Ebenezer Scrooge and the Spirits of Christmas
Ebenezer Scrooge
The miserly owner of a London counting-house, a nineteenth-century term for an accountant’s office. The three spirits of Christmas visit the stodgy bean-counter in hopes of reversing Scrooge’s greedy, cold-hearted approach to life.
Bob Cratchit
Scrooge’s clerk, a kind, mild, and very poor man with a large family. Though treated harshly by his boss, Cratchit remains a humble and dedicated employee.
Tiny Tim
Bob Cratchit’s young son, crippled from birth. Tiny Tim is a highly sentimentalized character who Dickens uses to highlight the tribulations of England’s poor and to elicit sympathy from his middle and upper-class readership.
Jacob Marley
In the living world, Ebenezer Scrooge’s equally greedy partner. Marley died seven years before the narrative opens. He appears to Scrooge as a ghost condemned to wander the world bound in heavy chains. Marley hopes to save his old partner from suffering a similar fate.
The Ghost Of Christmas Past
The first spirit to visit Scrooge, a curiously childlike apparition with a glowing head. He takes Scrooge on a tour of Christmases in his past. The spirit uses a cap to dampen the light emanating from his head.
The Ghost Of Christmas Present
The second spirit to visit Scrooge, a majestic giant clad in a green robe. His lifespan is restricted to Christmas Day. He escorts Scrooge on a tour of his contemporaries’ Holiday celebrations.
The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come
The third and final spirit to visit Scrooge, a silent phantom clad in a hooded black robe. He presents Scrooge with an ominous view of his lonely death.
Fred
Scrooge’s nephew, a genial man who loves Christmas. He invites Scrooge to his Christmas party each and every year, only to be refused by his grumpy uncle.
Fezziwig
The jovial merchant with whom the young Scrooge apprenticed. Fezziwig was renowned for his wonderful Christmas parties.
Belle
A beautiful woman who Scrooge loved deeply when he was a young man. Belle broke off their engagement after Scrooge became consumed with greed and the lust for wealth. She later married another man.
Peter Cratchit
Bob’s oldest son, who inherits his father’s stiff-collared shirt for Christmas.
Martha Cratchit
Bob’s oldest daughter, who works in a milliner’s shop. (A milliner is a person who designs, produces, and sells hats.)
Fan
Scrooge’s sister; Fred’s mother. In Scrooge’s vision of Christmases past, he remembers Fan picking him up from school and walking him home.
The Portly Gentlemen
Two gentlemen who visit Scrooge at the beginning of the tale seeking charitable contributions. Scrooge promptly throws them out of his office. Upon meeting one of them on the street after his visitations, he promises to make lavish donations to help the poor.
Mrs. Cratchit
Bob’s wife, a kind and loving woman.
Stave Two
Scrooge awakes at midnight, which leaves him baffled–it was well after two a.m. when he went to bed. Initially, he thinks he has slept through an entire day or that it’s actually noon and the sun has merely gone under some sort of cover. He suddenly remembers the words of Marley’s ghost. The first of the three spirits will arrive at one o’clock. Frightened, Scrooge decides to wait for his supernatural visitor.
At one o’clock, the curtains of Scrooge’s bed are blown aside by a strange, childlike figure emanating an aura of wisdom and a richness of experience. The spirit uses a cap to cover the light that glows from its head. The specter softly informs Scrooge that he is the Ghost of Christmas Past and orders the mesmerized man to rise and walk with him. The spirit touches Scrooge’s heart, granting him the ability to fly. The pair exits through the window. The ghost transports Scrooge to the countryside where he was raised. He sees his old school, his childhood mates, and familiar landmarks of his youth. Touched by these memories, Scrooge begins to sob. The ghost takes the weeping man into the school where a solitary boy–a young Ebenezer Scrooge–passes the Christmas holiday all alone. The ghost takes Scrooge on a depressing tour of more Christmases of the past–the boy in the schoolhouse grows older. At last, a little girl, Scrooge’s sister Fan, runs into the room, and announces that she has come to take Ebenezer home. Their father is much kinder, she says. He has given his consent to Ebenezer’s return. The young Scrooge, delighted to see his sister, embraces her joyfully. The aged Scrooge regretfully tells the ghost that Fan died many years ago and is the mother of his nephew Fred.
The ghost escorts Scrooge to more Christmases of the past including a merry party thrown by Fezziwig, the merchant with whom Scrooge apprenticed as a young man. Scrooge later sees a slightly older yet still boyish version of himself in conversation with a lovely young woman named Belle. She is breaking off their engagement crying that greed has corrupted the love that used to impassion Scrooge’s heart. The spirit takes Scrooge to a more recent Christmas scene where a middle-aged Belle reminisces with her husband about her former fiance, Scrooge. The husband says that Scrooge is now ‘quite alone in the world.’ The older Scrooge can no longer bear the gripping visions. He begs the Ghost of Christmas Past to take him back, back to his home. Tormented and full of despair, Scrooge seizes the ghost’s hat and pulls it firmly over top of the mystical child’s head, dimming the light. As the inextinguishable, luminous rays flood downward onto the ground, Scrooge finds himself zipped back in his bedroom, where he stumbles to bed yet again and falls asleep immediately.