stave 2

• at one o'clock in the morning, scrooge is visited by the first spirit, the ghost of christmas past
• the spirit transports scrooge to a number of christmases from his own life
• first, scrooge sees himself as a young boy at boarding school and all the other students have left for christmas and scrooge is the only boy left behind
• it's clear that the young scrooge was lonely and neglected by his family
• next, scrooge sees his younger self at school again, but this time his sister fan arrives to tell him that their father has become kinder and will let scrooge come home for christmas
• the old scrooge explains that fan died as a young woman and left behind fred, scrooge's nephew
• next, the spirit takes scrooge to see his first employer, a jolly man called me fezziwig
• fezziwig throws a huge christmas party for all his staff and the spirit points out to scrooge that it hardly cost fezziwig anything to make his staff happy and grateful
• the spirit then shows scrooge himself as a young man talking to belle, a beautiful young woman
• scrooge and belle were engaged, but she breaks up with him because his greed has overtaken his love for her
• scrooge then sees belle as a middle-aged woman, happily married to another man and surrounded by a huge family
• belle and her husband talk about how scrooge is completely alone in the world and at this point, the old scrooge can't bear to watch any longer
• scrooge extinguishes the ghost of christmas past with its cap and reappears back in his bedroom