'A Christmas Carol' and the masque

Studies in Short Fiction, Wntr, 1993 by R.D. Butterworth

Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. (17)

There is the spectacle of masque here, with the elaborate "costume" of Marley. His transparency and the chain are both symbolic, as the narrative later makes clear. At the same time, however, he is Jacob Marley, no allegorical figure, but a particular man with a pigtail and tassels on his boots, which are not symbolic but are merely part of the identity of a specific individual. Moreover, the symbolism in his appearance derives from no mythological or traditional sources. The ledgers and cash-boxes are, on the contrary, the very sorts of mundane accoutrements of everyday life, of "movable objects in the physical world" so important in establishing the "solidity of setting" (Watt 29) characteristic of the novel form. Dickens's purpose is too serious ever to abandon himself totally to the world of masque; and from the symbolism here emerge some of the most serious and urgent points in the book about man's conduct in the real world; later, equally, when the spirits show Scrooge various tableaux, they arc not of allegorical figures or scenes, but ones from the real world, miners in their homes, or sailors on board ship. And in the using the elements of masque for such serious ends, Dickens forgets as irrelevant the essentially frivolous foundation of the masque, its complimentary purpose.

The masque as a festive form associated particularly with Christmas provides an apt basis for the sort of work Dickens wants to produce; and the adoption of elements of masque enables him to resolve a number of formal problems in writing this short work. The hybrid of masque and novel that results makes it possible to fulfill his intention of presenting a serious social message in a form in keeping with "the good-humour of the season" (xiv) to which he refers in his Preface.

(1) On the masque genre, see Chambers (1: chs. 5-6),Welford and Orgel. (2) Tillotson lists the work as in Dickens's library, giving the date of publication wrongly, though, as 1823 (716). The correct date is, however, given by Stonehouse (22) (3) See letters to Miss Burdett Coutts, 28 February 1843 (Tillotson 447) and to Clarkson Stanfield, 5 May 1843 (Tillotson 483). (4) The Examiner, 4 March 1843, rpt. in Matz 99-103. Dickens possessed the text of Comus in the critical edition of Milton works edited by Egerton Brydges (Tillotson 717). (5) Scrooge's position in relation to the masque is complex. He is at once a spectator and, from the reader's point of view, a participant. In this, Dickens is perhaps taking his cue from the tradition by which spectators of masques eventually became part of it by joining in the dancing at the end, taking further the "intimacy and not . . . detachment, in the relation between performers and spectators" (Chambers 195) characteristic of the form. See also Orgel's gloss on comments by the theologian John Smith relating to how the masque "attempted from the beginning to breach the barrier between spectators and actors, so that in effect the viewer became part of the spectacle . . .in a sense what the spectator watched he ultimately became" (Orgel 6-7); and, for instance, his account of a masque presented in 1501 for Katherine of Aragon in which "She does not take part in the disguising itself, but she is the central figure. In a sense she watches herself; she is both actor and spectator, and to a certain extent the boundary between stage and audience has been removed" (Orgel 26). (6) See Ben Jonson's The Masque of Queens and The Golden Age Restored, in both of which Ignorance appears as a figure in the antimasque. (7) Though a scene key to Scrooge's development, Fezziwig's ball, features both music and dance, and at the end of the masque, Scrooge dances while shaving.