The Chimes

Description

The notable English writer Charles Dickens may be more renowned for his popular novel A Christmas Carol. However, he wrote a series of five books on Christmas, and the Chimes is the second one, published in 1844.

With the full title “The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In”, this novel goes on to tell the story of a poor and unimportant ticket porter named Toby “Trotty” Veck. He also works as an occasional messenger, but life hasn’t been too good to him. Right on New Year’s day, he stumbles upon some newspapers filled with news about crime and other misgivings, and he starts to ask himself whether the human race and especially the working class is doomed to a life of wickedness. The same day, Meg, his daughter, along with her fiancé named Richard, comes to visit as well as to announce that they wish to marry the next day.

Later in the day, they encounter Alderman Cute who, alongside a young gentlemen affected by nostalgia and a political economist, manage to make Trotty as well as the young couple feel miserable and hopeless.

The story goes on to depict the increasing hopelessness of the family and Trotty’s visions in the church’s tower. There, Trotty meets the spirits and goblins of the tower who tell him that he’s dead and then force him to watch visions of further misery and what would happen to his family.

Eventually, Trotty manages to wake up from the dream, if it was a dream at all, and goes on to improve his behavior towards the nobleness of men. The Chimes is a magnificent tale about the struggles of the working class, as well as a moral story about our values and meaning of life.
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