The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain

The dread word, Ghost, recalls me. Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He did. In this story, Dickens narrates the hair-raising experiences of a professor. As the protagonist dwells on his past sorrows and mistakes, a phantom visits him. It offers him a bizarre escape from painful recollections of yesteryear by offering to eradicate his memory. On seeing the professor turn into a man devoid of emotions, the reader realizes how empty one becomes without a past.