"I want to tell you about Christmastown …": The Navigation of Festive Narrative Tropes in The Nightmare Before Christmas

Abstract

Abstract: Henry Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) appears initially to have little in common with the mini-cycle of festive storytelling that emerged in Hollywood at the end of World War II, which included It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and The Bishop's Wife (1947). These films arguably crystallized the Hollywood conventions that would go on to govern this type of seasonally themed output for decades to come. Yet closer examination suggests that in its content, if not its form, Selick's motion picture exists as a reworking of key tropes that have dominated this specific narrative heritage. This article comprises three sections that examine how the film navigates and amends long-established themes in Christmas storytelling. The first section addresses the concept of masquerade as it relates to Jack Skellington's appropriation of the Santa Claus persona; the second considers the contest between narrative protagonist and greedy antagonist, and the nature of this specific conflict resolution; and the third analyzes how the film draws upon a Dickensian use of the supernatural to echo the literary tradition from which many Christmas stories originally emerged.