The Chimes: A Goblin Story

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Even though this tale was a dark one, it had so much to say about how we view those less fortunate than ourselves. So often we forget to view people who have fallen on hard times as just that: people. They are no different than us except in the fact that they have to struggle more to obtain less than we’ve been blessed with. And as I stated earlier, there was a happy ending, which I was thankful for; because even in the midst of darkness and pain, there should always be hope. Isn’t that the promise that a new year brings? Trotty's "crime", he is told, is in not taking personal responsibility, in not having any inner convictions, and in losing confidence, faith in a higher power, and hope and determination that life would improve. He is reprimanded for his condemnation of people less fortunate than himself, offering them neither help nor pity. On his walk to Sir Joseph Bowley's house he had condemned a "cutpurse" (thief), and ignored the plight of a prostitute in the power of her pimp. He had read the account in a newspaper of a woman, driven from her home by poverty and misfortune, who had killed her child and herself. Trotty had seen this as final proof of the badness of the working class, and had cursed the woman as "unnatural and cruel". The goblins and spirits tell him that he has begun to emulate the behaviour of those such as Alderman Cute,

The Chimes was adapted into a 24-minute clay-animated film in 2000 by Xyzoo Animation. It won a Cine Special Jury award in 2002. [8] So may the New Year be a Happy one to You, Happy to many more whose Happiness depends on You! So may each Year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethern or sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy." The society’s scorn and disregard for the situation of people living in poverty is personified by a justice of the peace named Alderman Cute. Modelled in part on a real-life London politician who was known for claiming that there was no social problem that he couldn’t “put down,” Cute thinks of himself as a “Famous man for the common people”, but shows his real attitude toward the common people when he discourages Meg from marrying her fiancé Richard, telling Meg that she will inevitably quarrel with her husband, become a distressed wife, have sons who will get in trouble, become homeless, and attempt suicide – all of which, Cute adds, “I am determined to Put Down” (pp. 25, 28). Cute’s solution to poverty seems to be that the poor should never fall in love, marry, or have children. There are still politicians with his sort of attitude at work today in London, and in Washington, D.C.As New Year’s Eve advances toward midnight, Trotty is confronted by the Spirits of the Bells, who take him on a journey to witness what will become of those dear to him if they are infected by his opinion that they are unworthy of a New Year. In a final crisis, Trotty declares I know that our inheritance is held in store for us by Time. I know there is a sea of Time to rise one day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be swept away like leaves. … I know that we must trust and hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the good in one another. … O Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful! Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire! It has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in a church!" The narrow space within which it was necessary to confine these Christmas Stories when they were originally published, rendered their construction a matter of some difficulty, and almost necessitated what is peculiar in their machinery. I could not attempt great elaboration of detail, in the working out of character within such limits. My chief purpose was, in a whimsical kind of masque which the good humour of the season justified, to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land." simplicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direction.‘Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mortality, by A musical adaptation of The Chimes was created in 1992 by Lisa Kofod and Gay Donat Reed, with music by Paul Johnson. A staged reading of this work was produced at The Workhouse Theatre in New York City.

He is also told to try to improve conditions in the here and now, not to sorrowfully remember a fictitiously "better" time in years past.They had always been his clients, they had never been forgotten in any of his books, but here nothing else was to be remembered ... he had come to have as little faith for the putting down of any serious evil, as in a then notorious city alderman's gabble for the putting down of suicide. The latter had stirred his indignation to its depths just before he came to Italy, and his increased opportunities of solitary reflection since had strengthened and extended it. When he came therefore to think of his new story for Christmas time, he resolved to make it a plea for the poor ... He was to try and convert Society, as he had converted Scrooge, by showing that its happiness rested on the same foundations as those of the individual, which are mercy and charity not less than justice. [2]

Through these visions, Trotty witnesses the devastating consequences of societal injustices and the plight of the poor and downtrodden. The goblins attempt to shake Trotty's faith in humanity further, but he ultimately resists their influence and clings to hope and compassion. Trotty loves the church chimes and he and Meg feel the chimes have always been their constant friend. At the end of the book, Trotty finds himself awakening at home as if from a dream as the bells ring in the New Year of the day Trotty originally climbed the tower. Meg and Richard have chosen to wed, and all of her friends have spontaneously chosen to provide a wedding feast and celebration. The author explicitly invites the reader to decide if this "awakening" is a dream-within-a-dream. The reader must choose between the harsh consequences of the behaviour of the upper classes in Trotty's vision, or the happiness of the wedding.

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Le Père Martin" (1888) by Ruben Saillens and unwittingly plagiarized as " Papa Panov's Special Christmas" by Leo Tolstoy There's nothing more regular in its coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in its coming round than dinner” All Genoa lay beneath him, and up from it, with some sudden set of the wind, came in one fell sound the clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant, jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas "spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead." [2] Asking the upper classes to stop interfering with his life and leave him to die, Will Fern makes a bitter reference to the biblical Book of Ruth, deliberately misquoting Ruth's "Whither thou goest, I will go" speech.

Christmas Eve" ( Noch pered Rozhdestvom, 1832) by Nikolai Gogol (from Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka) The three continually "put down" the engaged couples' plan to marry, drumming into them how selfish and irresponsible it would be. The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". Twas the Night Before Christmas: Edited by Santa Claus for the Benefit of Children of the 21st Century" (2012) being Pamela McColl "smoke-free" edit of Clement Clarke Moore's poem

CHAPTER III—Third Quarter.

Trotty’s daughter is named Meg, and she is his sole consolation. Yet his love for Meg does not keep him from speculating: do poor people like him and his daughter have any place in the world, or any contribution to make? Or, he asks himself, are poor people like him and his daughter poor because of some innate moral failing?