Christmas Stories - Charles Dickens

"...and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"

Last year around this time I focused on one of my ironic choices for Christmas reading by discussion what I consider to be the antithesis to Dickens; James Joyce's The Dead, but in the charitable spirit of the season I think I will break my miserly tradition and embrace the tale which has come to define, in more ways than one, the Spirit of the Christmas season.

Whenever we think of Charles Dickens, especially around December, immediately images crop up of faces in door knockers and frail children making exclamations of blessing. I enjoy a hearty rendering of A Christmas Carol as well as the next bloke, but I get the sense that our preoccupation with Ebenezer Scrooge's humbugging often obscures Dickens' literary preoccupation with the meaning of Christmas. This is not to downplay one of the Victorian author's most iconic tales; in fact, I almost feel that many of Dickens' other Christmassy short stories are searching for some kind of meaning in the winter holidays; a search that reached its culmination in the message of generosity and kindness that has come to epitomize nearly every piece of Christmas entertainment since the composition of A Christmas Carol. Indeed, one can find Ebeneezer Scrooge in any number of cinematic and literary incarnations from Dr. Seuss' Grinch to National Lampoons' Clark Griswold. Some of these incarnations are more overt than others but all point to the profound effect that Dickens' Victorian holiday narrative has had upon the cultural discourse of the English speaking world.

What one must, of course, consider here is to what extent we are willing to accept this particular holiday message. Most people will agree that the progression of Scrooge's character from miserly grouch to generous chap is a positive message for anyone during the Christmas season but we have to wonder if this particular narrative coincides or muscles out the intended meaning of the Christmas Holiday. The term holiday of course is an old portmanteau of Holy Day; a day reserved for the catholic (and later Anglican) Christ's Mass which was a period of community celebration that fit nicely into the December church calendar.

The importance of this holy-day, of course, was the celebration of the incarnation of the Christian messiah; the moment at which God committed a part of himself to earthly existence in order to demonstrate to humankind the significance of his willingness for self-sacrifice on their behalf. While the life of Christ as we understand it in the gospels certainly demonstrated values that undoubtedly align themselves with Dickens' narrative, the holiday itself seems to represent a significantly different narrative. At what point does our appreciation for God's mercy become supplanted by a sense of social generosity? According to some sources (and admittedly I have not done much research beyond wikipedia. So sue me) it is with Dickens.

Of course it would be too much to blame the prolific Victorian author with the sad slide toward the commercialization of a formerly sacred holiday but the circumstances surrounding this shift must make one think. That said, I cannot in my right mind diminish the importance of a holiday that emphasizes a general sense of unselfishness. Perhaps this is the way in which we may justify the holy-day to the holiday. In either case, on a literary level I must admit that I'll never stop reveling in the lush spirit of Dickens' Christmases, past, present, and future and the ghosts, holy or otherwise, that descend upon us with the snow of late December.

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

"I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering has been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be."
or
"I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her"


Oddly enough this week I am choosing to blog about a book that is not in my bookshelf, despite the fact that I've read it twice. The first time I had borrowed it from a now ex-girlfriend. The second time I'm pretty sure I had my own copy but now have no idea where it ended up. In either case the novel is a fantastic tale of misguided idealism and one that resonates particularly well after high school breakups (at least I can say so from personal experience). I could review a number of interesting and not-so-interesting topics along this vein but in reference to last week's post, today I want to further discuss the effects of serial publishing on our whole view of a novel.

It is widely known that Dickens wrote two endings to his novel. The first was stark and not particularly uplifting but stoically committed to Dickens' overall tone throughout the novel. The second, on the other hand, is what some might call a 'Disney' ending which makes the audience feel good despite the fact that it appears to compromise the moral system that the rest of the narrative seems to establish (one last thing: I must warn you before you read on that the rest of this blog is one big spoiler).

These two endings revolve around the narrative significance of the callous and enigmatic Estella, a woman whom the main character Pip grows to idealize far beyond the reality that continues to smack him in the face with a leather glove despite his persistent belief in her near-divinity. Plainly put Estella is a bitch, yet she is that special kind of bitch that somehow becomes more and more compelling the more she acts this way. Undoubtedly all of my male readers (if there are any) understand what I mean and just as us guys still can't figure out why pursue these women so Dickens and his audience appear to have been unsure of where to place her.

With a character like Estella Dickens presents an interesting set of narrative choices. Since Great Expectations is essentially a bildungsroman (or a coming-of-age tale) Pip's interaction with Estella can be resolved in a few ways: either he grows out of his childish infatuation or Estella grows out of her bitchiness in order to see Pip for the good man he has become. These are Dickens' primary conclusions but we also have another set of unused alternatives: one being that neither character progresses (which Dickens is of course an astute enough author to avoid such a lack of character development), or both progress into an ideal and thus marriageable state (which of course is the FULL realization of the Disney ending. An ending which, fortunate for us, was quite far fetched for the bleak cultural and literary landscape of Victorian England).

So we are left with our two choices: either Pip grows up or Estella grows up. It is worth noting that the former was Dickens' first published ending (for a full analysis of both endings I found this little site). As a scorned lover this remains the ending that most resonates with me because rather than attempt to redeem either character Dickens commits himself to seeing the fates of both Pip and Estella through to their just desserts. I can't say that I advocate the suggestion that Estella's husband beat her and it is somewhat disappointing that Pip ends up growing old a single man, but this ending represents a whole and unflinching moral code that is unwilling to redeem characters so irrevocably sullied by their own selfishness: of course I don't want to see Pip or Estella suffer, but I can't accept a bright future in light of their respective pasts.

Yet the second ending appears to throw this entire line of logic out of the window. If you reference the link above you will notice that Dickens changed his ending on suggestion of not only his audience but that of Wilkie Collins as well. I can't help but feel somewhat strange that an author as prolific as Dickens was influence in the construction of his narrative by a still decent but clearly lesser artist. But then again this whole mutability of a work of literary art brings us back to the issue of serial publishing. As mentioned last week, an author like James Joyce would hardly let another soul view his work until it was complete in its entirety since the calculated integrity of the whole was essential to its aesthetic impact. Dickens, on the other hand, knew he was playing to a crowd and despite my wish to believe that such an author is willing to martyr himself rather than compromise his own art, with this particular author we have no such ability.

Dicken's second ending to Great Expectations leaves its readers with the notion that Pip and Estella, despite the chapters upon chapters that have exposed the major flaws in both characters, will spend the rest of their lives together. This ending apparently satisfied Dickens' reading audience much better but the question is, why? Could it be that, like so many uber-nerds responding to each and every modern comic book movie, they simply want a hand in shaping their favorite narratives? Is it because we have some draw to a romantic conclusion to every novel we read despite the fact that the entire narrative has been anything but romantic?

I suppose the question that I have begun asking myself is: is this ending as satisfying as we tend to believe that it is? Most critics tend to find that the original ending is more consistent with the rest of the work (which says a lot for a serially published novel) and though I tend to agree, my goal in this discussion is not to try to reach an ultimate answer in the debate but to speculate as to why two endings exist at all. We have established that the first ending seems to serve karma while the second seems to serve a simpler pop-media agenda. But if Charles Dickens himself is willing to claim that "Upon the whole I think it is for the better" there must be more to it.


The first ending unabashedly understands Pip and Estella to represent two irreparably flawed characters and though we might initially believe that a marriage between the two might suggest a form of redemption it might not be the case. Dickens' revised ending still shares the kind of tragic tone and faded virility of the original suggesting that despite the fact that both Pip and Estella appear to have grown through their experiences they are both tragically flawed characters (Pip through his selfishness and Estella through her cruelty). If this is the case then they don't represent an ideal couple (in fact Joe and Biddy are much more representative of unsullied innocence and thus it makes sense that Pip is barred from access to Biddy) but they do appear to be made for each other. Pip may not see 'any shadow of parting from her' but that may simply be because, at this point in their fallen lives they are forever linked in a shared aesthetic impotence that is the ultimate (moreso than the original ending) comeuppance for their wasted lives.

Charles Dickens and Serial Publishing

"There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."

In any modern composition class a professor is likely to heavily emphasize the importance of repeated revision in order to perfect the final product of a piece of writing. Though I myself am guilty of limited revision (this blog may be a sad example of this) I've always known how much better any given essay, poem, or short story can be if it is revised. In fact I have a small novella that's been cooling somewhere in the basement of my hard drive for a number of years that is still in desperate need of revision. But ultimately what can make this valid bit of wisdom unstable is the strange anomaly of authors like Charles Dickens. Though he is one of the most prolific English novelists of the Victorian era his writing context essentially removed him from our conceptions of revision.

Top to Bottom: A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Stories, David Copperfield, David Copperfield (again, an old copy), Hard Times, The Old Curiosity Shop (and Hard Times in one volume, another old copy), and Oliver Twist (I apologize for the poor image quality. I was in a hurry this morning).

I would like to first point out a few technical items:
1) The first is, though Dickens takes up a considerable amount of space on my bookshelves, as you can see from the above photo, I must tragically admit that I've read far less of him than I own. I of course LOVE Great Expectations, but beyond Hard Times and A Christmas Carol and some of his other Holiday short stories I simply haven't been willing to devote the considerable chunk of time and mental energy to tackle another one of Dickens' monolithic volumes
2) I am glad to say, however, that Dickens is another one of those authors that I enjoy a particular amount of context for. Of course I've read a great deal of Victorian literature since I had once considered specializing in it, but I have also had the pleasure of visiting Dickens' house during my time in London and having the opportunity to understand more profoundly the literary figure that he cut during his time. In many ways I consider Dickens to be England's version of Mark Twain. In either case I got to collect this fantastic Jacob Marley door knocker at the museum's gift store, an ornament that now decorates my office/library door.

My brass Jacob Marley door knocker, just as he first appears in the book. At this point his face is described as having "a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar." On the plate beneath the face is the sculpted shape of a lobster...

Now back to that revision issue: Part of Charles Dickens literary significance lie in his genius scheme to market his writings. Dickens himself ran and published a periodical pamphlet containing one or two chapters of his current novels. In the Victorian period this did two things: first it made his stories accessible to a wider audience at a time when books and bindings were luxuries enjoyed solely by the bourgeois.  Secondly it allowed him to cash in on every chapter of a novel which, despite the constraint this put on him to produce stories at a rapid pace also provided motivation for drawing out his stories as much as possible especially once an audience had been hooked (there are countless examples of this in modern media albiet to significantly less literary merit. I'm looking at you, J.K. Rowling). This clearly is the root cause for the now massive and imposing books with Dickens' name on the spine (which is interesting since neither he nor his contemporary readers would have even seen his novels published in this way).

But if we compare this style of composition to modern methods we find that Dickens was uniquely capable of performing a rather intricate task. Whereas a novelist like James Joyce would never let a publisher even view his novel until it had been perfected in its complete form Dickens would write his first few chapters and send them directly to press hoping to heaven that he could manage to make something out of the rest of the story which may or may not have been fully planned. Also this causes a particular limitation on the writer since he must conform every subsequent chapter to the ones previously published since the narrative can no longer be changed to suit an incidental plot change later on. Undoubtedly this may be the source of many of his extended narratives; explaining away plot threads that were in need of resolution. Yet in the end we are left with countless iconic novels that seem to define the cultural landscape of Victorian England which is quite a feat for a writer under such constraint and speaks volumes to his ability to know his audience (although I have more to say on this subject in reference to Great Expectations in particular. But I will dedicate a complete blog to this subject).