A Christmas Carol: A tale of harassment and peer pressure

Charles Dickens’ famous novel A Christmas Carol is generally seen by people as a tale of a bitter old man learning to love again. Those people are idiots.

This novel/movie is very obviously a tale of peer pressure and conformity. Let’s take a more thorough look at the plot:

Old Jewish man doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas and clearly just wants to be left alone. His nephew asks him to join him for Christmas dinner, charity collectors pester him for donations during what seems to be an economic recession, and his employee is trying to steal coal from him. Judging by the context of the story, this kind of behavior from Scrooge isn’t anything new, yet these people continually poke at him every Christmas to take part in the festivities and “give”. Who wouldn’t be irritated?

So Scrooge goes home and just wants to go to bed. But no, some asshole higher power has decided that Scrooge must take part in the festivities, or else. Scrooge is in his bedroom minding his own damn business when his dead partner’s ghost comes in making a racket and dragging chains, which are punishment for not giving money to the poor. As if this poor old man isn’t already terrified enough, his dead partner tells him that more ghosts will visit him in the middle of the night. So not only are you putting this guy at risk for a heart attack, but you’re going to deprive him of sleep. All because he doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas. And Scrooge is supposed to be the bad guy here?

This is what happens if you don’t support ObamaCare.

So Jacob Marley finally fucks off to go smoke pot with his future grandson Bob, and Scrooge goes to bed. Suddenly, he’s awakened by someone claiming to be the “Ghost of Christmases Past”. This ghost proceeds to tantalize Scrooge with visions of past instances where Scrooge acted like a dick. The ghost tells him that if he keeps acting like a dick (i.e. doesn’t celebrate Christmas and give his money away to poor people) he’ll suffer. Scrooge is obviously scared out of his mind at this point, and tells the ghost he’s remorseful for his past behavior in an attempt to just be left in peace. The ghost finally leaves, telling Scrooge that another ghost will appear.

Now I’m not trying to make light of Scrooge’s situation, but I’d find it pretty hard to take things seriously when the ghost sent to intimidate me looks like she was ran over by the 1980’s.

Next thing Scrooge knows, some fat ass giant with a huge beard is in the next room getting wasted. Psychologically intimidating an old man wasn’t enough I guess, so now the powers that be had to physically intimidate Scrooge by sending a big guy to strong-arm him into giving his money to poor people. Talk about extortion:

“It would be terrible if Tiny Tim had an accident, wouldn’t it Scrooge?”

This ghost calls himself the “Ghost of Christmas Present” and babbles some shit that alludes to him representing the current year. Being the frail 70-some year old man that he is, Scrooge is in no position to tell this giant to get bent and has to endure another round of psychological intimidation. This time Scrooge is forced to witness his thieving employee’s absurdly large family eating meager portions and bitching about how mean and evil Scrooge is for not giving them more money for a bigger dinner. The giant tells Scrooge that his employee’s cripple son Tiny Tim will die if Scrooge doesn’t give the family money for some operation. Now they’ve cut the crap and are resorting to outright death threats against children to intimidate Scrooge into giving away his money. Who’s sending these ghosts, La Cosa Nostra?

After making a bunch of veiled threats, Steroid Jesus magically withers away and dies at midnight. The next ghost that comes is basically Death using another name: The Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come. This ghost doesn’t fuck around at all. He takes Scrooge into the future and barrages him with visions of people he knows saying how glad they are that Scrooge is dead. The ghost then drags Scrooge to a cemetery, and shows him a grave with his own name on it. Holy shit:

Straight and to the point: “Donate your money or you’re fucking dead.”

After begging the ghost for more time, Scrooge wakes up in his room on Christmas morning, now on the verge of psychosis. He opens his window and sees some little boy dragging a sled. He tells the boy to go buy the biggest turkey the butcher has. Apparently the honor system was still intact back in the 1800’s, because Scrooge gives the boy no money whatsoever and the boy comes back with the turkey to be compensated by Scrooge. The turkey ends up going to either Scrooge’s nephew or his employee, I don’t remember. Scrooge lives the rest of his life as a batty old man known for partying hard on Christmas.

Yeah…

A Christmas Carol is an allegory for modern commercialism and herd mentality, and anyone who can’t see that is fucking braindead. If you don’t buy people shit for Christmas you’re a cheap bastard and should feel guilty for not being giving.

The 1984 made-for-TV version is still one of my favorite Christmas movies though.

Last Updated on April 22, 2024

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By Angry_Jerk

The CEO/Editor-in-chief of AJnet, and the current king of internet ranting. Hailing from the fine village of Northeast Philadelphia, AJ has been creating content on the internet for over 15 years. None of it has really been funny or entertaining, but he keeps trying anyway. When he’s not creating new articles for the site, he can be found hitting the weights, watching anime, or playing retro video games.