"God bless us, everyone"

What was Charles Dickens modeling when he gave us "Tiny Tim"?

"'As good as gold,' said Bob, 'and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.'"

1870s illustration

It is Christmas, and so our television screens will be filled with one of literature's most enduring portraits of disability, Tim Cratchit in Charles Dickens' 1843 A Christmas Carol.

Tim has a small part in the book, but it is a powerful one, even before the pity inducing film performances of the 20th century. But, after debating with a friend on Twitter over whether Tim was a "positive" or "negative" for the disability community, I wanted to separate Dickens' Tim from Hollywood's Tim, because they are somewhat different characters - different in crucial ways.

The first difference stems from both time and intent. The book Dickens wrote at the start of the second industrial revolution was an indictment of early capitalism, barely less "radical" politically than the work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels which would appear just five years later.

In Dickens' story Scrooge's capitalism runs over everyone and everything in its path, it is as malevolent to the well-born as it is to Tim and his family. Tim might be there to heighten sympathy a bit, but really, he is just another voice protesting for a more humane world. When Hollywood, or the British film industry, retold the tale before and after the World War, it became more Christian than political, and more sympathetic than angry, and Tim's position within the story changed.

1951 Tim

"The image of the Tiny Tim gained popularity in the 1940's and 50's when charities focused on finding cures for disabilities such as polio. They realized that pity opens wallets, so they began poster child campaigns. These campaigns played on society's fear that this thing, this disability, this horrible tragedy, could very easily invade their homes. Unless, of course, they sent in money to find a cure. The undertone of these campaigns was clear: G-d forbid you end up with a disability like the child on the poster. You're life will no longer be worth living; you'll be less then human (Shapiro, 1994)."

Tim gets prettier in these films, cuter. Of course everyone does. In the 1938 Hollywood version Bob Cratchit is fat. Capitalism has no longer run amok, rather, we are telling a story of charity, and charity needs the 'poster child.'

So the film Tiny Tim is sweet, high-voiced, pretty, and pathetic. But is that the character Dickens described?

To me, the literary Tiny Tim is something very powerful - especially in the context of his time. Whatever Tiny Tim's "affliction" - kidney disease is the most speculated - Tim was a fully embraced human in this story, when all across Britain, northern Europe, and the United States society was beginning to dehumanize those who could not 'compete.' The first "school" (asylum) for "idiots" was opened in Paris in 1841, with various other separated facilities appearing along with industrialization over the next 30 years. Tim was not separated. He fully participates in the life of his family. He even participates "as a male" - going to church with his father and brothers, not staying home with the females as they prepare the Christmas dinner.

And unlike so many "defectives" of the period developing as Dickens wrote, Tim has a voice. A clear, respected voice. This may not sound like much today... unless you've ever attended an American IEP conference or its equivalent in other nations... but in 1843 it was perhaps as radical as Dickens' call for redistribution of wealth.

Dickens is also decidedly less "romantic" about the ending. Though films often end with a "cured" and robust Tim, all Dickens will say is, "Tiny Tim, who did not die." There are no promises of "normality" here, only promises of humanity.

The visions of disability matter, and they need to be brought out into the open, and discussed. I like to use Edward Scissorhands as the classic example of trying to drag "the disabled" into "normality" by making them "heroic servants." I'd love high schools to do The Elephant Man - the play- rather than hold "carnival game"-type disability awareness weeks. (Compare it to the very different film as well). I saw a fabulous college version of Richard III a few years ago with Richard as a "contemporary" disabled man. In a wheelchair, constantly stared at by an unblinking video camera.

But we can begin this Christmas, in our homes, to explore those visions, and the divides between sympathy and empathy, and between victim and human. I see Tiny Tim as a great step forward for 1843, and sadly, in many ways, a great step forward today. But it is not a big enough step either way.

- Ira Socol

Mad Men, Life on Mars, and Dickens for this Century

What is literature?

I have struggled with this idea many times, and we, as a society, are constantly struggling with it. We do, after all, divide even the writing category "fiction" into two parts - "fiction" and "literary fiction" - suggesting that we are constantly trying to limit what "literature" means.

In the 1830s the way "literature" was presented began to change. Rotary printing presses, which would be powered by steam in the next decade, combined with machine-made paper, created a "popular press" for the first time, the cheap dissemination of print media to the masses. Into this new technology stepped a writer named Charles Dickens, who leveraged the new technology through the serialization of his writings.  "Serial publication had several advantages. For the reader, it substantially reduced the cash outlay required to pay for fiction: for a novel in monthly installments like [The Pickwick Papers], one had to pay only one shilling a month, instead of a guinea (21 shillings) or more for an entire novel. For the publisher, it expanded the market for fiction, as more people could afford to buy on the installment plan; it also allowed the opportunity to advertise, as ads could easily be incorporated into the little booklets in which a typical Dickens novel was issued. And for the author, it created a greater intimacy with the audience, something Dickens always relished."

If you read Dickens today, you will still see how this embrace of the technology of the time altered the style of writing. Chapters became something different when presented this way. "Blogging" (see American Notes) became possible.

Socol Literacy as Tyranny

I thought of all this as I watched the last installment of Matthew Weiner's Mad Men. Television, certainly, has always been the "modern" equivalent of the serialized novel, but at its best, when it emulates "literary fiction" in complexity of construction and in intent (feel free to challenge that statement!) it takes on the role in today's world that Dickens' fiction held a century and a half ago.

So as I think back on my favourite serializations in television: Mad Men, Life on Mars, China Beach, Homicide: Life on the Street, I see deeply rendered portraits of contemporary or near historical times, which are written and allowed to unfold for the "reader" over a long period of time. These stories are hard to rush through, unless you wait and back out of the mainstream conversation about them. But if you do wait, you lose the cultural impact of participating with a vast group in a common literary experience.

This is literature. Complex characters and themes, sophisticated writing, powerful photography are joined in a truly effective way of getting people to see things they have not seen before. And as we investigate them together, through the contemporaneous reading which serialization provides, we get to analyse the texts together, in a way we rarely do with any other media. Just Google the "News" or "Blogs" re: Mad Men to see both the quality and quantity of conversation which explodes every Monday.

So, I find it odd that those who most embrace the common reading experience, whether via classroom assignments or "one book, one community" events, are often the least likely to bring this contemporary literature into the educational mainstream.

Now the National Endowment for the Arts, which has worked hard to limit the definition of reading, has one idea. But I wish high schools and universities would more often embrace the literature of today alongside "the canon." Not only would it ask our students to "read" and comprehend the full range of literature they will be exposed to, but it would allow "the world" into these often very limited conversations. After all, is considering the Peggy/Joan elevator scene in Mad Men's Sunday "Summer" episode (season 4, episode 8), really any different than analysing any moment in Great Expectations?

We would also expand our education to include the most "read" bits of literature today, and to include the visual component of literature (often so left out of school that some English teachers have students read Shakespeare and other plays).

RETRO: The Camera & 'Mad Men'
Uploaded by Jefferson_Robbins. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

Too often in teaching literature we allow ourselves to be trapped in the past. And while there is nothing wrong with the past, and - in fact - I am a fan of "the canon," the past becomes much more relevant if we understand how literature continues to evolve, yet often dwells in the same themes.

So this week, consider sending your students home to watch television, and let the world join you. It took half centuries for Dickens or Fitzgerald to find their way into American education. Don't repeat that mistake.

- Ira Socol