88 pages • 2 hours read
Charles DickensA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
The motif of time is crucial because Scrooge’s time is running out. Scrooge is haunted by bells counting down the hours and minutes—for instance, “the gruff old bell [that] was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall” (6). With Scrooge’s rebirth, the bells ring out in wild abandon, no longer marking time because the future is now unconstrained; Scrooge is free to create it for himself.
The spirits obviously represent the past, present, and future, but they also more subtly represent a distortion of time. The Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Present each arrive at one o’clock with no intervening day between. The Ghost of Christmas Present disappears at midnight, but the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come appears immediately afterward with no intervening hour, even though each visitation was supposed to begin at one o’clock. Scrooge also observes that the scenes to which the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come escorts him seem to take place in no particular chronological order. The compression and distortion of time suggests that time is indeed malleable and that therefore the future is malleable as well, which is essential to Scrooge’s transformation because one of his strongest motives is to save
By Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty
Charles Dickens
Bleak House
Charles Dickens
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son
Charles Dickens
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Hard Times
Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit
Charles Dickens
Martin Chuzzlewit
Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby
Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend
Charles Dickens
Pickwick Papers
Charles Dickens
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Charles Dickens
The Old Curiosity Shop
Charles Dickens
The Signal-Man
Charles Dickens