Brief summary of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. During the night of Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by 3 ghosts, each representing a different part of the Christmas season. The first ghost to visit Scrooge was the Ghost of Christmas Past, and this ghost took Scrooge to see his childhood and all that he had lost by living his early years with selfish ambition. When the first ghost had gone, Scrooge had much to think about, but he went back to bed. Here Dickens shows his readers that changing a person’s way of thinking takes time and repetition. Scrooge needed another ghost to keep his train of thought going. The second ghost was the ghost of the Christmas present, this ghost simply showed Scrooge all the joy people had during the Christmas season. However, the most important thing that the ghost showed Scrooge was a very poor family. This family was very happy and content with their circumstances and it made Scrooge wonder how they could be happy with so little and he could be so miserable with so much.
With the second ghost, Dickens is teaching his readers the importance of being content with what one has, without content a person will never be happy no matter how much wealth they accumulate. After the second ghost left, Scrooge was greatly shaken, but took advantage of the third ghost’s visit to make him a true believer in the Christmas spirit. The last ghost was the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and this ghost showed Scrooge what the world would be like if he didn’t change his ways and help the poor. A very significant passage shows Scrooge looking at the same family that he had seen with the second ghost, but the youngest son of the family had died for lack of medical treatment. Scrooge is finally shown his own grave and begins to fear for his life and those of his kind. A Christmas Carol ends with Scrooge delivering presents at Christmas and promising to help the poor for the rest of his life; this is a typical ending to Dickens books in which the protagonist is put on the right track and everyone is happy.
High expectations
Dickens’ novel Great Expectations originally appeared in the All Year Round newspaper over a period of eight months and was very popular. Because Great Expectations was written for an article that Dickens wrote in two-chapter installments, they kept the reader engaged between articles while satisfying their need for resolution at the end of each installment. This novel is sometimes considered semi-autobiographical because in it Dickens draws on many cases from his own life. Great Expectations is the story of an orphan named Pip that follows his life from early childhood to adulthood. Pip goes through 3 stages in his life, each with his own expectations. The first are with his humble beginnings with Joe and his visits to old Miss Havisham and Estella. Joe is a hardworking man who does everything he can to love Pip and teach him about life. However, Pip is not grateful for the life Joe has given him and wishes to win the affections of the lovely Estella, who is Miss Havisham’s pawn.
The second phase of Pip’s life begins when a mysterious benefactor gives Pip a good deal of money and he goes to live in London. Pip absorbs the upper class life of London, but his ingratitude towards Joe continues when Joe sends Pip a letter saying that he wants to visit him in London. After reading this letter, Pip is horrified that Ordinary Joe is coming into his life in London. Here Dickens gives the reader a real look at ingratitude, Joe is a hard working man and he loved Pip with all the love he had, but Pip can’t even begin to return this love by welcoming Joe into his London home. . In the third stage of Pips’s life comes the realization that his benefactor is actually a convict. Here, Pip must deal with the ugly side of life head on, and it doesn’t fare so well. The book ends with one of Dickens’s greatest sets of unbelievable circumstances in which many of the characters turn out to be linked to each other through Miss Havisham. In Great Expectations, Dickens gives the reader a lot to think about, particularly gratitude and what it means to be a gentleman. Although Pip had a lot of money, Dickens makes it clear that it is his actions that define him, and it is only at the end of the book that Pip begins to understand for himself what it means to be a true gentleman.
