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(1765). Most Gothic novels are tales of mystery and horror, intended to
chill the spine and curdle the blood. Ihey contain a strong element of the
supernatural and have all or most of the now familiar topography, sites, props,
supernatural appearances and happenings: wild and desolate landscapes, dark
forests, castles, abbeys, dungeons, secret passages, trapdoors, apparitions,
curses, etc.”' Though the early Gothic romances died of their own excesses of
plot, the Gothic atmospheric machinery continued to permeate the fiction of
major writers such as the Bronté Sisters, Edgar Allan Poe and even Charles
Dickens among others. In the second half of the twentieth century, the term
came to be applied to paperback romances with the same kind of themes and
trappings as the originals.
A Christmas Carol was probably the most popular piece of fiction that
Dickens ever wrote. The story is a candid allegory with an episodic narrative
structure. The story contains the classic elements of the Gothic: the
frightening and chain rattling ghosts, the metonymy of gloom and horror, an
atmosphere of mystery and suspense, and the dark, cold, lonely and sparsely
furnished house. Dickens was considered an important social commentator,
who used fiction to criticize the economic, social and moral abuses within
Victorian England. The timeframe of past, present and future is intricately
joined to formulate a thematic function, whereby the Ghost of Christmas Past
represents memory, the Ghost of Christmas Present is empathy and charity,
while the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come highlights the fear of death. The aim
of these ghosts is not merely to frighten, but to influence the decision of self¬
serving and insensitive people and transform them into caring and charitable
members of society through the intervention of moralizing lessons.
In the play, Education is Our Right (1990), Drew Hayden Taylor uses the
Dickensian Gothic formula and creates an Aboriginal version of A Christmas
Carol. In general, Taylor does not focus on one issue, but in this particular
play there is “very little fiction in this drama.”** The controversial issue
at stake concerns Pierre Cadieux, the then Federal Minister of Indian and
Northern Affairs, who announced a cap on post-secondary education for
Native students. The play was in fact written and produced, according to
the production notes, less then a year after the announcement. The cast
consists of many characters, however, only four actors perform on stage, but
“in a variety of roles.”** The location is variable, as it is in other plays by
Taylor, but should be set on a fictional reserve in central Ontario. The time
is not fixed either, which implies that the time context is flexible and open to
setting other time periods. The Scrooge figure of the play is Ebenezer Cadieux,
>! Diana Neill, A Short History of the English Novel, New York, Collier Books, 1967, 104-105.
52 Drew Hayden Taylor, Education is Our Right, Calgary, Fifth House Publishers, 1990, 78.
53 Tbid., 78.
54 Tbid., 79.
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