Paintings are a language that can help us appreciate everything around us. Understanding what lies around determines actively our ability to analyze any work of art. In The Ghost - A Christmas Frolic, we can observe small details and gradually look at the bigger picture to find what is happening. We can combine the title of the story with its coloring to seek how is it involved in the story, and lastly; we can see through the biggest picture, as a person how to do we see the painting and what can it brings that written texts cannot. These techniques are to be used to look at this painting in a different perspective. The standpoint is a prank done by a little boy, which led to a horrible mistake of prejudging and panicking. 

Paintings, mounted trophies, and a pendulum clock decorates the room that the The Ghost - A Christmas Frolic sets in. In terms of paintings, these objects are not present for the sake of decorations. Each of the objects mentioned are a symbol that represent and support the painting and give it a deeper understanding. They give the painting answers to questions that are raised by the spectator. These objects show the whereabouts of the painting. It shows, according to what we see in the painting, which the painting is at a house of a rich person in the mid eighteenth century. 

 By observing outfits that each person is wearing, and the shattered glass with bottles of wine, it is safe to say that there was a well-dressed party, for a high class of men and women, ruined by the apparent of the ghost. If we look closely to the ghost, we see him holding a candle with right hand and stretching the left. The candle is the source of light in the painting. Looking at the fact that it is with the ghost, it presents horror to the people that are in the room. The painting is trying to make us feel how we will feel if we were in those people's shoes. We see both his hand, but we do not see his legs. The stretch in his hand symbolizes crucifixion. Because it is named Christmas frolic, we can assume that it is time of Christmas. This gives a paradoxical image because of the time. Because it has a relation of Jesus and crucifixion, the symbol of stretching arms of the ghost gave the assumption of impersonating Jesus. Another thing is that th ghost has an upper body of a human, but a lower body made from wood. This shows a scarier concept assuming that he is neither a human nor a non-living thing. However, if we look to what is behind the ghost, we see a small boy with a big smile on his face. It shows as if this child is the one who is holding this so-called ghost. A trick made by a little boy who managed to scare sophisticated, elegant people by using simple trick and was supported with time and place. 

If we took a step back and saw the painting in a more general perspective, we do not see this boy, but we see people who are in panic and scared. It shows how people react and judge before even seeing the whole picture. Even though it is a bad joke, it led people to react in such a behavior that some of them fell into the ground and hurt themselves. We feel panic looking at this picture and how people react to something extraordinary. We also see how this little boy made the biggest joke of making this ghost appear at a casual party. 

The title of the painting combined with the coloring of it completes the story and the morale of the painting. A Christmas Frolic demands us to find the frolic, or thriller, that is in the painting. It makes us look closely to what we might not see from the first sight. It shows that the story sets in time of Christmas and, for fun, this little boy decided to ruin a Christmas party by bringing up a ghost that caused everyone to panic. The cream color in dark place while wearing a white cloth will definitely strike fear and horror. We live in an idea that colorful paintings show happiness. Paintings, such as this one, who have one colored, dark, and unsaturated theme gives the emotion of panic and horror. In this case, this cream color fits the picture completely and having a monochromic painting makes the viewer focus on the color and let it be felt by his heart rather deeply. This ghost carries the light source that attracts everyone's attention ad starts to open his arms making everyone screams in fear and panic.

The angle at which we see this painting is like a "third-eyed view." We see in an angle that sees everything happening and not being involved. It is like standing on the corner while this event is going on and observing what is happening without interacting. This gives the "bigger picture" advantage. We could see from these angle details, reality to what is going on, and people who are in the scene cannot see it such as the little boy is architects of this scene. In addition, we get the advantage to assume what will happen next. We can see on the top of the staircase is an old man, who looks like the host and most likely a parent to the little boy, looking at his party in chaos in astonishment. We can predict that later he finds out that this little boy is in charge of this chaos; he might scold him or punish him in another way. This shows how this angle can give person opportunities to looks and observe elements that a person involved would not see. We can see that people in this painting acted before thinking. First of all, they did not let logic stand and see that there are no ghosts in real life. Secondly, a ghost will never hold up a light and start to swing it because if there were ghost, they are mixture of gases and/or souls. It is something that is not physical. But for these people, emotions of panic and anxiety get the better of them. This is something that is usually in real life. Getting the emotions in the way of judging and deciding is something that many people do. It is the concept that this painting shows in a more humorist way. 

We can assume that first impression is overrated. We judge at everything by the first glance and not take other possibilities. This leads to disastrous mistakes often, but most importantly, as the painting shows, it leads to a very sarcastic trick made by a little boy. 

Wright, John Massey. The ghost  --  a Christmas frolic  --  le revenant. 1814. British Cartoon Prints Collections. The Carolina Reader. Ed. USC Dept of English. Plymouth: Hayden-McNeil. 2014. 171. Print.
