Scrooge in A Christmas Carol

Call for Change: Dickens’ Attempt to Improve Society, and Walt Disney’s Subversion Thereof

In a time in which the significance of Christmas gradually started to change, Charles Dickens, in accordance with these changes, wrote a Christmas tale: A Christmas Carol. The novella was published six days in advance of the Christmas celebrations of 1843; it was sold out three days later. Although a socially engaged narrative, Dickens’ work is not occupied with trivialities such as the introduction of Christmas cards; instead A Christmas Carol focuses on the transforming beliefs and values within society and endeavours to contribute to these changes.

A hundred and forty years later, the story was (once again) retold: The Disney film studios presented Mickey’s Christmas Carol, an animated children’s film. Despite the cartoon’s innocent presentation (portraying famous Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck), it would ironically appear to undermine Dickens’ efforts to create a more humanist society by inserting the orthodox phenomenon of Hell. In order to illuminate indicated subject-matter, this essay will first focus on the transformations depicted in Dickens’ novella prior to discussing how Mickey’s Christmas Carol would appear to subvert them.

The most striking transformation dealt by A Christmas Carol is, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge’s. In his essay, “Stalking the Figurative Oyster: the Excursive Ideal in A Christmas Carol”, Craig Buckwald likens Scrooge’s transformation to that of a closed oyster that opens itself to reveal the beautiful pearl that was hidden within the rough crust all along. Buckwald supports his theory by drawing the attention to the manner in which Scrooge abominates his fellow man...

... middle of paper ...

...e, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. London: Joseph Mawman, 1815.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Penguin Group, 2007

Education.jhu.edu. Ed. Renée Fuller. 1990. Johns Hopkins University. 18 October 2013 < http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/lifelonglearning/early-childhood/childrens- literature/>

Jaffe, Audrey. “Spectacular Sympathy: Visuality and Ideology in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.” PMLA 109 (1994): 254-65.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Dir. Burny Mattinson. Perf. Alan Young, Wayne Allwine, and Hal

Smith. DVD. Walt Disney Productions, 1983.

Newey, Vincent. The Scriptures of Charles Dickens. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited,

2004

Yenkins, Ruth. Reclaiming Myth of Power: Women Writers and the Victorian Spiritual

Crisis. London: Associated University Presses, 1995.