourning Tiny Tim. This affects Scrooge, and that makes sense! Tiny Tim's fate is something that he can easily (in narrative) change by stepping in and supporting Bob. But in fact, Scrooge is so concerned about Tim that when he first meets him in the Ghost of Christmas Present section, he asks "what will happen" and the Spirit says "if things continue the way they are, Tim will die." Do we gain anything by seeing that "confirmed" in the bad future?
If I remember correctly, in the book Scrooge pleads with the spirit to say "whose name is that upon the stone, tell me this is just one possibility and not guaranteed to happen." The first part isn't exactly the same in the play, I think, but I'm guessing we're still supposed to infer "Scrooge is concerned that he was that dead guy he saw." (I.E. without context, his fear could be that the year on the stone is too close to the present, but I don't really think that's the point, and it's not like changing his behavior to be more moral is likely to make him any longer-lived.)
In contrast, Marley straight-up tells Scrooge, "I was neglectful to my fellow humans, and as a result, I'm cursed to bear this terrible chain and drag it around forever. If you don't shape up, you're gonna end up like me if not worse." This feels a lot more scary than "you will die and nobody will give a bleep." Like...everyone dies. And Scrooge doesn't seem the type to be concerned if people go about their business without him. Is he just too shocked at Marley's arrival to really process it? Is this just me projecting my thoughts/beliefs about afterlife/the infinite onto a cranky old businessman?
This isn't specific to this production, and maybe is just a fluke of how my brain works, but it's interesting to me how the different chapters sort of build on each other, with Scrooge at first skeptical/freaked out when Marley appears, and by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come really terrified and determined to change his ways. Some of his "I will be a better person" starts before that, of course, but I think we're supposed to take away that the climax/biggest element in getting him to repent is the Future chapter, and in particular, the gravestone.
My question is...why? In particular, why that compared to, say, the Marley scene?
The future section tells us that, if things continue as they are, Scrooge will die alone and unloved, nobody will mourn him, people will steal his bed curtains, etc. Would Scrooge as portrayed at the beginning of the story actually...care about any of that? He's gonna be dead. Marley's death was similar, and Scrooge didn't seem to mind.
We also see the Cratchit family mourning Tiny Tim. This affects Scrooge, and that makes sense! Tiny Tim's fate is something that he can easily (in narrative) change by stepping in and supporting Bob. But in fact, Scrooge is so concerned about Tim that when he first meets him in the Ghost of Christmas Present section, he asks "what will happen" and the Spirit says "if things continue the way they are, Tim will die." Do we gain anything by seeing that "confirmed" in the bad future?
If I remember correctly, in the book Scrooge pleads with the spirit to say "whose name is that upon the stone, tell me this is just one possibility and not guaranteed to happen." The first part isn't exactly the same in the play, I think, but I'm guessing we're still supposed to infer "Scrooge is concerned that he was that dead guy he saw." (I.E. without context, his fear could be that the year on the stone is too close to the present, but I don't really think that's the point, and it's not like changing his behavior to be more moral is likely to make him any longer-lived.)
In contrast, Marley straight-up tells Scrooge, "I was neglectful to my fellow humans, and as a result, I'm cursed to bear this terrible chain and drag it around forever. If you don't shape up, you're gonna end up like me if not worse." This feels a lot more scary than "you will die and nobody will give a bleep." Like...everyone dies. And Scrooge doesn't seem the type to be concerned if people go about their business without him. Is he just too shocked at Marley's arrival to really process it? Is this just me projecting my thoughts/beliefs about afterlife/the infinite onto a cranky old businessman?
