Referencing this for my school essay
A few different people have been observing that Scrooge begins to change more quickly in the book than is often shown in adaptations. The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come isnât the one crucial factor breaking his obstinacy, but rather a final message to drive home a point that Scrooge had already become receptive to. I want to trace the shape of Scroogeâs progress over the course of the book and see what it reveals. (There will be some âspoilersâ here, since the story seems fairly universally known even among those who are reading the book for the first time.)
After Marleyâs appearance, he is disturbed and discomfited, but still trying to hang onto denial and not face what heâs been told.
With Chistmas Past, adaptations often treat it like a psych session - see, you hate Christmas because you were so miserable during it. But in the book, that isnât the point at all. Scrooge sees times when he was unhappy as a boy, but he also sees what comforted him during those times - reading and imagination, which his adult self would dismiss asfrivolous and unprofitable - and recaptures his joy in those things. He sees times when he was happy, like at Fezziwigâs Christmas party. And he sees how heâs become the kind of person who made his younger self unhappy rather than happy, and how easy it would to be otherwise.
He sees himself asan unhappy child, and wishes that heâd been kinder to the young boy singing carols at the door. He sees himself happily employed with a kind, generous and personable employer, who could create a vastly more pleasant workplace climate at trivial expense, and wishes heâd been nicer to Bob Cratchit.
And then he sees Belle, and is shown that his unhappiness is of his own making and the consequence of hus own choices. His being the selfish, avaricious person he is is not the consequence of Belle breaking up with him; it is the cause of it. She saw him already becoming that person, and chose not to follow him in that path. Her choices left her a happy, loving and loved woman; his left him unhappy and alone. Scrooge cannot bear this, and rejects and fights the spirit rather than face it.
But he has nonetheless already begun to change. Whereas he initially did not want to go with Christmas Past (âa night of unbroken sleep would be more conducive to [my welfare]â), he willingly goes with Christmas Present and expresses the desire to learn and benefit. He sees people in all manner of circumstances, good and bad, choosing to take joy in each otherâs company and the comforts, small or great, around them. Many adaptations fail in this, focusing Scroogeâs attention on the idea that people dislike him (Mrs Cratchit; his nephewâs joke) but in the book Scrooge clearly greatly enjoys his nephewâs party, the nephew is being good-humoured and generous and expresses his goodwill towards Scrooge, and Scrooge doesnât mind the joke at all. He sees the Cratchits making the best of what they have, and how he is making their lives harder than need be. He sees, in many ways and places, how he could be making others happy and being happy himself, rather than making evrryobe miserable, and it is an appealing picture. And Present calls him out, several times, on his past words and sentiments, and Scrooge repents them.
By the time he meets the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come, he is already willing and prepared to change, and making deliberate plans to do so. The thing that I think is emphasized through the scenes with Yet To Come, as a driving home of the point, is that Scroogeâs actions up to this point have not only made him and others unhappy - they are an utter failure at getting Scrooge the one thing he had prioritized: wordly security, respect, and dignity. In Belleâs words, his turn to avarice in his youth was in hopes of avoiding the âsordid reproachâ that the world has for poverty. He was fine, and even pleased, with being feared rather than loved - what he did not want was to be patronized, despized, looked down on.
And now he sees where that got him! His business partners donât even care to attend his funeral. Men whose respect he hoped to have gained donât even give him a second thought, and for the brief moment they do, think ill of him (âOld Scratchâ is Victorian slang for the devil). His chambers and even his body are plundered (tomorrowâs reading is even more graphic about this, in some lines, than most adaptations). Heâs buried in an obscure, untended, weedy churchyard, because no one cares enough about him to make other arrangements. He has none of the worldly respect, regard, dignity for which he turned to money as a protector. Past and Present showed that he was wanting the wrong things; but Future shows him that he wasnât even achieving the things he thought he did want, amd was in fact achieving their opposite.
The point of Future, then, is not to convince Scrooge to change. He has already chosen that he desires to change. Future alone, without the earlier spirits, would be supremely ineffective; showing Scrooge that his servant and the people around him hate him, without first showing him that he can be happy and make other people happy, would only make him more of a misanthrope. This is not a âscare âem straight,â as some adaptations play it. The point of Future is as a final guard against backsliding, against regret: you are losing nothing by changing, because your current path is losing you even the paltry things you sought to gain by it.
Also, I hadnât really registered this on previous reads, but this is the very near future - the Christmas one year after the period of the book. This is never stated outright, but Christmas Present says of Tiny Tim, âIf these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race will find him hereâ - meaning, no future Christmas. And, in the visions with Christmas Future, Tiny Tim has died only a few days ago. In the words of Dante (paraphrased) âthe time was perilously short for turning.â The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come doesnât teach the lesson - thatâs the previous spirits - but he makes sure it sticks.
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So we've all heard of the "I Want Song" genre in musicals.
But what about the "Let's talk about the bitch behind their back like they're not in the room" song, or "singing s*** behing a bitche's back". There's a surprising amount of them.
"Belle" from Beauty and the Beast
"Scrooge" from Muppet Christmas Carol
"Maria" from The Sound of Music
"Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" from Grease
"You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from How The Grinch Stole Christmas
"Jackass In a Can" from Galavant
"Phony King of England" from Robin Hood
"Stepsister's Lament" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella
"Non-Stop" from Hamilton
And, of course, the man, the myth, the legend...
"We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Encanto
You can learn a lot about a character and story from what they sing versus what other people sing about them.
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my magnum opus
That is EXACTLY what went through everyone's heads when we saw that!!! It was sooo funny omg and Ebenezer is just SO CONFUSED- đđđđ
THANK YOU for gifting us with that amazing fic for Ballad of Avaritia AND for the gorgeous fanart!!
Poor, sweet, innocent Eben not knowing what the hell is going on. Past is just having fun!!!
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Wawawawa they're so babygirl and such!!
There's more to this canvas on my Twitter... something I couldn't post on tumblr đ«ąđ€
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Falin with Laois hair: Cute pixie cut!
Laios with Falin hair: HEEEEEEYEEEHYEEEHYEHYEH
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I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before
I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.
(1/2)
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