Posted on 12/28/2004 8:50:02 AM PST by UnklGene
Dickens had to be a hard lefty. It's completely apparent in A Christmas Carol. One of Scrooge's many faults is just being rich, and wanting to make something of himself as a young man is shadowed as something bad in the book.
Who was it who said to forsake worldy possessions in favor of brotherhood, love, charity and eternity in paradise?
George Orwell wrote an interesting essay on Dickens. Too bad I am 8000 miles away from the book, or I would post the essay.
"Who was it who said to forsake worldy possessions in favor of brotherhood, love, charity and eternity in paradise?"
Sounds like Dickens to me.
Dickens is indeed a great writer, and well worth reading and re-reading.
"Hard Times" is about as close as he comes to a "marxist" position, but even there what he is criticizing is capitalism and utilitarianism with a soul, which I believe any decent conservative should agree with.
What Squarebarb said in #6 is correct. It's not bad to be rich. It's bad to be rich and not share it--to be a miser. Look at the Cheeryble brothers in Nicholas Nickleby, or Oliver Twist's adopted families. Dickens greatly admired rich people who are benevolent and kind to others. The Cheeryble brothers are successful capitalists, too, not landed gentry with inherited wealth, and Nicholas succeeds by apprenticing himself to them.
Oops. "capitalism and utilitarianism with a soul" = "without a soul."
No, it's Scrooge's hard-heartedness toward others that Dickens objects to (though he also takes pains to show how Scrooge's personality was formed through painful incidents in his past, by using flashbacks). Dickens had nothing against working hard or gaining prosperity. He just wanted people to care about others.
Infant mortality rates before the industrial revolution were also extremely high.
I won't pretend that there were no abuses in the industrial revolution, because of course there were. But it was not capitalism or industrialization as such that caused them.
The chief cause of infant mortality was lack of adequate medical care, and in particular of antibiotics and other modern medicines. If you lived to adulthood, you were as likely as not to live to three score and ten. But many never made it past the age of one.
hogwash.
if you want to see the rich being trashed, watch Trading Places. At least Dickens explains why Scrooge is bitter. It's not becuase he's rich, (the nephew did pretty well), it's because he loved money and lost his love.
A Christmas Carol is a story for today, what with the left trying put "bah humbug" into the Constitution.
A line from the book reads, "we were poor, and content to be so, until by our patient industry we might improve our lot." These are not the words of a leftist.
well said.
To each his own. A Christmas Carol was one book. I maintain my opinion, despite text. One line does not a conservative make.
with love, tih
"one mimicked cliche does not a thought make."
Touche. But we know Dickens came from a largely marxist era, and most of those authors were leftists. It's my interpretation and I'm sticking to it. I've only read his books a few hundred times.
Be well and happy.
Why would you do that? If you haven't changed your opinion of them why do you continue to read and re-read the same thing? Perhaps you intuitively know you didn't get it the first time?
Merry Christmas
"Why would you do that? If you haven't changed your opinion of them why do you continue to read and re-read the same thing? Perhaps you intuitively know you didn't get it the first time?"
Most of it came in edumucation.
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