Resumen
Resumen de El hombre atormentado y el trato con el fantasma
Para quién es
For readers who love Dickens at Christmas, ghostly bargains and stories of memory and forgiveness. It also speaks to anyone who has carried grief or resentment.
De qué trata este libro
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain is a short Christmas book by Charles Dickens, published in 1848. It was the last of the five Christmas books he wrote in the 1840s, after A Christmas Carol. Like that famous tale, it sets a lonely, bitter man against a spirit on a winter night. But the tone is darker, and the question it asks is stranger. What would you be without your memory of pain?
The hero is Mr Redlaw, a chemistry teacher at an old college, who lives alone and broods over wrongs and sorrows in his past. On Christmas Eve his own double appears and makes him an offer that sounds like mercy. You will meet a kind woman named Milly, a ragged child from the streets, a shabby family of shopkeepers, and a student in trouble. Dickens uses them to ask what our worst memories do for us. The first key point is the gloomy man in his study.
En este resumen
- 1A lonely teacher sits with his sorrowsFree
- 2A phantom offers to erase the pain
- 3Forgetting spreads through the college
- 4Milly and the wild boy
- 5The Tetterbys and a shabby, loving home
- 6What the tale means and how it is told
Idea clave 1 de 6
A lonely teacher sits with his sorrows
The story opens on a cold Christmas Eve in an old college, where Mr Redlaw is a professor of chemistry. He is a tall, pale, gloomy man who lectures to students and then retreats to a dim room full of books and instruments. People say he is haunted. Dickens means this in a double sense. He is haunted by his own past, and soon he will be haunted by something that looks exactly like him.
Redlaw has known real loss and real wrong. The tale hints that he was betrayed and bereaved long ago, and he cannot let it go. He has built a life around a locked room of memory. He does not say much about it, but his face and manner show how heavily it presses on him.
The college itself is cared for by the Swidger family. William Swidger is the keeper who brings in the dinner and the news. His old father Philip, a very old man, is full of happy stories of the college in earlier days. William's wife Milly is gentle and busy, always visiting the sick and the poor. She is the warm centre of the household, and Redlaw both relies on her and holds her at a distance.
Dickens sets this ordinary world beside Redlaw's inward gloom, so we see what he is shutting out. A kind family, a fire, and a holiday are close at hand. Yet he sits apart with his thoughts. The question is whether he wants to keep his grief or only cannot put it down.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Mr Redlaw
- A solitary chemistry professor, he broods over past sorrows and receives an unsettling offer from his spectral double.
- The Phantom
- Redlaw's ghostly double offers to remove his painful memories, attaching a troubling condition to the bargain.
- Milly Swidger
- William's gentle wife cares for sick and struggling people around the college, including the young student.
- William Swidger
- The cheerful college keeper is Milly's husband, Philip's son, and a kindly attendant to Redlaw.
- Old Philip Swidger
- William's elderly father treasures recollections of earlier days and the people connected with the college.
- Mr Tetterby
- A kindly newsagent with a crowded household, he rents a room to the student Edmund Denham.
- Edmund Denham
- A young student lodging with the Tetterbys, he is ill and needs the kindness of others.
- The Wild Boy
- A ragged child without a home or family, he contrasts with those who have known loving care.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 35,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 20 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about El hombre atormentado y el trato con el fantasma
What is The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain about?
It follows a bitter chemistry professor, Mr Redlaw, who is offered the chance to forget all his sorrows by a ghost that looks like him. The gift harms those around him and teaches a lesson about memory.
Who is the Phantom in The Haunted Man?
The Phantom is a ghostly double of Redlaw. It stands for his own dark thoughts and bitterness, and it tempts him with a bargain that seems to promise peace.
When was The Haunted Man by Dickens written?
Dickens published it in 1848 as the last of his five Christmas books. It is a work of fiction, a ghost tale set in a college at Christmas, not a true story.
How does it compare with A Christmas Carol?
Both are ghostly Christmas tales with a lonely man at the centre. This one is darker and more strange, and it focuses on memory and forgiveness more than on money and generosity.
What is the main message of The Haunted Man?
Dickens argues that we must not wish away our sorrows. Remembering pain and wrong keeps us tender and forgiving, and memory of kindness binds families and communities together.