On 'A Christmas Carol'

*spoilers ahead*

(Pardon any repetition)

My parents divorced when I was too young to remember, but I do remember our first apartment. It was a tiny 1 bedroom, and we were too poor to afford a TV. So Mom taught me how to read. She was big on Hooked on Phonics, but also on taking me to the library. One year for Christmas, tucked among a dozen or so other titles in the stack, Mom pulled out a hardcover copy of A Christmas Carol.

This week, for the first time in 30 years, I decided to re-read it, in the hopes that I can start the tradition of reading it to my children next year. (We'll see how that one goes...)

I don't know if it was the style of Dickens's prose or my ADHD, but there were several passages I had to re-read several times. While I'm not in the habit of highlighting passages even in Kindle books just yet, I do hope to go back through soon and mention specific passages and my interpretation(s). In this article though, I want to talk about that ending.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Scrooge starts showing up and being kind to everyone. While we do see the initial reaction to this sudden shift in personality, we don't get to see (at least in this story. I'll redact if there's a follow-up story) what most likely would've happened realistically in that scenario.

Let's compare it to a scene from Beauty and the Beast:

Maurice runs into the pub and starts ranting that a monster kidnapped his daughter. Considering how (like Scrooge) people really don't have much of a kind word to say about them in the first place, Maurice ends up getting locked up. True, there was an ulterior motive behind it, but the town still isn't willing to go on blind faith alone. While it may seem odd to discuss realism in a story featuring ghosts, wouldn't we have seen a doctor, vapors, bloodletting, leeches, or some other archaic treatment for madness take place once everyone had recovered sufficiently from their meal?

I've always been a problem solver. If someone is struggling with something, I do my best to help. Sometimes I overextend myself trying to help. If I'm fixing something I messed up, I dive in without a second thought and ride that helpful train until it crashes. Which is what it does, more often than not, because in real life, an instant shift in personality, an instant increase in dedication and attention, particularly affection, scares the ever living hell out of people. Does that make A Christmas Carol a horror story then? Why is Scrooge's shift acceptable on paper, but when people do that in real life, it's terrifying? Would Scrooge's sudden generosity be called love bombing today? I've not only felt that type of terror, I've also inflicted it without meaning to, so this one's a legitimate struggle for me. Does he get away with it and get forgiven so quickly because he's able to essentially buy people at the end?