George MacDonald: My Little King, Part 2

This is the second post of George MacDonald’s collect of Christmas poems and short stories under the book title, My Little King.

You can read Post #1, on the poem, “A Christmas Carol,” here.  

 

This post will focus on the short story, “The Gifts of the Child Christ.”  You can read the story online at The Literature Network, here.  Or you can hear it being read through Librovox.

 

The following summary was put together in collaboration with my co-moderator at the Catholic Thought Book Club, Kerstin.

Summary

 

Mr. Greatorex is a widower of about 30 and remarried. The couple is unhappy. He has a daughter from his previous marriage, Sophy, who is neglected by the couple and most of the household. Even her nurse, Alice, is pre-occupied with the prospect of inheriting a large sum of money.

 

Sophy is a pious child. Their preacher has a recurring theme in his Sunday sermons, “the chastening of the Lord”, which makes a deep impression on her innocent mind. She wishes that the Lord would chasten her.

 

Mrs. Greatorex is pregnant and on Christmas night she gives birth to a stillborn boy. Early in the morning the household finds Sophy with her lifeless brother on her lap in a Pietà–like position.

 

In a parallel sub-plot, Alice, the  Greatorex’s servant, anticipates a large inheritance from her uncle and leaves the service of the Greatorexes. Her new found wealth creates a change in her that now she feels above her fiance John and breaks up with him. In a twist of the plot, her “inheritance” turns out to be a ruse, and now 'chastened', returns to John and her employers. She will be at the Greatorex’s home when the stillborn child is found.

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Celia Commented:

This story, though sad, does end up on a positive note. Especially noteworthy is Sophy's attitude about Christmas: she is looking for the Christ Child, not presents. A very wise 9 year old.

My Reply to Celia:

I thought Sophy was five years old. Where did you see nine?

Celia’s Reply:

I looked again and she is 7.  How did I get Sophy's age? From this excerpt.

 

"Some six years before, he had married to please his parents; and a year before, he had married to please himself."

 

I assume Sophy is 7, maybe 6.

Kerstin Commented:

Now we have to tie in how the "chastening of the Lord" fits in.

 

Sophy, who is the most innocent of all and desires this correction - even though she may not even understand what is meant here - really has no need of it. It is the family around her who have fallen into dysfunctional behavior patterns.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Greatorex live parallel lives, they are absorbed and closed off to each other with their own selfishness. It is not a relationship of mutual giving. The repercussions of this self-isolation is spilling over in how they neglect Sophy.

 

Alice is so self-absorbed and blinded by the promise of monetary riches and social status that she no longer recognizes the intangible riches of marrying a good man.

 

It is a household barren of love. Letty's child dies because there is no love, the self-giving necessary to nurture life. It is fitting that all this happens during Christmas night, for during this night Love is born. The coming of the Savior marks a demarcation line of what was before and what comes after. Only now can Love break in and heal this family from their self-destruction. But there is a real cost too. The sins of this previous life truly happened, and the pain and suffering they brought need to be transformed and redeemed. Sophy's Pietà–like posture points to this.

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My Comment:

I think everyone has mentioned all the bright spots of the story. Let me mention a couple of negatives.

 

(1) The baby was relatively a surprise. You have to search to find that Letty might even be pregnant. There is no detail of of Letty's pregnancy. The most I could find is that she wanted to give her husband a son.

 

(2) Where is any detail of the birth? If the baby was still born, who cleaned it up? Where were the post birth fluids? Was the baby still born or just died in infancy? I cannot tell. At first I thought Sophy had smothered it by accident. But that couldn't be it.

 

(3) Once the dead baby has been found, where is the horror and shock? For a moment Alice runs to her boyfriend crying, but once the baby is taken away, they have a conversation about her inheritance as if nothing has happened. There was a dead baby in the room moments before and they are talking about inheritance?

 

(4) Where is Letty's reaction to the dead baby? She's in her room crying and when her husband comes in and sooths her, it's all alright, just like that? It's all ok after an hour or two?

 

I found the ending of the story bizarre and lacking and really unclear in detail.

My Comment:

This is not a criticism, but something I can't understand how it fits. The name "Greatorex" is unusual, definitely not an English/Scottish name, and almost certainly contrived to have some significance. But what? "Rex" is Latin for king. So "Great king"? Why? Ironic? Alluding to the king who will be born at Christmas?

Kerstin Replied:

I was wondering about this too. If it is a play on words, were they making themselves greater than God?

Keith Replied:

Hello everyone. Just joining in this read. I wonder if the almost casual nature of the response to the baby’s death reflects how much more common it was in the 19th century for babies to die at birth or to be born dead.

 

And perhaps the reticence about Letty’s pregnancy and the specifics of the birth reflects how one did not speak of such things in those days. I wonder how MacDonald speaks of pregnancy in his other works? This is the first I’ve read of his.

My Reply to Keith:

Well, that could be about infant mortality being more common then. It's still rather bizarre to me. I thought about the reticence of bodily things in Victorian times, but still there has to be some detail, even if it's oblique or a euphemism. I didn't see any.

Kerstin Replied:

George MacDonald was a protestant minister. Six of his eleven children died before he did, five in infancy. Looking at the passage more closely, I think we find that the tragedy that has befallen the Greatorex household is felt very keenly.

 

Her mistress was again taken ill. Doctor and nurse were sent for in hot haste; hansom cabs came and went throughout the night, like noisy moths to the one lighted house in the street; there were soft steps within, and doors were gently opened and shut. The waters of Mara had risen and filled the house.

 

Towards morning they were ebbing slowly away. Letty did not know that her husband was watching by her bedside. The street was quiet now. So was the house. Most of its people had been up throughout the night, but now they had all gone to bed except the strange nurse and Mr. Greatorex.

 

The “waters of Mara” are out of Exodus 15:22 – 27. Israel had just crossed the Red Sea and they couldn’t find any fresh water for three days. Then at Marah the water they found was bitter. Moses threw a piece of wood into the water and it was made fresh. This reference not only points at the Passion, but is also about suffering at its most dire, the lack of life-giving water.

My Reply to Kerstin:

Yes, I remember reading that. Did anyone realize she was pregnant then? I think she was ill frequently in the story but it went unexplained.

 

That's an interesting detail from MacDonald's bio. Yes, I can see how he might be projecting into the scene.

 

By criticizing the casualness of the baby's death in the story, I don't mean to imply that MacDonald was not compassionate to babies dying. I'm criticizing the way he rushed to conclude his story. It felt he was just trying to bring it to a close and provided a simplified wrapping up of the story.

Kerstin Replied:

I had a hunch Liddy was pregnant, though it wasn't confirmed until Sophy finds the baby. Her not feeling well again - for a young married woman that usually means morning sickness - and then the activity going on in the house during the night, made me wonder.

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My Comment:

So here’s an interesting question.  The story is titled “The Gifts of the Christ Child.”  Now who is the “Christ child”?  Is it simply the Christ whose birth they are celebrating?  Is it Sophy?  Is it the dead baby?

 

Certainly it’s Christmas Day, so baby Jesus does enter the scene metaphysically.  But I think you could make the case that both Sophy and the dead baby are Christ figure types.

 

The dead baby is probably most obvious.  Sophy’s discovery of the child is worth quoting.

 

The room next the foot of the stair, and opposite her step-mother's, was the spare room, with which she associated ideas of state and grandeur: where better could she begin than at the guest-chamber?—There!—Could it be? Yes!—Through the chink of the scarce-closed door she saw light. Either he was already there or there they were expecting him. From that moment she felt as if lifted out of the body. Far exalted above all dread, she peeped modestly in, and then entered. Beyond the foot of the bed, a candle stood on a little low table, but nobody was to be seen. There was a stool near the table: she would sit on it by the candle, and wait for him. But ere she reached it, she caught sight of something upon the bed that drew her thither. She stood entranced.—Could it be?—It might be. Perhaps he had left it there while he went into her mamma's room with something for her.—The loveliest of dolls ever imagined! She drew nearer. The light was low, and the shadows were many: she could not be sure what it was. But when she had gone close up to it, she concluded with certainty that it was in very truth a doll—perhaps intended for her—but beyond doubt the most exquisite of dolls. She dragged a chair to the bed, got, up, pushed her little arms softly under it, and drawing it gently to her, slid down with it. When she felt her feet firm on the floor, filled with the solemn composure of holy awe she carried the gift of the child Jesus to the candle, that she might the better admire its beauty and know its preciousness. But the light had no sooner fallen upon it than a strange undefinable doubt awoke within her. Whatever it was, it was the very essence of loveliness—the tiny darling with its alabaster face, and its delicately modelled hands and fingers! A long night-gown covered all the rest.—Was it possible?—Could it be?—Yes, indeed! it must be—it could be nothing else than a real baby! What a goose she had been! Of course it was baby Jesus himself!—for was not this his very own Christmas Day on which he was always born?—If she had felt awe of his gift before, what a grandeur of adoring love, what a divine dignity possessed her, holding in her arms the very child himself! One shudder of bliss passed through her, and in an agony of possession she clasped the baby to her great heart—then at once became still with the satisfaction of eternity, with the peace of God. She sat down on the stool, near the little table, with her back to the candle, that its rays should not fall on the eyes of the sleeping Jesus and wake him: there she sat, lost in the very majesty of bliss, at once the mother and the slave of the Lord Jesus.

 

That is perhaps the best written passage in the entire story.  The baby is described in Christ allusions: “Through the chink of the scarce-closed door she saw light.”  “…she concluded with certainty that it was in very truth a doll…”  “…filled with the solemn composure of holy awe she carried the gift of the child Jesus to the candle…”  “Of course it was baby Jesus himself!—for was not this his very own Christmas Day on which he was always born?”  “If she had felt awe of his gift before, what a grandeur of adoring love, what a divine dignity possessed her…”  “then at once became still with the satisfaction of eternity, with the peace of God…” and finally, “there she sat, lost in the very majesty of bliss, at once the mother and the slave of the Lord Jesus.” 

 

And then when Sophy awakes to realize the dead baby, she proclaims Christ’s death.

 

“Jesus is dead,” she said, slowly and sadly, but with perfect calmness. “He is dead,” she repeated. “He came too early, and there was no one up to take care of him, and he’s dead—dead—dead!”

 

The thrice pronouncement of “dead—dead—dead” echoes the thrice incantation of the Agnus Dei.  It’s a reference to Christ’s sacrifice and the redemption of the world.  Through the baby’s death, all the characters are redeemed.

 

So how is Sophy a Christ figure? 

 

But she did not read far: her thoughts went back to a phrase which had haunted her ever since first she went to church: "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth."

 

Later she thinks, “I wish he would chasten me.”  To chasten is “to correct by punishment or suffering.”  (Webster’s Dictionary) with the connotation of purifying.  And frequently she says, "If the Lord would but chasten me!"  The frequency of Sophy’s wish to be chastened is a leitmotif, a recurring phrase that accompanies her and characterizes her.  When Alice is struggling because of her humiliation, Sophy turns to her: "Is the Lord chastening Alice? I wish he would chasten Phosy."  Sophy becomes the “suffering servant,” taking on the sins of the world, or at least those around her.  And so when she sits with the lifeless baby she associates with being chastened:

 

 She sat for a time still as marble waiting for marble to awake, heedful as tenderest woman not to rouse him before his time, though her heart was swelling with the eager petition that he would ask his Father to be as good as chasten her. And as she sat, she began, after her wont, to model her face to the likeness of his, that she might understand his stillness—the absolute peace that dwelt on his countenance.

 

She for a moment becomes Jesus.  Indeed through Sophy her father is transformed.

 

And every day, as he looked in her face and talked to her, it was with more and more respect for what he found in her, with growing tenderness for her predilections, and reverence for the divine idea enclosed in her ignorance, for her childish wisdom, and her calm seeking—until at length he would have been horrified at the thought of training her up in his way: had she not a way of her own to go—following—not the dead Jesus, but Him who liveth for evermore?

 

Her childish wisdom is divine wisdom.  She too is a child Christ.