Short Stories:

“The Gift of the Magi” by O.Henry

“A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote

Summary By J. Pratt

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost (of Jacob Marley). “I made it, link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”  p. 542

Charles Dickens challenges us in his classic short story A Christmas Carol, to consider whether, in life, we forge a chain link-by-link that binds us, enslaves us, such that we can neither receive or give Love. And, Dickens suggests there are different types of “chains” whose patterns perhaps we can recognize if we had “eyes to see” which is of course the opportunity Marley’s Ghost and the three Spirits of Christmas provide for Scrooge.

Money plays a role in all three short stories. Were Della and James Dillingham Young (from “The Gift of the Magi”) unencumbered by “chains” of their own making? How about Scrooge’s nephew?

Do people truly have free will? If so, do they use their free will to make chains to willfully bind themselves, such that free will ceases to be free?

And what does all this really have to do with Christmas anyway?

 

NOTES:

The theme of laughter was also interesting and worthy of discussion.

“…while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.”

“…he (Scrooge) chuckled until he cried”

“…and knowing that such as these would be blind any way, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”