yet to come

• a “spectre” dressed in black: clearly an image of The Grim Reaper himself. The final ghost is by far the most scary of the three – it remains silent throughout their time together, only standing by as a guide, and leaving Scrooge – and the reader – to work out the story himself. The silent, enigmatic nature of the final spirit is perhaps an interesting commentary on the nature of death itself: death is there, looming over us all, and yet it keeps its secrets to itself, and even now - with all that modern technology has to offer us - death holds its mysteries.
• One interesting feature of this stave relates to the fact that two people die in it: Scrooge and Tiny Tim: the richest and the poorest people in the book. This reminds us of Fred’s line during the beginning of the book – a phrase that Dickens later called “The Carol Philosophy”: “It is only during Christmas that we open our shut up hearts and think of each other as being fellow passengers to the grave and not other beings on some other journey.”
• During this section, Scrooge is reminded that we all die in the end, it is the only sure thing in life, and that all we have to work with is the short time that we have down here. Towards the end of the book, Scrooge has clearly learnt that fact and decides to spend his remaining days sharing his time, his wealth, and enjoying the fruits of his fellow men.