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Monday, December 17, 2018

10 best narration lines from Stave One of A Christmas Carol

BY AL DANIEL

Wednesday is a definitive Dickensian dodransbicentennial, for it marks 175 years since A Christmas Carol was published.

The tiny tale of how Tiny Tim won a miser’s seemingly unwinnable compassion holds up in self-explanatory manners. While it modestly weighs in between 28,000 and 29,000 words, A Christmas Carol packs droves of quotable expressions. From the pre-reformation Ebenezer Scrooge’s callous comments to Tiny Tim’s generous prayer, those too require no primers.

The downside to that: Charles Dickens’ narrating alter-ego boasts a bevy of highlights himself, but these tend to be overshadowed. This is especially true in the first of the story’s five staves.

The first 11 paragraphs are devoid of dialogue. All characters cease to speak again for the stave’s final seven paragraphs. From there, Scrooge, the Ghosts of Christmas and the visions in their respective staves break up the virtual silence more.

Conversely, Dickens takes much of Stave One to set a tone, both for his audience and his main character. In accordance with that variety, he dishes up a few humorous visuals without losing focus on the setting’s dingy reality.

Before Jacob Marley’s heads-up kicks in, the Christmas Carol narrator keeps us engaged and a few steps ahead of Scrooge. The following 10 descriptive narration lines typify the novella’s solid foundational portrait that is Stave One.

10. “…conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy…”

Between the sneak peek and the full-fledged phantom, Scrooge tries to convince himself there is no supernatural presence. But the narrator’s biographical angle lets us see through his wobbly wall of denial.

And because Scrooge is, at best, an antihero, we can take satisfaction in foreseeing reality before he uncomfortably arrives there.

9. “External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.”

With this line and the passage it introduces, the two basic definitions of cold-blooded crop up in curious contrast.

Scrooge naturally fits the more metaphorical meaning with his unwavering misanthrophy. The vibe he emits with his attitude clouds the fact that, unlike real reptiles, he feels no impact from fluctuating air.

Yet because his approach even encourages seeing-eye dogs to steer their owners away, it is plain the locals see Scrooge as a different animal. With sparse exceptions, he could all but be a male Medusa, he is so off-putting.

8. “…you might have got a hearse up that staircase…and done it easy.”

Step by step, the narrator illustrates the waste of space that are Scrooge’s digs. In this portion, he injects a touch of comic relief, as the hypothetical visual accentuates the absurdity. The building could theoretically handle much chaos, yet barely anything ever stirs there (for now).

All of the unoccupied rooms and darkened hallways typify Scrooge’s penuriousness and its effects. For all of the money and property he has at his disposal, he makes scant use of it for himself, let alone others.

7. “The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge…”

Despite coming off his defeat of two donation collectors, Scrooge can barely escape seasonal symbols. With an overcast, the naggingly lofty building of worship near his office may go out of site at times. But with its sounds, it does not stay out of mind.

The narrator’s choice of simile, “as if its teeth were chattering,” connects the bells with the destitute. But their periodic ringing intervals are clearly not enough to sway Scrooge. As such, a more forthright intervention will be required to instill any proper Christmas spirit.

6. “There were Cains and Abels…swallowed up the whole.”

If the neighboring church cannot grip Scrooge, a familiar face will.

Eight biblical individuals or groups of figures adorn his dwelling’s Dutch-designed fireplace. Yet, as Dickens establishes in this vivid scene, their seniority and strength in numbers cannot suppress Marley’s impending ghost.

After desperately dismissing it with his trademark interjection, Scrooge will spend another three nonspeaking paragraphs in denial. But any levelheaded bystander looking in from the outside knows better. There is an extraordinary apparition, one immune to all diversion and deflection, at hand.

5. “…taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear in-doors…”

This passage highlights a lengthy sentence affirming one of Marley’s great contrasts with Scrooge. One man feels the elements in death more than his ex-associate does in life.

Six paragraphs earlier, the narrator makes the same point by describing the Ghost as “agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.” This despite the well-established coldness of his old residence, as kept by Scrooge.

Whatever the source of the heat is, one party will soon demonstrate his brimming sensitivity versus the other’s lacking.

4. “…it must have run there when it was a young house…and have forgotten the way out again.”

Had Monty Python done a Christmas Carol adaptation, this would have been Terry Gilliam’s moment.

In the second of 13 nearly-silent paragraphs taking us from Scrooge’s workplace to his residence, Dickens wastes no time scene-setting. While the house is superficially forlorn, the joking theory about it keeps the mood appropriately light. Scrooge has a long way to go before he can earn anyone’s full-fledged sympathy.

3. “…Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London…”

Give this narrative more advanced technology, and Dickens would be stopping the tape at this point. Before presenting Marley’s likeness in the door knocker, he offers a detailed heads-up on this vision’s unusual nature.

Besides Scrooge’s lack of imagination, the paragraph reaffirms that Marley was not heavily on his mind that day. As such, this initial apparition must be anything but a hallucination.

That notwithstanding, when the Ghost follows up by appearing inside and in full, Scrooge tries passing it off as a digestive side effect. Having gotten to know him as well as we have, however, we see the desperation and futility in his theory. Debunking an explanation after he built it up that high creates more room for a profound character transformation.

2. “…the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.”

Is this the first step in Scrooge’s conversion? Earlier that fateful Christmas Eve, he had wished imprisonment on the living poor. Now the narrator hints he deems it appropriate for his old partner.

Then again, this is a polar opposite of the Marley he had always known. Seven years before these events, Scrooge would likely never have thought what the narrator suggests.
 
Then again, the reason the Ghost howls is because he is a condemned spirit. Clearly not wanting to become what he shudders at, Scrooge may wish Marley gone and still accept the three visitations.

1. “Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself…”

An especially quotable dialogue sequence has culminated in the portly charity collectors’ surrender. As he retakes the floor, the narrator adds another layer to Scrooge’s unthinkably icy dimension.

But describing the aftermath of the conversation serves an additional purpose, one that packs a fitting dose of delayed gratification. As appalling as Scrooge’s pride in driving the gentlemen away on Christmas Eve is, the overnight conversion and payoff will be that much sweeter for it.

Then and only then can anyone agree that he does, in fact, have any “improved opinion.”

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