A CHRISTMAS CAROL BY CHARLES DICKENS - ANIMATED BOOK SUMMARY скачать в хорошем качестве

A CHRISTMAS CAROL BY CHARLES DICKENS - ANIMATED BOOK SUMMARY

Check out my website: https://schraderacademy.io/ A Christmas Carol, is almost certainly the most famous and most widely read of all of Charles Dickens’s stories. At just under 28,500 words, it is a novella rather than a novel; by comparison, the equally famous Gone with the Wind is well over 400,000 words. Yet this very short book, with its moving message of forgiveness and redemption, is one of the most popular in the world. It has never been out of print since it was first published in London in 1843 and has been translated into many languages. As with other Dickens stories, A Christmas Carol called attention to the plight of the desperately poor in London – especially the children. It also had an influence on the way people in Britain and the United States celebrated Christmas, right down to the present day. This short book consists of five chapters, which at the time were called “staves.” Stave One: The story opens in London on Christmas Eve, seven years to the day after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge himself is a selfish, bitter old man. His occupation is not clearly stated but he seems to be a moneylender and is extremely punishing when it comes to having his clients pay back their loans. When two local merchants ask Scrooge for a donation to help the poor, he refuses to give them anything. Scrooge’s bookkeeper, Bob Cratchit, is overworked and rudely treated. Scrooge will not allow him enough coal to keep the office warm in December and only grudgingly gives the man a day off to spend Christmas with his family. That night, back at his own empty, dark, depressing home, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Marley. The ghost has a terrible appearance, wrapped with enormous chains and dragging heavy lockboxes. The ghost of Marley explains that: “I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” Marley tells Scrooge that unless he changes his selfish ways, he too will end up just like Marley. Scrooge refuses to believe him, and so Marley tells him to expect visitations from three spirits before the night is over. In Stave two Scrooge awakens to the presence of the Spirit of Christmas Past, a glowing, angelic figure robed in white. The spirit makes him revisit his earlier Christmases, when he was a boy left alone at boarding school over the holiday; a youth apprenticed to his jolly master, Mr. Fezziwig; and, finally, a young man choosing wealth over love when his fiancée, Belle, returns his engagement ring because she believes he loves gold better than he loves her. Scrooge is quite distraught by what he has been forced to remember and demands to return to his room alone. In Stave 3, Scrooge again awakens to a ghost in his house, this time the Sprit of Christmas Present. He is an enormous and very jovial man who is surrounded by the most wonderful feast imaginable, along with a blazing hearthfire, a Christmas tree, and many gifts. The spirt shows Scrooge how others celebrate Christmas, including Scrooge’s kind-hearted nephew, Fred, and Bob Cratchit and his very poor but happy family. We meet Cratchit’s sweet-natured young son, Tiny Tim, who is ill and crippled. The spirit informs Scrooge that if the boy cannot get a doctor’s care – which, of course, his family cannot afford – he will die. The spirit also shows Scrooge two cold, starving, neglected children, and tells him their names are Ignorance and Want for they have no one to care for them. Scrooge asks the ghost: “Have they no refuge or resource”? The spirit replies with Scrooge’s own callous remarks asking: “Are there no workhouses?” In Stave four, the final visitor, the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, is the most terrifying, for it is a mere specter in black and resembles the Grim Reaper. By now Scrooge has been shaken by all that he has been forced to see and the spirit does not hesitate to take advantage of his vulnerable state. Scrooge is shown that at his death, no one mourns for him, and that nearly everyone is simply glad that such cold-hearted man is finally gone. Even worse, he is shown that Tiny Tim has died and the Cratchit family will never be the same. Scrooge realizes that his life has served little purpose and, indeed, has only been a source of sorrow and misery to others. When the spirit forces him to look at his own cold and lonely gravestone, Scrooge allows his heart to change at last. In Stave five, Scrooge awakens in his room, and it is Christmas morning. Overjoyed at finding that it is not too late for him to change his ways and make a positive difference in the lives of his family, friends, and employees, he first takes gifts and good food to the Cratchit family. Summary too long...