Plot Summary

• A Christmas Carol tells a story of how Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly businessman, learns the value of caring for others.
• In the novella, Scrooge is visited by the spirit of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who warns him about the error of his ways.

  He is later visited by 3 more spirits who each show him scenes from the past, present and future.

  The visions help Scrooge to realise that he needs to change his ways; so he wakes up on Christmas morning as a better man.
• Scrooge: Stave 1

  • Described as being cold and sharp, with physical features as ‘hard and sharp as flint’.
  • His appearance represents his personality-he’s unfriendly and dismissive.
  • His office is always cold and doesn’t put the heat on in the winter.
  • ‘No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him.’ - The author suggests that the heating would be useless anyway because, Scrooge is so unfeeling and cold-hearted that he wouldn’t be able to fell the heat from the fire.
• Jacob Marley:

  • ‘dead to begin with’
  • Author reveals Scrooge was Marley’s only friend, his ‘sole mourner’. Dickes uses this at the start of the novella to emphasise Jacob Marley died before the story began.
  • ’sole’- Shows Scrooge and Marley were each others only friends. Dickens immediately establishes Scrooge as a man with no living friends and hints that Jacob Marley plays an important role later on in the novella.
• Reactions to Scrooge:

  • Anybody who ever meets Scrooge avoids any contact or discussion with him. Even beggars do not dare approach him, they already know he will refuse to help them.
  • Before readers can fell any sympathy for Scrooge, the narrator informs us that this fear and dislike of Scrooge ‘was the very thing he liked’ - he enjoys the fact everyone dislikes him and is afraid to ask him for help.
• Stave 1: Scrooge’s Attitude to Christmas and the Poor

  Attitude to Fred-

  • Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, enters wishing his uncle a merry Christmas
  • Scrooge responds with ‘Bah! Humbug!’ And exclaims that he doesn’t know how d can be so happy when he is so poor.
• Stave 1: Scrooge‘s Attitudes to Christmas and the Poor

  Scrooge’s Attitude to Marriage

  • Fred invites Scrooge to dinner with his wife on Xmas day.
  • Scrooge asks Fred why he got married- Fred tells him it was because he fell in love, Scrooge growls at him, as he thinks the whole idea is ‘ridiculous‘.
  • Fed up with Fred, Scrooge continually attempts to ignore him and tries to dismiss him by repeating ‘good afternoon’