Maybe it's because I was reading Saint Augustine, but a few thoughts occurred to me over my recent viewings of the holiday classic, and I thought I'd share them here. They led me to a frankly fascinating thesis: Nightmare Before Christmas is an allegorical explanation of the interactions between Faith and Reason. It seems a bit far fetched, but if you keep reading (and if you are familiar at all with the story of Jack Skellington), you just might see what I mean.
I begin by proposing that Halloween Town represents Reason and that Christmas Town represents Faith, and I provide my reasons for thinking so with the following observations. In Halloween Town, there is an increased propensity amongst the populace to be scientific. Dr. Finkelstein, Sally's creator, is a bonafide scientist, and owns an entire laboratory complete with advanced scientific equipment. Sally herself is incredibly adept at alchemy and potion making, which may be in and of itself a slightly outdated science, but is a science nonetheless. We even see at one point that Jack reads a book simply entitled "The Scientific Method"shortly before conducting a series of experiments. If you think of the remaining citizens as representations of the Form of Reason, rather than the Form of Halloweeny-Scariness, replacing terms like "scary" with "empirically provable", scenes like Town Meeting make much more sense. Another fun comparison to make would be that of the Greeks (Reason) and their initial attempts to understand the alien ideas of the early Christian church (Faith). For a time, the analytical Greeks were at odds with the significantly less analytical Christians. Just as the logic of the Greeks prevented them from fully comprehending the Christians, the inability of the Halloween folk to grasp the concept of Christmas (Faith) is understandable, considering that they are capable of thinking only in terms of Halloween (Reason). The main point I make here is that the denizens of Halloween Town only put stock in that which can be empirically proven and disproven.
Christmas Town is a bit trickier to explain, as we see significantly less of it than we do of Halloween Town, and as such, there are fewer examples to be cited. The only real evidence I can provide is Christmas Town's effect on the character of Jack Skellington.
The best explanation involves a bit of storytelling. The story opens on the citizens of Halloween Town celebrating (what else?) Halloween, and Jack Skellington, the terrifying Pumpkin King has "-grown so weary of the sound of screams." He sneaks away from the celebrations to privately express his dissatisfaction with Halloween (or rather a dissatisfaction with radical monism rooted in empiricism). Go ahead and watch the video below, and try to bear in mind the idea of Halloween Town representing Reason.
1. Jack, the Paragon of Reason, begins to realize that as comprehensive as Reason is, it cannot provide answers to every question. After a long life of radical empiricism, he begins to long for something more (Faith)
What follows is that Jack, driven by his enigmatic need, wanders aimlessly through the woods, not unlike Dante, who "-went astray from the straight road and woke to find [himself] alone in a dark wood." The morning after Halloween, Jack passes beyond the boundaries of the Halloween Town he knows, and stumbles upon something peculiar, a door in a tree, bearing the symbol of a Christmas tree. Whether by accident or some external influence, Jack gets sucked into the door and finds himself transported to a place completely and utterly alien to him. He comes to know the place by the name of Christmas Town. Please watch the video below. Imagine that Jack, a radical empiricist, is encountering something that defies everything his senses tell him, comparable perhaps to a divine revelation of sorts.
2. Jack experiences something beyond the senses, unable prove or disprove the intangible aura of Faith, but despite this, he is possessed by the obsession to bring the mysterious Faith under the heel of Reason. Little does he know that doing so will not have the desired effect.
You may have noticed by now that Jack is not one to do things by halves. He's either exuberant or exhausted, happy or sad, almost bipolar. This is indicative of what he symbolically represents, which is obsessive, radical belief, an ironically faith-like attribute. He is confident that all the rules of logic can be applied to something like Faith, and with this in mind, he triumphantly returns to Halloween Town, collected specimens in his boney hands. With more excitement and vigor than he can recall ever feeling, Jack calls for a town meeting to discuss the concept of Christmas and its possible impact on the citizens of Halloween.
3. Jack's attempts to convey his recent experience with Faith to the townspeople partly fails. Though the people understand Faith in a purely logical sense, they cannot know what it is in particular what Jack feels. In the end, Jack must settle for stirring their interest by making Faith sound appealing in a logical, Reason based way.
When Jack returns to explain his experience of Christmas/Faith, he finds that the task is impossible. He can no more make them understand than he can tell a blind person what a sunset looks like. This is because Faith is relevant in particular to the individual. Faith is not something that can be taught, as Jack learns. To make the point more clearly, imagine talking on the phone with a friend. Your friend is eating some exotic dish that you've never even heard of. Having never tasted this food, you have no idea what the experience is like. Your friend could explain the taste and texture of the food, and this might help refine your conceptions, but no matter how specific the details, the friend's description will not make you realize what the experience of eating this exotic dish is like.
The sometimes incongruent natures of Faith and Reason clash in this scene, particularly in the case of the packaged present Jack displays on the stage. It isn't difficult to imagine that the present represents the ambiguity of Faith. It represents the concept of knowledge that can be known without knowing. Most would describe Faith as being something you learn without the aid of the senses (perhaps through divine revelation[?]) that you know beyond all shadow of doubt. The individual in question, for example, may know for certain that there is a God, but this knowledge cannot be truly communicated or proven by any reasonable means, and as such, this knowledge is only of use to the individual. How can people who think strictly in terms of Reason be expected to understand knowledge that cannot be communicated? How can empiricists be expected to believe that there is a limit to the scope of their Reason? So it is with the Halloween Townsfolk. When his attempt to convey the experience of Faith fails, Jack resorts to translating the notion of Faith in terms they can understand. This excites the townsfolk and sparks an interest in Faith, but Jack sighs that "-at least they're excited, but they don't understand that special kind of feeling in Christmas Land...oh well..."
The relationship between Jack and Sally bears some exposition here, as it is loaded with delicious symbolism. Sally sympathizes with Jack's emptiness prior to his experience in Christmas Town, and she harbors deep feelings for him that have thus far gone unspoken. Because of the circumstances regarding her possessive creator, Dr. Finkelstein, she cannot be open with her affections. One night, after sending Jack an anonymous token of her love, Sally has an unexplained vision that gives her Faith in the error of Jack's thinking, that is to say that she knows without knowing that Jack's thinking will end badly.
She sees a Christmas tree, complete with glistening decorations, burst into flames. The destruction of the tree, obviously representing the destruction of Christmas and therefore Faith, does not necessarily mean that Christmas and Faith are futile and unworthy of our interest. It merely means that trying to interpret Faith with Reason is ultimately useless, as we will see later. While Jack becomes obsessed with trying to solve the riddle of Faith by scientific means, Sally quietly contemplates whether or not what Jack is doing is right. Where Jack represents radical, obsessive Reason that feels the need to explain everything in logical terms, Sally represents a moderate Reason that knows its place in relation to Faith. Despite the curiosity she has in common with Jack, she realizes that Reason does not rule Faith, nor does Faith rule Reason. The two have a legitimate relationship, but she hopes that the boundaries will be carefully observed.
You know what? This has turned into a LONG blog post. Nobody likes reading LONG blog posts, so I'm gonna stop here, but I will continue explaining my thesis in another post soon.
What's going to happen? Will Jack's experiments and study into Christmas/Faith bear fruit? Will Faith be understood by Reason, or will Jack's good intentions shake the foundations of Halloween Town? Stay tuned, and even if you already know the answers, you just might learn something new next time!
I begin by proposing that Halloween Town represents Reason and that Christmas Town represents Faith, and I provide my reasons for thinking so with the following observations. In Halloween Town, there is an increased propensity amongst the populace to be scientific. Dr. Finkelstein, Sally's creator, is a bonafide scientist, and owns an entire laboratory complete with advanced scientific equipment. Sally herself is incredibly adept at alchemy and potion making, which may be in and of itself a slightly outdated science, but is a science nonetheless. We even see at one point that Jack reads a book simply entitled "The Scientific Method"shortly before conducting a series of experiments. If you think of the remaining citizens as representations of the Form of Reason, rather than the Form of Halloweeny-Scariness, replacing terms like "scary" with "empirically provable", scenes like Town Meeting make much more sense. Another fun comparison to make would be that of the Greeks (Reason) and their initial attempts to understand the alien ideas of the early Christian church (Faith). For a time, the analytical Greeks were at odds with the significantly less analytical Christians. Just as the logic of the Greeks prevented them from fully comprehending the Christians, the inability of the Halloween folk to grasp the concept of Christmas (Faith) is understandable, considering that they are capable of thinking only in terms of Halloween (Reason). The main point I make here is that the denizens of Halloween Town only put stock in that which can be empirically proven and disproven.
Christmas Town is a bit trickier to explain, as we see significantly less of it than we do of Halloween Town, and as such, there are fewer examples to be cited. The only real evidence I can provide is Christmas Town's effect on the character of Jack Skellington.
The best explanation involves a bit of storytelling. The story opens on the citizens of Halloween Town celebrating (what else?) Halloween, and Jack Skellington, the terrifying Pumpkin King has "-grown so weary of the sound of screams." He sneaks away from the celebrations to privately express his dissatisfaction with Halloween (or rather a dissatisfaction with radical monism rooted in empiricism). Go ahead and watch the video below, and try to bear in mind the idea of Halloween Town representing Reason.
1. Jack, the Paragon of Reason, begins to realize that as comprehensive as Reason is, it cannot provide answers to every question. After a long life of radical empiricism, he begins to long for something more (Faith)
What follows is that Jack, driven by his enigmatic need, wanders aimlessly through the woods, not unlike Dante, who "-went astray from the straight road and woke to find [himself] alone in a dark wood." The morning after Halloween, Jack passes beyond the boundaries of the Halloween Town he knows, and stumbles upon something peculiar, a door in a tree, bearing the symbol of a Christmas tree. Whether by accident or some external influence, Jack gets sucked into the door and finds himself transported to a place completely and utterly alien to him. He comes to know the place by the name of Christmas Town. Please watch the video below. Imagine that Jack, a radical empiricist, is encountering something that defies everything his senses tell him, comparable perhaps to a divine revelation of sorts.
2. Jack experiences something beyond the senses, unable prove or disprove the intangible aura of Faith, but despite this, he is possessed by the obsession to bring the mysterious Faith under the heel of Reason. Little does he know that doing so will not have the desired effect.
You may have noticed by now that Jack is not one to do things by halves. He's either exuberant or exhausted, happy or sad, almost bipolar. This is indicative of what he symbolically represents, which is obsessive, radical belief, an ironically faith-like attribute. He is confident that all the rules of logic can be applied to something like Faith, and with this in mind, he triumphantly returns to Halloween Town, collected specimens in his boney hands. With more excitement and vigor than he can recall ever feeling, Jack calls for a town meeting to discuss the concept of Christmas and its possible impact on the citizens of Halloween.
3. Jack's attempts to convey his recent experience with Faith to the townspeople partly fails. Though the people understand Faith in a purely logical sense, they cannot know what it is in particular what Jack feels. In the end, Jack must settle for stirring their interest by making Faith sound appealing in a logical, Reason based way.
When Jack returns to explain his experience of Christmas/Faith, he finds that the task is impossible. He can no more make them understand than he can tell a blind person what a sunset looks like. This is because Faith is relevant in particular to the individual. Faith is not something that can be taught, as Jack learns. To make the point more clearly, imagine talking on the phone with a friend. Your friend is eating some exotic dish that you've never even heard of. Having never tasted this food, you have no idea what the experience is like. Your friend could explain the taste and texture of the food, and this might help refine your conceptions, but no matter how specific the details, the friend's description will not make you realize what the experience of eating this exotic dish is like.
The sometimes incongruent natures of Faith and Reason clash in this scene, particularly in the case of the packaged present Jack displays on the stage. It isn't difficult to imagine that the present represents the ambiguity of Faith. It represents the concept of knowledge that can be known without knowing. Most would describe Faith as being something you learn without the aid of the senses (perhaps through divine revelation[?]) that you know beyond all shadow of doubt. The individual in question, for example, may know for certain that there is a God, but this knowledge cannot be truly communicated or proven by any reasonable means, and as such, this knowledge is only of use to the individual. How can people who think strictly in terms of Reason be expected to understand knowledge that cannot be communicated? How can empiricists be expected to believe that there is a limit to the scope of their Reason? So it is with the Halloween Townsfolk. When his attempt to convey the experience of Faith fails, Jack resorts to translating the notion of Faith in terms they can understand. This excites the townsfolk and sparks an interest in Faith, but Jack sighs that "-at least they're excited, but they don't understand that special kind of feeling in Christmas Land...oh well..."
The relationship between Jack and Sally bears some exposition here, as it is loaded with delicious symbolism. Sally sympathizes with Jack's emptiness prior to his experience in Christmas Town, and she harbors deep feelings for him that have thus far gone unspoken. Because of the circumstances regarding her possessive creator, Dr. Finkelstein, she cannot be open with her affections. One night, after sending Jack an anonymous token of her love, Sally has an unexplained vision that gives her Faith in the error of Jack's thinking, that is to say that she knows without knowing that Jack's thinking will end badly.
She sees a Christmas tree, complete with glistening decorations, burst into flames. The destruction of the tree, obviously representing the destruction of Christmas and therefore Faith, does not necessarily mean that Christmas and Faith are futile and unworthy of our interest. It merely means that trying to interpret Faith with Reason is ultimately useless, as we will see later. While Jack becomes obsessed with trying to solve the riddle of Faith by scientific means, Sally quietly contemplates whether or not what Jack is doing is right. Where Jack represents radical, obsessive Reason that feels the need to explain everything in logical terms, Sally represents a moderate Reason that knows its place in relation to Faith. Despite the curiosity she has in common with Jack, she realizes that Reason does not rule Faith, nor does Faith rule Reason. The two have a legitimate relationship, but she hopes that the boundaries will be carefully observed.
You know what? This has turned into a LONG blog post. Nobody likes reading LONG blog posts, so I'm gonna stop here, but I will continue explaining my thesis in another post soon.
What's going to happen? Will Jack's experiments and study into Christmas/Faith bear fruit? Will Faith be understood by Reason, or will Jack's good intentions shake the foundations of Halloween Town? Stay tuned, and even if you already know the answers, you just might learn something new next time!
A most fascinating discussion! I appreciated how you noted at the end that faith and reason need not oppose each other. Too often the discussion is framed as reason versus non-reason, or the rational versus the non-rational. I think the reason/revelation contrast is a better one. It is not that the believer believes irrational things, but that he or she sees or experiences more than the others. This openness to the revelation of God's presence, power, and activity means that the believer perceives and thinks more clearly, more comprehensively, than the unbeliever. To the unbeliever, limited in his or her vision, it may appear non-rational or even irrational, but if what the believer experiences is real, it means that they are in better touch with reality than their unbelieving, somewhat blind, counterpart. Again, most fascinating. Loved the clips!
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Your insights about why faith cannot be understood by reason make sense of some things I have noticed in life, but never been able to put into words. Thank you for explaining the gap between reason and fact so concisely, it has been helpful to read.
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