A Christmas Carol (Unabridged and Fully Dramatized) characters

Appears from the start

A wealthy London moneylender whose devotion to profit has left him isolated and contemptuous of Christmas, generosity, and ordinary companionship. He keeps his office cold, pays his clerk poorly, rejects his nephew's invitation to dinner, and regards poverty as a problem for prisons and workhouses rather than for his conscience.

Appears from the start

Scrooge's former business partner, dead for seven years when the story opens. His ghost appears burdened by a chain fashioned from the instruments of his selfish working life and warns Scrooge that a still worse fate awaits him unless he changes.

Appears from the start

Scrooge's underpaid clerk, a mild and patient family man who works in a poorly heated office and tries to preserve Christmas cheer despite his employer's hostility.

Appears from the start

Scrooge's cheerful nephew, the son of Scrooge's late sister. He continues inviting his uncle to Christmas dinner despite repeated rebuffs and argues that the season has value even when it brings no financial gain.

Also known as The Ghost of Christmas Past

First appears in chapter 2

The first of the three spirits promised by Marley, an uncanny figure associated at once with youth, age, light, and memory. The spirit takes Scrooge back through scenes from his own earlier life.

First appears in chapter 2

Scrooge's warm-hearted younger sister, seen in his memories when she comes to bring the lonely schoolboy home. She is Fred's mother and died years before the main action.

First appears in chapter 2

Scrooge's former employer, remembered as a jovial merchant who closes his business for Christmas and gives apprentices, family, and friends a generous holiday party.

First appears in chapter 2

The woman once engaged to Scrooge. As his ambition hardens into an overriding pursuit of money, she recognizes that the man she loved has changed and releases him from their promise.

Also known as The Ghost of Christmas Present

First appears in chapter 3

A large, welcoming spirit surrounded by food and greenery who shows Scrooge how Christmas is being observed around him. His tour encompasses both celebration and hardship, pressing Scrooge to notice lives he ordinarily ignores.

First appears in chapter 3

Bob Cratchit's wife and the capable center of the Cratchit household. She manages the family's modest Christmas dinner with pride and warmth, though she has little affection for Scrooge after seeing the conditions under which Bob works.

First appears in chapter 3

Bob Cratchit's youngest son, a gentle child who walks with a crutch and whose frail health worries the family. His affection and hopeful spirit make a strong impression on Scrooge when the Ghost of Christmas Present visits the Cratchit home.

Also known as The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

First appears in chapter 4

The last and most frightening Christmas spirit, a silent, shrouded figure who answers Scrooge only by pointing. It leads him through possible future scenes whose meaning he must work out for himself.