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The ghost of Jacob Marley tells his old partner, Ebenezer Scrooge, that, in the afterlife, he is like a "captive, bound, and double-ironed," because he is not only imprisoned by his heavy chains ...
Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the Ghost. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”. “You were always a good friend to me,” said Scrooge. “Thank’ee!”.
- Plot summary
- Synopsis
- Themes
On a frigid, foggy Christmas Eve in London, a shrewd, mean-spirited cheapskate named Ebenezer Scrooge works meticulously in his counting-house. Outside the office creaks a little sign reading \"Scrooge and Marley\"--Jacob Marley, Scrooge's business partner, has died seven years previous. Inside the office, Scrooge watches over his clerk, a poor dim...
Suddenly, a ruddy-faced young man bursts into the office offering holiday greetings and an exclamatory, \"Merry Christmas!\" The young man is Scrooge's jovial nephew Fred who has stopped by to invite Scrooge to Christmas dinner. The grumpy Scrooge responds with a \"Bah! Humbug!\" refusing to share in Fred's Christmas cheer. After Fred departs, a pa...
The opening Stave of A Christmas Carol sets the mood, describes the setting, and introduces many of the principal characters. It also establishes the novel's allegorical structure. (Allegory, a type of narrative in which characters and events represent particular ideas or themes, relies heavily on symbolism. In this case, Scrooge represents greed, ...
Marley’s Ghost’s role in the novella. Jacob Marley was Scrooge’s business partner, and the narrator goes to some lengths to make us accept he is dead. His Ghost appears to Scrooge on Christmas Eve with a warning for Scrooge about the need to change his focus in life from money to ‘mankind’. In the story it:
Marley’s ghost visits Scrooge and warns him of his impending damnation if he does not change his ways ; Dickens uses Marley's ghost to convey Christian ideas of penance and remorse; The chains and cash boxes that Marley's ghost wears show that he wasted his life in pursuit of solely material gain
Key quotation: Marley’s torment Marley’s Ghost tells Scrooge of the terrible situation it is in. Its punishment for being too concerned with making money when it was alive is to wander through the world – oh, woe is me! – and witness what [I] cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!
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This reminds us of church bells ringing, a sound that will be heard throughout the novella signalling the arrival of each Ghost. Before we see Marley’s Ghost, Dickens uses sound to set up our expectations: there is a clanking noise deep down below (Stave One, p. 13) and Scrooge remembers that ghosts drag chains.
