Lois the Witch and A Christmas Carol - December CC Book Club Selection

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That’s interesting about the biography, because when I was reading the CC Jane Eyre book club thread, there was a lot of modern criticism of that biography for what it left out!

The First Churchills is well worth watching though I don’t think it comes with Alistaire Cooke’s wonderful introductions.

I do like the optimistic message of A Christmas Carol. I do believe most of us have the capacity to change ourselves or at least our behavior.

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Our two book club choices seemed an odd pairing when I read them. Now with background re Gaskell, Dickens, etc., the two no longer seem the odd couple.

Many thanks to @Mary13 for tying everything together.

(I got an admonishment from CC on a past discussion for taking more than my turn. I hung my head in shame and then shrugged my shoulders. It’s a discussion for goodness sake and sometimes you have more to say than others. Whatever, CC)

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Something else the two stories have in common–although perhaps not obvious at first–is that they are tales of redemption. That’s clear with A Christmas Carol. In Rebecca Styler’s article quoted from earlier, she argues that Lois The Witch is a story of rebirth via the Christ-like travails of Lois. Since I can’t link to the article itself, I’ll quote pertinent excerpts in my next post (“Whatever, CC” :slight_smile: ).

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The spiritual and social narrowness of the Salem community is in complete contrast to Lois’ expansive sympathies. She is instinctively loving, and responds generously to others’ needs purely on the basis of a shared humanity. She has no sense of belonging to an elect, nor of having an enemy. Lois extends her sympathy even to those whom she could reasonably deem her opponents, Faith and Prudence. Thereby, she fulfills Christ’s injunction to 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you’.

As events become more testing, Lois becomes a messianic figure, by means of Gaskell’s symbolic associations. Manasseh has three premonitory visions of Lois, firstly ‘as one of the elect, robed in white’ (LW, p. 170), then as choosing a violent death, and thirdly as reaching the blessed lands of Beulah. In a trance he says:

‘Thither the angels carry her, lying back in their arms like one fainting. They shall kiss away the black circle of death, and lay her down at the feet of the Lamb. I hear her pleading there for those on earth who consented to her death. O Lois! pray also for me, pray for me, miserable!’ (LW, p. 200)

In Lois’ later trial, there are echoes of Jesus’ passion. Her sorrowful words to her main accuser, ‘You did not know what you said just now’ (LW, p. 206), recalls Jesus saying of the soldiers crucifying him ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ The fanatical preacher Dr Cotton Mather stirs up the crowd, but appears to give them the power of choice to decide Lois’ fate. ‘Away with her to gaol!’ they cry (LW, p. 208), echoing the mob’s demand before Pontius Pilate: ‘Away with this man
 Crucify him!’ Lois experiences her own Gethsemane in a prison cell the night before her death, lonely, bewildered and afraid.

Lois’ power is increased after death. When her fiancĂ© arrives in New England to fetch her, far too late, he is of course appalled at what has happened. The acts of contrition which follow the Salem events leave him disconsolate: ‘All this will not bring my Lois to life again, or give me back the hope of my youth’, he repeats, bitterly (LW, p. 225). But finally the thought of Lois’ example provokes him to forgiveness, and he decides to pray for those who persecuted her, and accept their repentance as sincere, because, he says, 'She would have willed it so" (LW, p. 226). So the tale ends, on a note of optimism in the human capacity for goodness and reconciliation, in spite of profound weakness and error.

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@Mary13 —thanks for sharing these important gems from Lois the Witch. I did not catch them as I had a hard time reading it but gamely plowed along.

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I was surprised to learn that the judge and jury apologized for their verdicts in the Salem witch trial five years later. Surely we must have learned that when we read The Crucible in 9th grade? FWIW the girl who instigated the bullying of me in 7th grade apologized years later when we were in high school. It certainly brought home to me that some people just seem to go through a period of temporary insanity in early adolescence. Although I was sometimes irritated by Gaskell’s history lessons, I was really glad she included that one.

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@VeryHappy I’m in the same position. I’ve read A Christmas Carol several times and do appreciate it; will skim through the comments here. Hoping to rejoin you all in February.

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I remember being bullied and hit in grade school. At a HS reunion many years later, I mentioned to a classmate how sad it was that a neighbor and classmate A had just died. He said, oh another classmate S had also died. I said I can’t feel sorry about S’s death as he was one of the primary bullies who tortured me throughout grade school, including hurting me often. This sidekick classmate was shocked—“but you’re a girl!” I replied, “yup, was a girl then too.”

Guess he had convenient amnesia about how they bullied and tortured other kids including girls in grade school. I never went to another reunion.

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I had to go back to the story and look this up: The name of the ship is Redemption. That’s how Lois’ story begins, and that’s how it ends. In between, there is a lot of suffering, but I guess that’s how it works.

We already talked about Manasseh’s name. His mother Grace’s name is ironic rather than descriptive, as are the names of Faith and Prudence. Faith ignores the “do unto others” precept and Prudence does not exhibit any of the caution or good judgment suggested by her name.

Lois is a biblical name from the Greek meaning “better.” No argument there! She is certainly better than everyone else in the Salem community. Lois is mentioned only once in the Bible, with this quote:

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” - 2 Timothy 1:5

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I was surprised by the name Lois which seemed very 20th century to me. So I went and looked up baby names. It was in the 200’s for popularity in the 1880s (about as far back as Social Security data apparently goes), peaked at #17 in 1929 (the age my husband’s great aunt Lois), and has plummeted since then. One site says it’s use in England began in the 16th century. One site says it means “most desirable” (which also said from the Greek and is not that dissimilar to what Mary found), another “battle maiden” and another “superior”.

Grace, Prudence and Faith all struck me as very common female Puritan names that are still used. Mannaseh I’ve never seen before. But then I’ve never seen Cotton anywhere except for Cotton Mather!

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My parents had a friend named Lois – she would have been born in the late 1920’s, so right on target for name popularity. It would be funny today to hear of a young couple naming their baby Lois. Maybe it’ll circle back and one day we’ll have toddlers named Lois, Mildred and Ethel being cuddled by their great-grandmas Tiffany, Brittany and Madison.

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  1. What views of Native Americans are held by the family? How is Nattee portrayed? What views of the relationship of Euro- and Native Americans do you think are implied by Gaskell’s presentation?

I just read the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and couldn’t help but be reminded of it when thinking about the relationship between the Puritans and their Native American servants. Hota is executed first because she is expendable; both her color and her heritage make it impossible to challenge her dominant caste employers.

Wilkerson wrote that caste is:

“
an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of ancestry and often immutable traits, traits that would be neutral in the abstract but are ascribed life-and-death meaning.”

I don’t know much about Elizabeth’s Gaskell’s view of Native Americans, but I expect she wasn’t very “woke” in that regard, given the era in which she lived. Nattee’s “heathen ways” and the tales of dangerous Indians in the woods seem to project the stereotypical views of the time. Yet Nattee also reminds me of Tituba in The Crucible – a character whose treatment illustrates the tenacity of racism:

In Miller’s play, he individualizes Tituba in terms of her dialect, place of origin, and skin color in order to show how individuality can be subverted into a cause for fear. Miller characterizes the preconceived difference between black and white as it would have appeared in Salem, but also as it has appeared throughout American history until his time. Miller also reminds the audience that while Tituba faces subjugation because of her race, she holds an unusual power over the people in the town. 4-Critical Analysis: Tituba and Race | The Crucible

I know we’re not reading The Crucible so excuse my digression, but I was struck by the similarities.

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Speaking of Nattee 
 it seemed to me that at one point in the book she and Faith were “in cahoots” trying to get Mr. Nolan to love Faith as much as she loved him. Did I get that wrong?

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I don’t think so. The story certainly implied that both the Native American characters were the real witches (or at least attempting witchcraft.) And also that they seemed to have the attitude that as long as the people they liked were helped it was okay if others got hurt.

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I think you got it right. Or let’s put it this way
Faith was aware of witchcraft being practiced by Nattee, but turned a blind eye to it because the outcome was supposed to bring her Mr. Nolan. I agree with @mathmom that the story implies that the Native Americans are the real witches, but if “aiding and abetting” is a crime, then Faith is guilty.

Once Lois realizes how Faith feels about Mr. Nolan, she becomes much more attuned to “Nattee’s improvised songs, in which, under strange allegories, the helpless love of her favourite was told to ears heedless of all meaning, except those of the tenderhearted and sympathetic Lois.”

Occasionally, Lois heard a strange chant of the old Indian woman’s–half in her own language, half in broken English–droned over some simmering pipkin, from which the smell was, to say the least, unearthly. Once, on perceiving this odour in the keeping-room, Grace Hickson suddenly exclaimed–

‘Nattee is at her heathen ways again; we shall have some mischief unless she is stayed.’

But Faith, moving quicker than ordinary, said something about putting a stop to it, and so forestalled her mother’s evident intention of going into the kitchen. Faith shut the door between the two rooms, and entered upon some remonstrance with Nattee; but no one could hear the words used.

Faith and Nattee have “secret conclaves, from which Lois felt herself to be tacitly excluded.” Lois says to Faith re Nattee:

‘I know not what the mixtures are which she is sometimes stirring over the fire, nor the meaning of the strange chants she sings to herself. And once I met her in the dusk, just close by Pastor Tappau’s house, in company with Hota, his servant–it was just before we heard of the sore disturbance in his house–and I have wondered if she had aught to do with it.’

Faith sat very still, as if thinking. At last she said–

‘If Nattee has powers beyond what you and I have, she will not use them for evil; at least not evil to those whom she loves.’

I think “in cahoots” is a fair description.

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Apparently there’s a movie about Dicken’s struggle to write A Christmas Carol. The Man Who Invented Christmas (film) - Wikipedia

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That looks like fun! I put it in my Netflix queue. (I’m probably one of the few people left in the world that still gets a DVD by mail.)

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I think we can let Lois rest In peace and shift gears to A Christmas Carol
 where we open with poor Marley not resting at all.

I’ve always felt kind of bad for Marley. Maybe he had no one in the Afterlife who knew him and was willing to pay him a ghostly visit while he still lived. Alas, he’s doomed to an existence of “No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.”

But even a specter from hell can still be funny in Dickens’ hands: Marley’s face “had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.”

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  1. Why wasn’t Marley saved, while Scrooge was saved?

Scrooge notes that Marley was always a good friend to him. Perhaps that’s why Marley arranges the ghostly intervention(s). Marley lingered around Scrooge - unseen - for a while. Maybe Scrooge’s behavior demanded an intercession. Never too late applies here.

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