Dickens and My First Grief

Ghost of Jacob Marley Closeup (Photo credit: Peter E. Lee)

On this day in 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story A Christmas Carol was published.

As a child, the story frightened me – all those ghosts, but I was troubled most by the ghost of Jacob Marley.

In life, Marley was the business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge. As teenagers, both had been apprenticed in business and met as clerks in another business. The firm of Scrooge and Marley was a nineteenth century financial institution, probably a counting house, as Marley refers to their offices as ‘our money-changing hole’. They have become successful bankers, with seats on the London Stock Exchange.

In A Christmas Carol, Marley is said to have died seven years earlier on Christmas Eve (as the setting is Christmas Eve 1843, this would have made the date of his passing December 24, 1836). It would be his ghost who would be Scrooge’s first visitor (before the three other spirits to come).

Marley’s ghost despairs at his inability ever to find happiness in the mortal world or the next. As he spent his life on this earth obsessing over money and mistreating the poor and wretched to fill his pocket, Marley is condemned as part of his “penance” to walk the earth for eternity never to find rest or peace, experiencing an “incessant torture of remorse.”

It’s Marley despair that frightened me when I was young. I grieved for him. His plight, his despair, his eternity – they all deeply troubled me. Marley was my introduction to suffering, deep, deep suffering. Marley was my first duel with hopelessness. To this day, I pity him.

 

Related articles

• A Christmas Carol (optimysticlivingevents.wordpress.com)
• Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost (1901) (publicdomainreview.org)

Your Address, Please

An address. We all have one: 55 Center Avenue., 12 Lily Drive, 36 Old Run Lane, 3 Pine Boulevard. The place where our lives unfold, where our children grow up, and where our diligence is invested is reduced to a combination of numbers and letters. My life deserves more than that.

Ever read the novel or see the movie Gone with the Wind? Scarlett, the story’s protagonist, doesn’t battle the hell of America’s Civil War for an address. She battles for Tara. Yup, her home is named Tara. Elegant and graceful, that name turns a house into a living, breathing, feeling persona.

Elrond, an elf king from JRR Tolkien’s novel The Fellowship of the Ring, doesn’t live at 8 Keebler Drive. He abides in Rivendell, a place of magic, history, and tradition. And Bilbo, Tolkien’s famed hobbit, spends his hours at Bag End.

Even Shakespeare’s greatest tyrant, Macbeth, went home to Inverness. Yes, Inverness ultimately houses a grisly murder, but I’d much rather be murdered in a place called Inverness. 13 Elm Street just doesn’t have the same charm.

This morning, I’ve been thinking what I could call my home. It’s a warm, welcoming, humble dwelling. It sits on a small swatch of property shaded by tall pines, silver birches, and mighty oaks. Perhaps, The Glade would be an appropriate name for my home. Or maybe, because it’s built on a knoll, Summers’ Hill would work well.

Still, I’m glad I can call it home. My wife is there. My children are there. Yes, home sounds good.

Wise, Brutish, and Hairy

Today, my eleventh grade literature students were tasked with a fun assignment. Each student was asked to link a person in our class to a literary character studied this year. The link could be made for any reason whatsoever as long as it was a logical, arguable, defendable link. They were free to link me, their humble instructor, to any of our studied character as well.

Most of my students seemed to think of me as their Gandalf.

Gandalf ( /ˈɡændɑːlf/) is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In these stories, Gandalf appears as a wizard, member and later the head of the order known as the Istari, as well as leader of the Fellowship of the Ring and the army of the West. In The Lord of the Rings, he is initially known as Gandalf the Grey, but returns from death as Gandalf the White.

JRR wrote the following about his character.

Warm and eager was his spirit (and it was enhanced by the ring Narya), for he was the Enemy of Sauron, opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles, and succours in wanhope and distress; but his joy, and his swift wrath, were veiled in garments grey as ash, so that only those that knew him well glimpsed the flame that was within. Merry he could be, and kindly to the young and simple, yet quick at times to sharp speech and the rebuking of folly; but he was not proud, and sought neither power nor praise… Mostly he journeyed unwearingly on foot, leaning on a staff, and so he was called among Men of the North Gandalf ‘the Elf of the Wand’. For they deemed him (though in error) to be of Elven-kind, since he would at times work wonders among them, loving especially the beauty of fire; and yet such marvels he wrought mostly for mirth and delight, and desired not that any should hold him in awe or take his counsels out of fear. … Yet it is said that in the ending of the task for which he came he suffered greatly, and was slain, and being sent back from death for a brief while was clothed then in white, and became a radiant flame (yet veiled still save in great need).

However, many students felt I resemble another character from Tolkien’s world. Evidently, I am quite similar to Beorne.

Beorn appears in The Hobbit as a shape-shifter (or, in the actual text, a “skin-changer”), a man who could assume the appearance of a great black bear. He is fierce, violent, and strong, but generally, thankfully, he is a force of good.

Finally, I have been cast as the old English hero, Beowulf.

The protagonist of the epic Beowulf, Beowulf is a Geatish hero who fights the monster Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. Beowulf’s boasts and encounters reveal him to be the strongest, ablest warrior around. In his youth, he personifies all of the best values of the heroic culture. In his old age, he proves a wise and effective ruler.

Well, it seems my students think me wise, brutish, and hairy.

Happy thanksgiving!