The French writer Molloyah, in his Dickens chapter of Studies of British Celebrities, begins by writing: "When the news of Dickens's death reached families in England, the United States, Canada, and Australia in 1870, people were like relatives who had died. A child asked, 'If Mr. Dickens dies, will Grandpa Christmas also die?' ’”
Children can ask such questions not only out of pure childishness, but also because of the great influence of Mr. Dickens, who is arguably Britain's greatest Christmas novelist in the telling of Christmas stories.
Between 1843 and 1848, except 1847, he published one novella every Christmas, five in total, namely: "Christmas Song" (1843), "The Bells of the Ancient Church" (1844), "Crickets by the Fireside" (1845), "The Battle of Life" (1846), and "The Enchanted Man" (1848). Among them, "Christmas Song" is the most famous, the protagonist Scrooge has become as famous as the French Grande and the Russian Plyuchkin, and even his name Scrooge has become the meaning of miserly in English. This reminds me of the French fox Lena, whose name has become the exclusive title of the fox (the famous French fairy tale "The Story of the Lena Fox").
Poster for the movie "Christmas Song"
As a well-known writer, Dickens's influence on Britain was enormous, and Marx once commented on the kind of writers represented by Dickens, saying that "a group of outstanding novelists in modern England, in their remarkable and vivid books, have revealed more political and social truths to the world than all professional politicians, political commentators and moralists combined." This is not a boast and an exaggeration, in fact, the domestic and foreign problems faced by England at that time were exposed in the pen of this group of writers, and they, as the pioneers of revealing contradictions, did not end there, and many ugly phenomena were punctured, healed, and then healed like pustules of purulent pus.
An ordinary German-English family in the nineteenth century
"Christmas Song" is so famous that many people have not read the book and heard of this story (it is covered in junior high school English textbooks). The story is probably about a greedy, selfish, vicious, and ruthless man, Scrooge, who transforms after encountering three ghosts on Christmas Eve. He began by saying that "the poor think that Christmas is nonsense, and it is better for the poor to die, and it can reduce the 'surplus population'" (like the style of some people in contemporary society). After the ghost shows him his past, present, and future, he realizes his past insensitivity and cruelty and selfishness, lets go of mustard, admits his mistakes, thinks "life does not bring, death does not bring", and finally becomes a generous, interesting, and willing to share.
In 1840, Dr Thomas Southward Smith, the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Labor, sent a report of the commission to Dickens, which shocked and infuriated the writer about the use of child labor in the mines.
In 1843, Smith sent Dickens another Blue Book of Government on the health of the poor, which once again shocked and angered Dickens. In a letter to Smith, he said he would use his work as a "sledgehammer" to attack these social ills. "Christmas Song" and "Ancient Church Bells" were produced in this way.
In life now, every ordinary person's life pressure is very large, and sometimes we are unable to face the complicated matters in school, work, marriage and family. This is not the most fatal, the fatal thing is that even if we put in enough effort, effort and time, we can still maintain only the bare necessity of survival. In this endless race, for whatever reason, as long as you fall, you will be blinded, ridiculed and slandered, and ruthlessly engraved with labels such as incompetence and waste, which makes people miserable.
At that time, the "Luther Movement" aimed at destroying machines broke out.
The kind of dilemma I mentioned above has already appeared in the time of Dickens, many low-level British people (including peasants who have lost their land, small and medium-sized craftsmen and workers who have been bankrupt after the impact of the industrial tide) are doing extremely hard work but cannot maintain the most basic expenses of the family, and the eyes of the rich and aristocrats who look at the lower classes of Britain are the same as the eyes of the rich and powerful people in the present day, and history has not changed, but has become more violent and blatant. Dramatically, the part of the people trapped in this prison still worship them immensely, and of course defend them, even trying to live as they are regardless of their own conditions (this clumsy imitation of Dong Shi Gong often ends in failure).
Dickens used his pen to reveal such ugly deeds, and he was also using his pen to save them, and he, like Hugo, believed that human nature could be changed and saved, and that benevolence and virtue were the strongest weapons, and that this view was considered too loving in the literary and artistic evaluation of our country. Marxism holds that the struggle between the working class and the capitalists has never been moderate and harmonious, and what makes it inconpisive is that we do not talk about such contradictions now, and of course we cannot find the subject of such contradictions.
Don't say much, lest you be banned.
Famous sentence appreciation:
The word is that Marley is dead. There is no doubt about it. (This sentence is the first sentence of "Christmas Song", and the opening sentence of Camus's "The Outsider", "Today, my mother died, maybe yesterday, I don't know" is as famous, you can't understand where this sentence is interesting, it doesn't matter, because I don't understand [laughing and crying])
Scrooge this man is really a miser who can't let go! An old black heart that is clever and arrogant, can be searched and scraped, and greedy! Hard and powerful, like a flint stone, no amount of steel can hit any Spark from it; the trail is secret, taciturn, lonely, like an oyster. No matter how fierce the wind blows, it is not as fierce as his heart; no matter how fierce the snow falls, it is not as urgent as his desire for wealth; no matter how big the rain is, it is not as great as his never listening to people's pleading.
"We need a little bit of subsidies for the poor, because they are suffering so much at the moment. Thousands of people lack the necessities of daily use; hundreds of thousands lack what they need for living welfare, sir. "Isn't there a prison?" Scrooge asked. "There are many prisons," said the gentleman, putting down his pen again. "And the poor people's art center run by the Compassion bureau?" Scrooge asked. "Can't do it now?" "It's all done. "But," replied the gentleman, "I wish I could say that they are gone." "Then, the treadmill and the law of poverty alleviation are still in full play?" Scrooge said. "Both are busy, sir." "Oh! I listened to you at first, and I was deeply afraid of what had happened to make it useful," Scrooge said. "Now that I hear you say this, I'm relieved." (The prisons, the art centers, and the poor are all aimed at the poor, and no one wants to deal with these things unless they are cornered, and it is clear that Scrooge here believes that the poor are enough to be punished, and they do not deserve sympathy.)
Darkness doesn't cost money, so Scrooge loves darkness.
"Man," said the ghost, "if you have humanity in your heart, not a stubborn stone, you should abandon your vicious high-profile and first find out who the so-called surplus population really is, and where is it?" What kind of people should live and what kind of people should die, is it up to you to decide? Perhaps, in God's eyes, you are worthless and unworthy of living than millions of people like this poor man's child? A worm that had eaten a full meal on the leaves declared that his compatriots who were starving in the dust might as well die a few more! (I often hear some people accuse others of social Darwinism, and I want to use this sentence to recoil the past)
From then on, he no longer had contact with the elves, but lived according to the principle of "no wine". Later, people often talked about him, saying that if there is anyone in the world who knows how to spend Christmas and how to live well, it is him. May people say that we are exactly like this, and that we are all like this! So, as Little Dinm said: God bless us, everyone! (After Scrooge's change)
Chin: xià hàn, meaning chin part.
揿: qìn , indicating that the verb has the meaning of "press". Such as: doorbell, button.
掮: qián, with shoulders (things), brokers refer to people who introduce transactions for others and earn commissions from them. It is also often used as a metaphor for speculators. Brokering in finance refers to a profession that specializes in facilitating and profiting from the flow of capital.