The Haunted Man
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Author | Charles Dickens |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novella |
| Publisher | Bradbury & Evans |
| Released | 19 December 1848 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 188 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
The Haunted Man (full title: The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time), a novella by Charles Dickens, was first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens' Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harkening back to the first of the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centers around a Professor Redlaw and those close to him.
[edit] Plot summary
Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past.
He is haunted by a spirit, who is not so much a ghost as Redlaw's phantom twin and is "an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress..." This specter appears and proposes to Redlaw that he can allow him to "forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known...to cancel their remembrance..." Redlaw agrees. However, before the spirit vanishes it imposes an additional consequence: "The gift that I have given you, you shall give again, go where you will."
Besides Redlaw, the book is populated with the people of Redlaw's life. Most of them are semi-comical characters such as the Tetterby family who rent a room to one of Redlaw's students and Swidger family who are Redlaw's servants. Milly Swidger, William Swidger's wife, is another of the absolutely and completely good females that frequent many of Dickens' stories.
As a consequence of the ghost's intervention Redlaw is without memories of the painful incidents from his past. He experiences a universal anger that he cannot explain. His bitterness spreads to the Swidgers, the Tetterbys and his student. All become as wrathful as Redlaw himself. The only one who is able to avoid the bitterness is Milly.
The narrative climaxes when Milly presents the moral of the tale: "It is important to remember past sorrows and wrongs so that you can then forgive those responsible and, in doing so, unburden your soul and mature as a human being." With this realization, the novel concludes with everyone back to normal and Redlaw, like Ebenezer Scrooge, a changed, more loving and whole person.
[edit] External links
Online editions
- The Haunted Man, available at Project Gutenberg.
- The Haunted Man, a free and easy to read HTML version.
