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Defending Ebenezer Scrooge
Simply say the word and there's no explanation necessary
Christmas is no time for insults, but somehow it's the only season when someone can slap you with the one name that really hurts:
Scrooge.
Simply say the word and there's no explanation necessary. "Scrooge." It's often a playful insult, but when spoken seriously you know what it means: Heartless. Unforgiving. Spiteful on a day that calls for generosity.
Well, on this Christmas Eve, again I go where no "contrarian" may have gone before: I wish to defend -- yes, defend -- Ebenezer Scrooge.
A while back I saw a version of "A Christmas Carol" on TNT, with Patrick Stewart (of Star Trek: Next Generation fame) as Scrooge. The obvious challenge of this role is to be as unlikable as possible, and Mr. Stewart was all that and then some. He was loathsome: his Scrooge bristled with a hatred that was hard to watch.
There was even a moment when I wondered why an actor would take such a part. Right away, however, I remembered that Patrick Stewart is just one of many gifted and famous actors who have interpreted Scrooge over the years -- George C. Scott, Albert Finney, and even Mr. Magoo among them.
Yet "A Christmas Carol" itself gives the best reply to why the role has dramatic appeal; it's the same answer to why he deserves a word of defense. Ebenezer Scrooge changed for the better. He emptied his own repulsive character, and filled himself instead with goodwill and charity.
Scrooge experienced the spiritual transformation that was first explained to a fellow named Nicodemus a very long time ago. Charles Dickens knew this when he wrote "A Christmas Carol," and I suspect he would find it a curious irony indeed that we remember who Scrooge was, instead of the new man he became.
Merry Christmas and thank you for reading EWI's updates.
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