Book Review 2-02

I read A Christmas Carol. This book is well known as a work written by Charles Dickens and as "little Christmas book". The story was instantly successful, selling over six thousand copies in one week and, although originally written as a potboiler to enable Dickens to pay off a debt, the tale has become one of the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time.

A main character in this story is Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge who was an elderly merchant, was as cool as ice, and was as hard as nails. He underwent a profound experience of redemption over the course of one evening and was a money-charger who had devoted his life to the accumulation of wealth, so his name is "Scrooge". "Scrooge" means a person who is very unwilling to spend money. He held anything other than money in contempt, including friendship, love, and the Christmas season.

The story begins by establishing that Jacob Marley who was dead. That day was Christmas Eve. Scrooge and his clerk Bob Cratchit are at work in the counting house with Cratchit stationed in the poorly heated "tank", who was a victim of his employer's stinginess.

Three ghosts who were "the first of spirits", "the second of spirits", and "the last of spirits" visited Mr. Scrooge. I think we can consider "the first of spirits" as "the past ghost", "the second of spirits" as "the present ghost", and "the last of spirits" as "the future ghost".
"The past ghost" brought him back to his childhood days. In the past, he was lonely but had a dream and was naive, so he wasn't a money-charger and didn't have love of possession.
"The present ghost" led him various place in London and he was poor but he had a happy home. Then, the ghost showed him Cratchit's house and he knew Tim, a Cratchit's son was sick and wasn't able to live long. Mr. Scrooge went all over the world with "the present ghost", so he was tired and slept. The next day, he saw "the future ghost" who extended his arm. He heard a person of bad reputation dead from the ghost, but he didn't know who the person is.
After that, he saw Tim died and his own name on an abandoned grave. Then, he was borne away by an impulse. At the end, Mr. Scrooge knew that he could change his future.

I like this story because this book taught us being able to change the future.