1The quote for the title of my paper comes from the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge, starring George C. Scott. The question, asked by a horrified Scrooge after witnessing the transaction between Old Joe and Mrs Dilber over his belongings, does not appear in the text, but I thought the word ‘perversity’ was an appropriate one to consider in the recesses of the mind when considering different ‘twists’ made in recent film adaptations of A Christmas Carol, namely Barbie in A Christmas Carol (DVD, 2008) and of course the Disney theatrical release starring Jim Carrey (2009). Both films target the ubiquitous ‘tween’ audience, the title character of the former being the obvious clue, and for the adolescent male, there is the ‘action flick’ nature of Scrooge’s roller coaster-encounter with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in the Disney version. Both would answer the question in the affirmative that Dickens’s work, at least in film adaptations, is still relevant today, and conventional wisdom would say that the above versions may encourage young people in particular to pick up the book and subsequently others by Dickens.
2The purpose of my paper, however, is not to analyze these movies but to discover where alternative versions of Dickens’s Christmas story may have begun before its evolution into numerous theatrical renderings. I contend that Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights holds up a ‘glass darkly’ to Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, amplifying the dark elements of humanity which Dickens would acknowledge more and more in later novels. With the popularity of A Christmas Carol (1843), which provided a blueprint for Christmas celebrations, it should not seem surprising that other writers may have relied upon the novel for creations of the ideal Christmas gatherings—including the Brontë sisters.
3In Jane Eyre, when Jane finds out that she is wealthy and related to the Riverses, she wants to have everything in readiness for when Diana and Mary return for Christmas. With Hannah, Jane engages in ‘such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas Cake, chopping of materials for mince pies, and solemnizing of other culinary rites’ (435). Michael Mason, in a note on the above, hints at a Dickensian influence: ‘The idiom and subject are reminiscent of Dickens’ (note 4, Ch. 8, 528).
4As has been pointed out by Barbara Hardy and others, ‘food has a special place in the novels of Dickens . . . eating and drinking are valued by him as proofs of sociability and gusto, but more important still, as ceremonies of love. . . . Good housekeeping is proved by nourishing and well-ordered meals’ (130). Specifically in A Christmas Carol, ‘The conversion of Scrooge is marked by his present of a goose to Bob Cratchit and his reunion at his nephew’s table’ (Hardy 130). The gathering of individuals at the table for that honored ritual of familial bliss—the meal—establishes a physical as well as psychological community for an individual like Jane Eyre, always longing to belong. For Dickens, both versions of community are enhanced when individuals actively participate in the preparation and display of food, assisting the ‘good housekeeper,’ the person ‘connected with an everyday productive life’ (Gose Jr 14).
5The young apprentice Scrooge, for example, while not able to make, as the Ghost of Christmas Past says, ‘these silly folks so full of gratitude’ (78) is still able to assist the host, Mr Fezziwig, in preparing for the communal Christmas gathering:
You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows [Dick Wilkins and Ebenezer Scrooge] went at it! . . .
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute . . ., the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry, and bright a ballroom, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night. (75–76)
6In the Cratchit household, the ‘good housekeeper,’ Mrs Cratchit, who, like old Fezziwig, has the ‘power’ to ‘render’ her family happy or unhappy as producer of food, does so with the assistance of her community:
Mrs Cratchit made the gravy . . . hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody. . . . (95)
7Despite the scenes of frivolity, plenty, and extension of ‘power’ from employer to employee and parent to child, Dickens reminds the reader that doorsteps away are ‘extreme poverty and despair’ (‘Victorian’ 11) but also that the established communities are made forever fragile, haunted by spectres of loneliness and isolation. Emily Brontë may have recognized this ‘message’ in Dickens’s Christmas writing and amplified it in her Christmas scene, often overlooked in her novel of dark human passion.
8The richest scene of plenty and comfort is that in Wuthering Heights’s kitchen on Christmas Eve. There, however, Nelly, the chief character able to produce comfort for others, like Mr Fezziwig and Mrs Cratchit, finds herself alone: ‘After . . . putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires befitting Christmas eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by singing carols all alone (emphasis mine, 95). As she smells ‘the rich scent of the heating spices; and [admires] the shining kitchen utensils, the polished clocks, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray to be filled with mulled ale for supper’ (98), all elements worthy of a Dickens Christmas tale, she is transported to the past, and, like Scrooge, when taken back to Fezziwig’s by the ghost, recalls a happier Christmas but also the beginning of the fracturing of her community:
‘I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand, as a Christmas box; and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him; and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad’s situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying.’ (96)
9As a good housekeeper, Nelly decides to repair the fractured community: ‘It struck me soon, however, there would be more in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears on them—I got up and walked into the court to seek him’ (96). Like Fan, who attempts to reintegrate neglected schoolboy Scrooge into the familial community where ‘“we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in the world”’ (74), Nelly seeks out Heathcliff in the stable and offers ‘“let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out—and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bed-time”’ (96).
10The young Scrooge attempts to create his own community consisting of his favorite literary characters such as Ali Baba; Scrooge explains, ‘‘One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come for the first time, just like that’’ (72). He also includes ‘what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus’ (72). Michael Slater explains the reference to a tale from The Arabian Nights, ‘The Story of Noor-ed-Deen and his Son, and of Shems-ed-Deen and his Daughter.’ The two brothers have a quarrel and become estranged. One eventually has a son, Hasan, and the other, a daughter. Two Genii transport the boy Hasan to marry the daughter who has been forced to marry ‘an ugly humpbacked groom of the Sultan’s’ (note 14, 258–259). In another instance of possible influence, Brontë has Nelly attempt to comfort Heathcliff by making up an oriental tale about his origins:
‘You’re fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week’s income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors, and brought to England.’ (98)
11Of course, community fails in Wuthering Heights and signs of some reestablishment appear only near the end with the impending marriage of Cathy and Hareton. Nelly literally steers Heathcliff and pushes him into the community formed by Hindley, Frances, Catherine, and the Lintons, but Hindley shoves ‘him back with a sudden thrust and angrily [orders] Joseph “keep the fellow out of the room—send him into the garret till dinner is over”’ (98). When Hindley explains that Heathcliff will ‘be cramming his fingers in the tarts, and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them a minute,’ he is expressing a fear that the communal meal, which Dickens ‘valued . . . as proof of sociability’ (Hardy 130) will somehow be tainted and ruin whatever sense of gathering he has in mind.
12What next ensues is Brontë’s dark rendering of Dickens’s Cratchit Christmas dinner. The Christmas goose is ‘Eked out by the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes’ (Dickens 95); apple-sauce is also present at the Earnshaw Christmas feast. After Edgar makes fun of Heathcliff’s hair ‘like a colt’s mane over his eyes!’ (99), Heathcliff seizes ‘a tureen of hot apple sauce, the first thing that came under his gripe, and dashed it full against the speaker’s face and neck’ (99). The murmurs of delight, the compliments to Mrs Cratchit, and Tiny Tim’s playful beating ‘on the table with the handles of his knife’ and his feeble ‘Hurrah!’ (95) are transformed into Isabella’s sobbing and Catherine’s shouting.
13Like the Cratchits, however, the Earnshaws recover their ‘equanimity at the sight of the fragrant feast’ where Hindley carves ‘bountiful platefuls,’ not before and amid expressions of love and gratitude, but after Heathcliff has been extricated and beaten. After whisking Heathcliff off following the apple sauce incident, Hindley returns ‘red and breathless’ after administering ‘a rough remedy to cool the fit of passion’ (99); there is a ‘breathless’ (95) pause of anticipation in the Cratchit family, but that is before the goose is carved. The ‘bustle’ (95) that occurs in the Cratchit house is created by excitement over the goose brought in from the bake shop. At the Earnshaw dinner, Hindley comes back from Heathcliff’s room, heated by his beating of Heathcliff and is now ready to eat: ‘“There, there, children—to your seats!” cried Hindley, bustling in. “That brute of a lad has warmed me up nicely. Next time, Master Edgar, take the law into your own fists—it will give you an appetite”’ (99–100).
14The feast of the Cratchits and the scenes of plenty revealed by the Ghost of Christmas Present are often cited in contrast to scenes of poverty as Dickens’s way of raising awareness of ever-present human suffering in society as a whole. I would also argue that even within the comfortable, intact communities he presents he reminds the reader that spectres of dissolution, loneliness, and separation can materialize at any time. After the toast to Scrooge as ‘Founder of the Feast,’ Scrooge becomes the ‘Ogre of the family,’ casting a ‘dark shadow on the party’ (98). While the family becomes ‘ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with’ (98), Dickens the social critic takes the opportunity to remind readers of the spectre which haunted him consistently and that he longed to cast out—child labor. Within the paragraph of the family’s relief of the memory of Scrooge, the Cratchits’ eldest daughter, Martha, ‘a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, [tells] them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch’ (98). These working hours almost prevent her from participating in the Christmas feast. She is late and she explains to her mother, ‘“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night . . . and had to clear away this morning”’ (93). The toll that the long working hours takes on Martha will affect her visit, diminishing her time with family as she means ‘to lie a-bed tomorrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passes at home’ (98).
15Perhaps the most gripping scene in A Christmas Carol which effectively conflates Dickens’s horror at child poverty and his city’s ‘solution’ is the revelation of Ignorance and Want: ‘From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. . . . Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too in their humility. . . . Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked; and glared out menacingly’ (108).
16Arthur Patterson writes ‘The prison-houses and labor laws create the downfall of community through the deforming effect of poverty on children. Just as Tiny Tim becomes a face of surplus, these children become the faceless mob of violence that accompanies poverty’ (175). I would argue that Tiny Tim is not so much a symbol of surplus, but in a novel with more covert social criticism, as in the case of Martha Cratchit, he is an example of the tenuous nature of the familial community in a system which does little to curb the effect of poverty on families. When the Ghost of Christmas Present predicts Tiny Tim’s future as ‘a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner,’ he foretells Tiny Tim’s death; the alternative would be a transformation into a figure like Ignorance and Want because of the possible collapse of his community into dire poverty. These children, Ignorance and Want, become dark reflections of Tiny Tim as they are introduced not long after Tiny Tim in the Cratchit household, and in both introductions, Scrooge’s works are cast back to him. When Scrooge shows concern about the ghost’s prediction of Tiny Tim’s future, the ghost counters, ‘“What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population”’ (97). When Scrooge asks if Ignorance and Want have any refuge, the ghost retorts, ‘“Are there no prisons? . . . Are there no workhouses?”’ (109).
17Once again, a look at Wuthering Heights shows an expansion of Dickens’s theme of the fragility of community. Heathcliff is introduced to the Heights just as Ignorance and Want are introduced to Scrooge ‘From under the foldings of [the ghost’s] robe’ (Dickens 108). From under Mr Earnshaw’s ‘great coat’ comes ‘a dirty, ragged, black-haired child’ (78) that causes discord in the Earnshaw community. Dickens writes that in the faces of Ignorance and Want, ‘devils lurked’ (108), and Heathcliff quickly metamorphoses into a demonic version of Tiny Tim. After the disastrous Christmas Eve dinner at the Heights, Nelly alone sets Heathcliff on ‘a stool by the fire’ (101), somewhat similar to Tiny Tim being ‘escorted by his brother and sisters to his stool before the fire’ (94–95). Tiny Tim’s lameness is reflected in Nelly saying that Heathcliff being ‘sick . . . could eat little’ (101), perhaps Brontë’s attempt to intrinsically link the characters, but the iconic ‘God bless us everyone,’ an expression of gratitude for and affirmation of community, is replaced by Heathcliff’s meditation on revenge and the further destruction of community at the exclusion of even the Old Testament, vengeful God:
He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands, and remained wrapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts he answered gravely—‘I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!’
‘For shame, Heathcliff!’ said I. ‘It’s for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.’
‘No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,’ he returned. ‘I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I’ll plan it out; while I’m thinking of that, I don’t feel pain.’ (101)
18Indeed, Heathcliff’s ‘bench’ in the kitchen becomes vacant when after hearing of Catherine’s marriage plans, he disappears to plan his revenge on the Earnshaws and Lintons.
19Dickens’s own novel of ‘disappearance,’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood provides compelling evidence of how his increasing social concern, compounded perhaps by a reading of Emily Brontë’s novel, may have tainted his favorite holiday. The storm that precedes the announcement of Edwin’s disappearance echoes that which takes place upon Heathcliff’s vanishing. Nelly tells Lockwood that at ‘about midnight, while we still sat up the storm came rattling over the Heights’ (125) with ‘violent wind’ knocking down ‘chimney-stacks’ (125). A Christmas Carol’s cozy Christmas with ‘the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchen parlours, and all sorts of rooms’ (99) is replaced in The Mystery of Edwin Drood by destructive forces. In remarkably similar language, Dickens writes that the citizens of Cloisterham, on Christmas Eve, see ‘chimneys topple in the streets’ a result of ‘violent rushes . . . rattling at all the latches’ ‘until midnight’ (183). Instead of families sitting down to Christmas feasts, the residents of Cloisterham, on Christmas morning, are ascertaining ‘the extent of the damage done’ (183).
20The plenty of Christmas is still present in Cloisterham with ‘Lavish profusion in the shops; particularly in the articles of currants, raisins, spices, candied peel, and moist sugar’ (170), but hard economic times have caused ‘An unusual air of dissipation’ and cheapness. In the bakery, there ‘is a poor little Twelfth cake that one would rather call it a Twenty-Fourth cake, or a Forty-Eighth Cake’ (177), and the Wax-Work, a popular attraction which can be seen ‘during Christmas Week only,’ has been set up ‘on the premises of the bankrupt livery-stable keeper up the lane’ (171).
21Given today’s failing economy and the resulting scaling back on Christmas shopping and celebration, it is perhaps no surprise that the values of kindness and charity are the chief elements retained in contemporary retellings of A Christmas Carol. Still, if one believes that the starting point of a re-imagining of Dickens’s work begins with Emily Brontë and then ends, for now, with a 2009 Disney film version, one might happily conclude that at least one of Dickens’s works will continue to inspire and impress.