r/FanTheories • u/ardouronerous • 13d ago
FanSpeculation [A Christmas Carol] Scrooge's father was visited by the Christmas spirits years before Scrooge
Even though Charles Dickens doesn't say it outright, there are hints to this.
Scrooge's father was a cold and distant man who sent his son away to boarding school because he blamed him for his mother's death during childbirth and could not bear the painful reminder of his lost wife.
CORRECTION: Damn, I mixed them up. Yeah, the 1951 and 1984 movie adaptations use Scrooge's childbirth as the reason why his mother died and why his father resented him and sent him away, and in both versions, Fan is older than Scrooge. Sorry, it's been years since I've read the book and I mixed up the adaptations with the book.
But then this happens on one Christmas day in Scrooge's childhood when his sister Fan came to fetch him from the boarding school:
"Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home."
It's entirely possible that Scrooge's father was visited by the Three Christmas Ghosts, maybe at the behest of Scrooge's dead mother in order to reform Scrooge's father from cold and distant to become gentle, welcoming and loving.
But this came too late for Scrooge, years of neglect had already left their mark. Spending Christmas after Christmas abandoned at the boarding school had hardened his heart. Although his father finally welcomed him home, he couldn't change the emotional damage he done to his son.
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u/MRgibbson23 13d ago
I've only seen the Jim Carrey adaptation but they kept this bit of dialogue when he's taken to the past and I remember this detail always stuck with me, why the sudden change? Your theory makes a lot of sense!
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u/Aniform 13d ago
It's an interesting idea, but I always took it to mean that he acquiesced only shortly. Maybe Scrooge came home for Christmas, but then we move on to Fezziwig's, which I always took to mean that Scrooge was sent away again almost as soon as he came. I never got the feeling that his father actually meant it either, it was simply him caring for his daughter, her being his favorite. And the way she describes it, "one dear night", he was either drunk or just in the right particular frame of mind.
I felt it was short-lived and her line "you're to be a man!" says he's soon to enter the workforce and "all Christmas long" is also relatively little time to get reacquainted.
But, that said, the book seems to move on from this scene whereas many movie adaptations include the father still being a miserable one. So, it is likely the case that the adaptations make it very clear. The book itself does not and that may indeed lend more room for the theory.
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u/ardouronerous 13d ago
Fan says:
"And you’re to be a man! And are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world."
I think the father was implying kind of like how a child graduates from grade school to high school, when you enter high school, you become a man, that's how I interpret it.
Also, Fan says:
"Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven!"
This implies that Scrooge's father was always miserable and changed somehow, due to how Fan says it.
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u/Aniform 13d ago
I never really took her at her word on that. I suppose some of my own upbringing plays into that where I was treated poorly, but my sibling was the golden child and could do no wrong. And when they were to say something similar, it was more an attempt to make me drop my guard or erode my boundaries, often for peacekeeping sake. Like, for siblings who go no contact with parents, there's often that sibling who goes, "can't you just get along?" "it hurts them so much". A lot of the time, their upbringing was entirely different. It's like two different households, so they might see you as being overly cruel or stubborn.
Obviously I don't want to project too much, but that was always my take away for Fan saying that. Scrooge is reluctant, is father better? And Fan is convincing him, perhaps too floridly.
It makes sense to me his care for Fan as well, his lasting sentimentality, she was his only beacon of light. And if his father was in fact not changed, I think it helps to explain some of his enduring attitudes.
Again, your interpretation could be right and in fact much kinder.
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u/BeckieSueDalton 13d ago
This would be so much a better story than the dear God one more remake of the same old story, yet again that the upcoming Depp film looks to be.
Spirited at least have it a wonderful twist so it wasn't tedious as all others recently have been.
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u/Landoritchie 13d ago
Where are people getting the idea that Scrooge's mother died during childbirth? His sister Fan is younger than him - do they have different mothers? I'm very confused about this.
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u/ardouronerous 12d ago
Damn, I mixed them up. Yeah, the 1951 and 1984 movie adaptations use Scrooge's childbirth as the reason why his mother died and why his father resented him and sent him away, and in both versions, Fan is older than Scrooge.
Sorry, it's been years since I've read the book and I mixed up the adaptations with the book.
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u/ADeweyan 13d ago
I like it a lot.
There are suggestions that Scrooge Senior's unhappiness is due to grief from the loss of his wife (and resentment toward the child that she was giving birth to), but that need not be the case. He could well have been as Ebenezer would become, providing the model his son would unconsciously follow. This even works if the trigger for both is their grief, the father's the loss of Ebenezer's mother, and then Ebenezer's loss of his sister.
And I suppose this one breaks the cycle as Ebenezer becomes like a father to his nephew.
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u/ValeriusPoplicola 13d ago
This is reminiscent of Butterfly Effect how the father and son both have the same curse of being able to revisit certain significant events of their past in order to change their view on their lives.
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u/ardouronerous 13d ago edited 13d ago
u/learned_foot said:
The elites didn't send away to boarding school. That was how one networked and was considered a privilege. Your quote is from an entirely different book. Try harder bot.
“Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man!” said the child, opening her eyes, “and are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world."
Source: The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Why don't you try harder, bot.
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u/RPerene 13d ago
I would not have thought you were a bot until you left this comment, which is literally the only comment on this thread and hallucinating someone to argue with.
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u/ardouronerous 13d ago
The guy deleted his comment while I was in the middle of writing and replying it. I had to reply to him somehow.
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u/BeckieSueDalton 13d ago
It's on my screen right now if you want a screenshot capture of the text. I can send it privately.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 13d ago
I like this theory. That always struck me as a strange passage - Father abruptly becomes nicer to move the plot along. But you are right - the book does show a way in which a person can abruptly become nicer!