Scrooge is the main character of Dickens’s novella and is first presented as a miserly , unpleasant man. According to Dickens’s description, Scrooge is cold through and through. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.

Scrooge is annoyed by the Christmas season, and upon returning home, encounters a ghost who looks strangely familiar. This lesson provides an overview of ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens.

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old man who hates Christmas. Like many people, however, his own depression and lack of human companionship may be behind his dislike of the holiday. His views change, however, following three ghostly visitors who show Scrooge the inevitable end of his miserable life.

In short, Christmas has always been a time when Scrooge has felt abandoned—as a child by his family, as a young man by Belle, as an older adult by Marley—so he seems only to associate the holiday with pain (while others feel pleasure) and wastefulness.

heart attack

Ebenezer Scrooge

A humbug is a person or object that behaves in a deceptive or dishonest way, often as a hoax or in jest. The term was first described in 1751 as student slang, and recorded in 1840 as a “nautical phrase”. It is now also often used as an exclamation to describe something as hypocritical nonsense or gibberish.

Jacob Marley is a fictional character who appears in Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. He is Ebenezer Scrooge’s deceased business partner, having died on Christmas Eve seven years prior to the book’s events

Role in the story The Ghost of Christmas past is the first of the three spirits (after the visitation by Jacob Marley) who haunts the miser Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent.

According to Jacob, his visit to Scrooge has a key purpose: “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.” In other words, Marley hopes that he can prevent Scrooge from having to endure the same fate in the afterlife

While it appears that Marley had died without being punished in life for his lack of social responsibility and his indifference to the well-being of his fellow Man, unbeknown to Scrooge after death Marley is forced to roam the face of the earth in Purgatory, fettered in chains, cash boxes and ledger books, desperately …

Role in the story In life, Marley, like Scrooge, was a bitter, greedy and selfish man. When he died, he was damned to eternally wander the earth as a decrepit spirit, forever burdened by a mass of chains that represent his accumulated sins.

Marley’s Chain When Jacob Marley appears in Scrooge’s home, he’s dragging a heavy chain made of “cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.” These items clearly suggest that the heavy chain was created by and signifies Marley’s greed.

After his death, he is held in purgatory and will only be released if he can aid in the redemption of his partner Ebenezer Scrooge. He was portrayed by Stephen Graham, who also portrayed Fulvio in the 2008 film adaptation of Inkheart and voiced Gruagach in the 2019 Hellboy film.

What is his mood like after Marley leaves? Scrooge is frightened. He is not sure if he is going crazy or not or have really had food poisoning. He is impacted enough to converse with Marley and hear his story.

Marley explains to Scrooge that for the past seven years since his death he has been “sentenced” to wandering the Earth carrying heavy chains in punishment for his sins. He is forced to walk “among humanity in death as he never did in life” witnessing the harsh realities of life.

How does Scrooge try to keep himself calm when he talks with Marley’s ghost? Scrooge says Humbug whenever he is in a very bad mood.

According to Jacob, his visit to Scrooge has a key purpose: “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.” In other words, Marley hopes that he can prevent Scrooge from having to endure the same fate in the afterlife. For Marley, life after death has been very hard.

Dickens describes its appearance: Marley in his pig-tail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pig-tail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle.

The ghost of christmas future

He was dark and scary. Because he is alive and thinks that it isn’t important what others think about him. But as soon as he sees the future, the realizes he is hated and it bothers him. Explain why the visions of the future would convince Scrooge to alter his life.