Clearly my posts have not helped any of you.
You are missing the queer subtext of A Christmas Carol.
Scrooge and Marley were lovers!!!
The broken engagement. The joy at Feziwig's (clearly Feziwig is a proto-leather bear and his wife a drag queen).
Bob Cratchitt knew (or at least strongly suspected) what was going on. Maybe he confronted Marley, percipitating his death in some way.
Whatever the reason, Scrooge blames Cratchitt for his lover's death. That is why he treats him so shabbily.
Scrooge's turnaround occurs when Marley comes to set him free of the chains of lost love. Scrooge also sees Tiny Tim as a possible boy toy. At the end Scrooge becomes like a second father to Tim (daddy/boi relationship), and if anyone knows how to "keep" the Christmas spirit (symbolized by Tiny Tim and his phallic crutch), it is Scrooge.
In the visitation of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come (get it -- yet-to-cum), it is the crutch as fetish object that is kept next to the Cratchitt fireplace -- the erection that will never be. It is the loss of the possibility of Tiny Tim as boy that finally kills Scrooge.
The healing of Tiny Tim entails the losing/disappearing of the crutch, indicating that Scrooge has absorbed it (either anally or orally).
I cannot believe all of you missed this. Do I have to do ALL the heavy lifting at lbo-talk?
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister