Christmas Carol Myth

I just heard a recording of the story “A Christmas Golem,” by David Grimm. Worth checking out, for its ideas. “A Christmas Golem” is a disturbing take on the Christmas Carol redemption myth. I had never thought of it this way, and now the myth has been shifted forever.
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Myths are stories groups of people use to explain who we are and what we believe. Myths do not have to be false – most myths are based on a historical truth and essential human forms of thought (Barthes, Levi-Strauss). Myths which are not related to actual people or events are usually related to actual behavior. They express and imitate the choices we make or the circumstances we find. The Christian Bible is very mythical, even (or especially) when the the stories have historical truth. These stories are myths for many reasons:

1. They were passed down by many people before they were ever written, and are shared by a group of people (if you are the only one who believes it, then it is not a myth yet)
2. They have a core narrative (plot) and morality that almost everyone interprets similarly (I don't mean everyone interprets everything in the Bible similarly, only these certain stories)
3. They have details and descriptions that everyone interprets differently
4. They can be re-interpreted in different media and context, yet keep the same core meaning.
5. The original people or events are less important than the meaings we now create for them – and we adjust those meanings to suit our own purposes

A Bible example: “Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors.” Most Christians have heard this story, but cannot name the chapter it appears in (Genesis, chapter 37 -- I had to look it up). And most Christians understand something of the moral behavior we’re supposed to learn from it. And the story can be represented in many different ways (a broadway play, a children’s coloring book) and still be easily recognized. And English-speaking Christians don’t care that the original Hebrew, “kethoneth passim,” probably meant “striped coat.” And everyone imagines and draws the colors of the coat in a slightly different way. The variations don’t matter, because the core of the story is strong: favoritism, vanity, jealousy, betrayal, sympathy, redemption, forgiveness. This story can be used by anti-slavery abolitionists (1840), psychotherapists (1910), peace-rally hippies (1969), country musicians (1971), and anti-sweatshop campaigns (2005). Myth is very solid, and very flexible.
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• (By contrast, The Book of Mormon is not mythical, because it’s ideas were never passed down before being written, its stories are restricted to the actual words in the book, and the original meaning is considered [by LDS] to be superior to reinterpretations. Now, I’m not judging accuracy one way or the other. Just because the book is not myth does not prove it is “true”; one of the most common misunderstandings of myth is that it is opposite of truth. Falsehood is opposite of truth. For example, If I say my 1996 Tercel is beautiful, that’s not a myth. It’s just a lie.)

Though A Christmas Carol has a more recent origin than most myths (Charles Dickens, 1843), it is by now completely mythic for us. A Christmas Carol is myth because it has a widely understood core narrative and core morality. People understand without the actual book – most people have never read it, and most variations use few of Dickens’ words. The meaning today is not the same as Dickens intended, but that doesn’t prove we’re wrong. It proves the Christmas Carol story no longer belongs to Dickens. It is a myth that belongs to all.
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So there are versions that claim authority through the author, maybe even using his name (Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol). Other versions claim authority with “accuracy” – they use Dickens-era costumes (starring Patrick Stewart) or dialect (starring George C. Scott). But most dismiss authority altogether. Because the truth is people don’t mind weird variations, as long as the core is there. That’s why it is usually presented as an animal cartoon, a “modernization,” or a musical (Muppet Christmas Carol, Flintstones Christmas Carol, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Christmas Carol: The Movie, Scrooge, Scrooged [my favorite], a couple dozen total). Even How The Grinch Stole Christmas is a recognizable variation on the Christmas Carol myth.
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That brings me to “A Christmas Golem” (A Golem is a creature from Jewish myth, something like Frankenstein’s monster but made of dirt or clay; sometimes vengeful and sometimes uncontrollable). A jewish shop owner, Ebenezer, narrates a tale of what Christmas means to him.
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Synopsis:

• Ebenezer’s business partner, Jacob, dies. So Ebenezer hires Robert, who is not Jewish but is a decent worker. Soon after, one morning, the shop window is smashed and a dead, bloody dog is on the desk. “What has been done to our shop!” says Ebenezer. “Your shop, not mine,” answers Robert. Ebenezer is disturbed but continues his daily work. On Hanukkah, Ebenezer says he’s taking the day off. Robert asks, “so do I get Christmas off, too?” Ebenezer says there’s work to do, so Robert can have Hanukkah or Christmas off, but not both.
  
• Robert doesn’t show up on Hanukkah. That night, Ebenezer is attacked at home by a man in a hooded white robe calling himself The Ghost of Christmas Past – which makes Ebenezer think of the Dickens story. This “Ghost” ties Ebenezer to the bed, and says he must pay for the past sins of his people. The Ghost leaves him tied up all the next day. The next night, a man in a white robe calling himself The Ghost of Christmas Present comes and smacks him with a crucifix.
  
• And the following night, The Ghost of Christmas Future “relieves himself” on Ebenezer. This last Ghost swears to choke Ebenezer to death unless he converts to Christianity and tithes to the church mission instead of the Jewish temple. Ebenezer feels like he’s betraying his dear mother, but agrees to convert. He returns to work, and on Christmas Robert again is not at work. Ebenezer doesn’t say a word, and attends church every week. He lives as “a good Christian.” But feels uncomfortable every time someone mentions A Christmas Carol.

So I got to thinking about the Scrooge character, and looked up stuff about him. Craziness. Turns out Scrooge is very similar in appearance and speech to another infamous Dickens character, Fagin from Oliver Twist. Fagin is “as vicious a Jewish character as had appeared in the pages of fiction” (Levi) (though Dickens never intended “to hurt the Jew,” his book was cherished by racists). Both of these characters fit the Jewish stereotype popular among the Christians of Edwardian England. “a very old, shriveled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair,” is how Dickens described Fagin. Alec Guinness as Fagin (1948):
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• “spoke in a droning lisp and appeared with hooded eyes and an enormous prosthetic hook nose. The look was modeled on George Cruikshank's illustrations for the novel's first edition, but it also resembled anti-Semitic caricatures in Der Stürmer, the weekly newspaper that had been published by Julius Streicher in Nazi Germany.” (Gross, New York Times)

Dickens grew up thinking of Jews as dishonest greedy “rascals,” he met some of them much later, and came to recognize his own reliance on discriminatory stereotype. The first edition of Oliver Twist was full of reference to Fagin as “The Jew,” which he deleted from the 1867 edition we use today. The professional, physical, and clothing descriptions of Scrooge mirror Fagin, and Scrooge is in what was at the time an almost exclusively Jewish occupation – money lending.
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In A Christmas Carol, Dickens never calls Scrooge or anyone else a Jew. But the very first stage productiona year later had the line “worse than any other Jew that ever lived” (Annotated Christmas Carol, p. 152). Various stage and screen portrayals have relied on anti-Jewish stereotype for the “stingy” Scrooge:
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• “a well dressed older man with a large hook nose and a shock of long white hair” (Well & truly Scrooged);
• “he seemed to be a very angry Scrooge. He looked like Punch from a puppet show, stooped with a hook nose” (starring Patrick Stewart).

In cartoons, maybe this emphasis on the nose is why Scrooge McDuck, Mr. Magoo, and Gonzo, all with big noses, are very effective as Scrooge. Because Scrooge has become Dickens’ most well-known/mythical character, the Scrooge persona influences portrayals of other quasi-Jewish Dickens characters, good or evil (Fagin, Sikes, John Barsad/Solomon Pross, Riah, Wopsle), and vice versa. And because of the explicitly Christian content of A Christmas Carol, it is now difficult for me to imagine Scrooge as a gentile. In popular culture, it is common to hear those who do not participate in Christmas characterized as “Scrooges,” and in terms of “holidays,” Jews are the ones Christians think of as celebrating a different holiday (Hanukkah) (note: Kwanzaa is fairly well-known, but much less visible, and those who dislike it seem to outnumber those who actually celebrate it).
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This seems confusing, let me explain the myth a different way. Think of a “typical” person who does not celebrate Christmas. What might this (imaginary, typical) person be like? There are three possibilities:
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• A Scrooge
• A Jew
• A politically-correct Atheist

I know there are other possiblities – we have a few million Muslims, and also Hindus, Sikhs, Pagans, etc. But with myth, it is not so important what their numbers are. What I'm talking about is collective imagination, and our media society represents this in mass media. Practicing Muslims are underrepresented in all media; on television they constitute about 0% of characters. Any other group is imagined as separate (even though in reality they are not separate) from the debates about nativity displays, signs reading "Merry Christmas," or other issues. (I do not support the underrepresentation of Muslims. One reason I'm interested in media is to find ways to create more democratic and inclusive images.)
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The three possibilities of a typical non-Christmas person (mentioned above) directly relate to what solution society imagines for these debates. If dealing with a Scrooge, maybe society thinks the solution is "Christmas spirit" and generosity. This was Dickens' original solution. If dealing with a Jew, maybe society thinks the solution is Hanukkah celebrations or menorah displays. If dealing with a politically-correct atheist, maybe society thinks the solution is mockery and insults during television talk shows. Such condemnation of "politically correct" "takeovers" is the topic of Bill O’Reilly’s highly-rated War on Christmas and other shows with similar marketing slogans.
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What surprised me about the “Christmas Golem” story is that it mixes our present-day solutions for non-Christmas people with Dickens-era solutions. In 2007, few people would consider trying to convert Jews as they celebrate Hanukkah. Maybe Mormons, but that’s it. And in 2007, few people would consider tying up Jews and violently attacking them. Maybe a few neo-Nazis or Ku Klux Klan, but that’s it (to be clear, Mormons are not like Nazis! I’m just saying how uncommon these practices are now).
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However, before 1843, coerced conversion and violent attack against Jews was not only common, it was legal in most European countries. Dickens would have read newspaper stories about coerced conversion and attack against Jews. Most importantly, not all three categories of non-Christmas people (a Scrooge, a Jew, and a politically-correct atheist) existed in the popular imagination. The Scrooge myth did not exist because Dickens had not invented it yet; political-correctness did not exist, and about 0% of England’s population was atheist. So the only category left?
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• A Jew

Before Dickens popularized the idea of private family dinners during Christmas, the day was celebrated with the whole community. In England, it involved festivals and public spaces – more like the way Americans currently celebrate Fourth of July. In 1843 London, if you did not celebrate Christmas, that was probably because you were Jewish. And if you were Jewish, that probably meant you were a money lender, a lawyer, or an entertainer (the Church of England at times prohibited Christians from lending money, and limited Jews to few occupations). Dickens' solution may have been less appealing if you were Jewish. Almost a century later, the few British supporters of Nazism used Dickens’ Fagin character to support their claims about “greedy” Jews.
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I am not suggesting Grimm’s retelling is an “accurate” version of the story. Obviously it is not. I am not suggesting Scrooge is Jewish. His nephew is obviously Christian. But considering the anti-semitic power of Fagin, there may be an unconscious anti-semitism in Dickens’ story. At the same time, there is a strong secular impulse – through the entire book, there is no mention of Jesus Christ or any biblical myth.
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There is, instead, a focus on money as a way to define people and express feelings. Dickens was at the time criticized for depicting Scrooge’s turkey as generous (Annotated Christmas Carol, p. 153). According to the logic of workers’ rights, business owners owed debts to those they had taken advantage of. One turkey would hardly compensate for a decade of exploitation. And the cost of one turkey could hardly be a financial sacrifice for Scrooge -- especially compared to the generous donations to the poor advocated by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Ghandi, and Mother Teresa. But whether you are feeling anger, greed, guilt, generosity, or “Christmas spirit,” A Christmas Carol teaches us that commerce is the means to redemption (“…and I'll give you half-a-crown!," says Scrooge, assuming this child has nothing better to do on Christmas that become an errand-boy).
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Scrooge is redeemed and gives Cratchit a raise. Then, Scrooge continues work much as before, though Scrooge’s money lending business is exploitative. Dickens does not, for example, have Scrooge volunteer at a hospital, or work as a financial counselor for the poor. It is safe to assume Scrooge will still make a large profit from his money lending. The main difference now is that he will spend money (on employees or products) instead of saving it.
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Rather than converting Jews, commercializing Christmas seems to be Dickens’ focus. This focus has only grown since then. The human elements of the characters diminish, but their stereotyped, financial cores remain (just try to describe the characters without mentioning money). Without such concepts as love, spirituality, and community celebration, this myth may marginalize practicing Christians as well as non-Christians (Jews, Muslims, and everyone else). On the other hand, anyone with cash can join in the Christmas spirit. Retail corporations themselves? They don't care what the sign says, as long as we spend money.
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As a friend always says, I analyze things to death. A Christmas Carol is still a good story. God bless us every one.