The Chimes
Encyclopedia
The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, a short novel by Charles Dickens
, was written and published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol
and one year before The Cricket on the Hearth
. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books": five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s.
. John Forster, his first biographer, records that Dickens, hunting for a title and structure for his next contracted Christmas story, was struck one day by the clamour of the Genoese bells audible from the villa where they were staying.
Two days later Forster received a letter from Dickens which read simply: ""We have heard THE CHIMES at midnight, Master Shallow!", and the writing of the book began. Forster describes Dickens' intentions in writing The Chimes as striking "a blow for the poor".
Dickens returned to London for a week in December 1844 and gave readings of the finished book to friends prior to publication, in order to judge its impact; the artist Daniel Maclise
, who had contributed two illustrations to The Chimes and attended two of these events, portrayed the reading of 3 December 1844 in a well-known sketch.
. (This parallels Dickens naming the parts of A Christmas Carol "staves" – that is "stanzas" – and dividing The Cricket on the Hearth into "chirps".)
, Cute, plus a political economist
and a young gentleman with a nostalgia, all of whom make Trotty, Meg, and Richard feel they hardly have a right to exist, let alone marry.
Trotty carries a note for Cute to Sir Joseph Bowley MP
, who dispenses charity to the poor in the manner of a paternal dictator
. Bowley is ostentatiously settling his debts to ensure a clean start to the new year, and berates Trotty because he owes a few shilling
s to his local shop which he cannot pay off. Returning home, convinced that he and his fellow poor are naturally ungrateful and have no place in society, Trotty encounters Will Fern, a poor countryman, and his orphaned niece, Lilian. Fern has been unfairly accused of vagrancy
and wants to visit Cute to set matters straight, but from a conversation overheard at Bowley's house, Trotty is able to warn him that Cute plans to have him arrested and imprisoned. He takes the pair home with him and he and Meg share their meagre food and poor lodging with the visitors. Meg tries to hide her distress, but it seems she has been dissuaded from marrying Richard by her encounter with Cute and the others.
In the night the bells seem to call Trotty. Going to the church he finds the tower door unlocked and climbs to the bellchamber, where he discovers the spirits of the bells and their goblin
attendants who reprimand him for losing faith
in man's destiny to improve. He is told that he fell from the tower during his climb and is now dead, and Meg's subsequent life must now be an object lesson for him. There follows a series of visions which he is forced to watch, helpless to interfere with the troubled lives of Meg, Richard, Will and Lilian over the subsequent years. Richard descends into alcoholism
; Meg eventually marries him in an effort to save him but he dies ruined, leaving her with a baby. Will is driven in and out of prison by petty laws and restrictions; Lilian turns to prostitution
. In the end, destitute, Meg is driven to contemplate drowning herself and her child, thus committing the mortal sin
s of murder and suicide. The Chimes' intention is to teach Trotty that, far from being naturally wicked, mankind is formed to strive for nobler things, and will fall only when crushed and repressed beyond bearing. Trotty breaks down when he sees Meg poised to jump into the river, cries that he has learned his lesson, and begs the Chimes to save her, whereupon he finds himself able to touch her and prevent her from jumping.
With this the vision ends and Trotty finds himself awakening at home as if from a dream as the bells ring in the New Year, and the book ends with celebrations for Meg and Richard's wedding day.
, written with the intention of swaying readers towards Dickens' moral message. The chimes represent time, and the main themes of the story are summarized in the three wrongs they accuse Trotty of committing:
• Harking back to a golden age that never was, instead of striving to improve conditions here and now.
• Believing that individual human joys and sorrows do not matter to a higher power.
• Condemning those who are fallen and unfortunate, and offering them neither help nor pity.
rejected his unflattering caricatures of philanthropy. It was certainly a financial success for Dickens, and remained popular for many years, although in the long term its fame was eclipsed by that of A Christmas Carol.
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
, misquoting Ruth's "Whither thou goest, I will go" speech.
Trotty's conviction that poor people are naturally wicked is influenced by an article in his newspaper about a young woman who has tried to drown herself and her child, and this motif returns at the climax of the book, when Meg is driven to contemplate the same course of action. This is a reference to Mary Furley, a destitute young woman sentenced to death in 1844 for infanticide
after her desperation not to return to the workhouse
led to a failed suicide attempt
in which her illegitimate child drowned. This case caused great public debate in the late spring of 1844. Dickens took part in the general outcry against the sentence, which was eventually commuted to transportation
. Among other works inspired by the Furley case is Thomas Hood
's poem The Bridge of Sighs
.
Alderman Cute is a parody of Sir Peter Laurie, a Middlesex magistrate, alderman and former Lord Mayor of London, known for his determination to "put down" the lower classes and their antisocial behaviour. His remarks on the 1844 Mary Furley case have been cited as one inspiration to Dickens to write The Chimes.
The unnamed young man who harks back to the "good old times" is a reference to the Young England
movement. Dickens removed many of these references prior to publication.
.
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.
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.
The Colonial Radio Theatre in Boston produced a full cast radio production of THE CHIMES in 2000, and released on CD by Blackstone Audio in 2007, and re-released by Brilliance Audio in 2011.
In 2004 a stage adaptation by Les Smith premiered at the Southwark Playhouse
.
Film
Theatre
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, was written and published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
and one year before The Cricket on the Hearth
The Cricket on the Hearth
The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845 with illustrations by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield and Edwin Henry Landseer. Dickens began writing the book around...
. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books": five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s.
Development history
The book was written in late 1844, during Dickens' year-long visit to ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. John Forster, his first biographer, records that Dickens, hunting for a title and structure for his next contracted Christmas story, was struck one day by the clamour of the Genoese bells audible from the villa where they were staying.
Two days later Forster received a letter from Dickens which read simply: ""We have heard THE CHIMES at midnight, Master Shallow!", and the writing of the book began. Forster describes Dickens' intentions in writing The Chimes as striking "a blow for the poor".
Dickens returned to London for a week in December 1844 and gave readings of the finished book to friends prior to publication, in order to judge its impact; the artist Daniel Maclise
Daniel Maclise
Daniel Maclise was an Irish history, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England.-Early life:...
, who had contributed two illustrations to The Chimes and attended two of these events, portrayed the reading of 3 December 1844 in a well-known sketch.
Explanation of the novel's title
The chimes are old bells in the church on whose steps Trotty Veck plies his trade. The book is divided into four parts named "quarters", after the quarter chimes of a striking clockStriking clock
A striking clock is a clock that sounds the hours audibly on a bell or gong. In 12 hour striking, used most commonly in striking clocks today, the clock strikes once at 1 AM, twice at 2 AM, continuing in this way up to twelve times at 12 noon, then starts over, striking once at 1 PM, twice at 2...
. (This parallels Dickens naming the parts of A Christmas Carol "staves" – that is "stanzas" – and dividing The Cricket on the Hearth into "chirps".)
Plot summary
One New Year's Eve Trotty, a "ticket-porter" or casual messenger, is filled with gloom at the reports of crime and immorality in the newspapers, and wonders whether the working classes are simply wicked by nature. His daughter Meg and her long-time fiancé Richard arrive and announce their decision to marry next day. Trotty hides his misgivings, but their happiness is dispelled by an encounter with a pompous aldermanAlderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
, Cute, plus a political economist
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
and a young gentleman with a nostalgia, all of whom make Trotty, Meg, and Richard feel they hardly have a right to exist, let alone marry.
Trotty carries a note for Cute to Sir Joseph Bowley MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, who dispenses charity to the poor in the manner of a paternal dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
. Bowley is ostentatiously settling his debts to ensure a clean start to the new year, and berates Trotty because he owes a few shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s to his local shop which he cannot pay off. Returning home, convinced that he and his fellow poor are naturally ungrateful and have no place in society, Trotty encounters Will Fern, a poor countryman, and his orphaned niece, Lilian. Fern has been unfairly accused of vagrancy
Vagrancy (people)
A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income.-Definition:A vagrant is "a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging;" vagrancy is the condition of such persons.-History:In...
and wants to visit Cute to set matters straight, but from a conversation overheard at Bowley's house, Trotty is able to warn him that Cute plans to have him arrested and imprisoned. He takes the pair home with him and he and Meg share their meagre food and poor lodging with the visitors. Meg tries to hide her distress, but it seems she has been dissuaded from marrying Richard by her encounter with Cute and the others.
In the night the bells seem to call Trotty. Going to the church he finds the tower door unlocked and climbs to the bellchamber, where he discovers the spirits of the bells and their goblin
Goblin
A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.They are attributed with various abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. In some cases, goblins have been classified as constantly annoying little...
attendants who reprimand him for losing faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
in man's destiny to improve. He is told that he fell from the tower during his climb and is now dead, and Meg's subsequent life must now be an object lesson for him. There follows a series of visions which he is forced to watch, helpless to interfere with the troubled lives of Meg, Richard, Will and Lilian over the subsequent years. Richard descends into alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
; Meg eventually marries him in an effort to save him but he dies ruined, leaving her with a baby. Will is driven in and out of prison by petty laws and restrictions; Lilian turns to prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. In the end, destitute, Meg is driven to contemplate drowning herself and her child, thus committing the mortal sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
s of murder and suicide. The Chimes' intention is to teach Trotty that, far from being naturally wicked, mankind is formed to strive for nobler things, and will fall only when crushed and repressed beyond bearing. Trotty breaks down when he sees Meg poised to jump into the river, cries that he has learned his lesson, and begs the Chimes to save her, whereupon he finds himself able to touch her and prevent her from jumping.
With this the vision ends and Trotty finds himself awakening at home as if from a dream as the bells ring in the New Year, and the book ends with celebrations for Meg and Richard's wedding day.
Main characters
- Toby "Trotty" Veck, a messenger or "ticket-porter", and the main protagonist
- Margaret "Meg" Veck, Toby's 20-year old daughter
- Mrs. Anne Chickenstalker, the local shopkeeper
- Alderman Cute, a Justice of the Peace
- Mr. Filer, a political economist in the Utilitarian mould
- Sir Joseph Bowley, a rich paternalist MP
- Will Fern, a countryman
- Lilian Fern, Will's orphaned niece
Major themes
This is a campaigning story like its predecessor A Christmas CarolA Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
, written with the intention of swaying readers towards Dickens' moral message. The chimes represent time, and the main themes of the story are summarized in the three wrongs they accuse Trotty of committing:
• Harking back to a golden age that never was, instead of striving to improve conditions here and now.
• Believing that individual human joys and sorrows do not matter to a higher power.
• Condemning those who are fallen and unfortunate, and offering them neither help nor pity.
'Who turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of his kind; abandons them as vile; and does not trace and track with pitying eyes the unfenced precipice by which they fell from good—grasping in their fall some tufts and shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still when bruised and dying in the gulf below; does wrong to Heaven and man, to time and to eternity. And you have done that wrong!'
Literary significance and reception
A Christmas Carol had been extremely well received the previous year, and The Chimes aroused public interest and anticipation. Five different stage productions of the book were running within weeks of publication and nearly 20,000 copies were sold in the first three months. It had a high media profile, and was widely reviewed and discussed. Critical opinion was divided; those sympathetic to its social and political message liked the book, but others thought it dangerously radical. The Northern Star reviewer called Dickens "the champion of the poor"; John BullJohn Bull
John Bull is a national personification of Britain in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged man, often wearing a Union Flag waistcoat.-Origin:...
rejected his unflattering caricatures of philanthropy. It was certainly a financial success for Dickens, and remained popular for many years, although in the long term its fame was eclipsed by that of A Christmas Carol.
Allusions to other works
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
Book of Ruth
The Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
, misquoting Ruth's "Whither thou goest, I will go" speech.
Allusions to actual history, geography and current science
The novel's setting is contemporary and the 1840s, the "Hungry Forties", were a time of social and political unrest.Trotty's conviction that poor people are naturally wicked is influenced by an article in his newspaper about a young woman who has tried to drown herself and her child, and this motif returns at the climax of the book, when Meg is driven to contemplate the same course of action. This is a reference to Mary Furley, a destitute young woman sentenced to death in 1844 for infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
after her desperation not to return to the workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
led to a failed suicide attempt
Failed suicide attempt
Failed suicide attempts comprise a large portion of suicide attempts. Some are regarded as not true attempts at all, but rather parasuicide. The usual attempt may be a wish to affect another person by the behaviour. Consequently, it occurs in a social context and may represent a request for help....
in which her illegitimate child drowned. This case caused great public debate in the late spring of 1844. Dickens took part in the general outcry against the sentence, which was eventually commuted to transportation
Penal transportation
Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...
. Among other works inspired by the Furley case is Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood was a British humorist and poet. His son, Tom Hood, became a well known playwright and editor.-Early life:...
's poem The Bridge of Sighs
The Bridge of Sighs (poem)
"The Bridge of Sighs" is a famous poem of 1844 by Thomas Hood concerning the suicide of a homeless young woman who threw herself from Waterloo Bridge in London....
.
Alderman Cute is a parody of Sir Peter Laurie, a Middlesex magistrate, alderman and former Lord Mayor of London, known for his determination to "put down" the lower classes and their antisocial behaviour. His remarks on the 1844 Mary Furley case have been cited as one inspiration to Dickens to write The Chimes.
The unnamed young man who harks back to the "good old times" is a reference to the Young England
Young England
Young England was a Victorian era political group. The group was born on the playing fields of Cambridge and Eton. For the most part, its unofficial membership was confined to a splinter group of Tory aristocrats who had attended public school together, among them George Smythe, Lord John...
movement. Dickens removed many of these references prior to publication.
Adaptation
In 1914 the work was made into a silent film The Chimes directed by Thomas BentleyThomas Bentley
Thomas Bentley was a British film director. He directed 68 films between 1912 and 1941. He directed three films in the early DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, The Man in the Street , The Antidote , and Acci-Dental Treatment .Bentley was born in London and originally trained as an engineer,...
.
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.
The Chimes was adapted into a 24-minute clay-animated
Clay animation
Clay animation or claymation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay....
film in 2000 by Xyzoo Animation
Xyzoo Animation
Xyzoo Animation is an animation studio founded by director/animator Lindsay van Blerk in 1991. Situated in Cape Town, South Africa, the studio has produced five stop-motion/clay-animated films, three of which have won a number of awards. All were commissioned by New York-based Billy Budd Films...
. It won a Cine Special Jury award in 2002.
The Colonial Radio Theatre in Boston produced a full cast radio production of THE CHIMES in 2000, and released on CD by Blackstone Audio in 2007, and re-released by Brilliance Audio in 2011.
In 2004 a stage adaptation by Les Smith premiered at the Southwark Playhouse
Southwark Playhouse
-History:Southwark Playhouse Theatre Company was founded in 1993 by Juliet Alderdice, Tom Wilson & Mehmet Ergen. They identified the need for a high quality accessible theatre which would also act as a major resource for the community...
.
External links
Online editions- The Chimes at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
. - The Chimes audiobook at Librivox
- The Chimes – Searchable HTML version.
- The Chimes – Easy to read HTML version.
Film
Theatre