A Christmas Carol characters

Appears from the start

A cold, miserly old London moneylender, hard and solitary, who despises Christmas and any show of generosity or warmth. He keeps his counting-house freezing to save coal, underpays and bullies his clerk, and turns away his cheerful nephew and two men collecting for the poor with contempt. Grasping and tight-fisted, he has walled himself off from other people for so long that kindness of any sort strikes him as foolishness. On Christmas Eve he is a man entirely alone by choice, and the story opens with him at his most bitter, before anything has begun to move him.

Appears from the start

Scrooge's former business partner, dead seven years to the day when the tale opens, who in life was as grasping and cold as Scrooge himself. On Christmas Eve his ghost comes to Scrooge dragging a heavy chain forged, link by link, out of his own greed and indifference. Doomed to wander the world in ceaseless remorse for the compassion he never showed, Marley warns Scrooge that the same fate awaits him and announces that three spirits will visit to offer him a chance to escape it.

Appears from the start

Scrooge's overworked, underpaid clerk, a mild and patient man who copies letters in the cold for meager wages yet stays cheerful and devoted to his family. Despite his poverty he loves Christmas and bears his harsh employer without bitterness. He is the father of a large, loving household that includes a frail, disabled youngest son, and his warm home life stands in quiet contrast to Scrooge's chilly solitude.

Appears from the start

Scrooge's good-natured nephew, the son of Scrooge's late sister, who visits the counting-house on Christmas Eve to wish his uncle a merry Christmas and invite him to dinner. Warm, generous, and irrepressibly cheerful, Fred refuses to be discouraged by Scrooge's rudeness and insists that Christmas is a kind, forgiving, joyful time worth keeping, even though it has never put a penny in his pocket. He embodies exactly the open-hearted spirit his uncle has rejected.

First appears in chapter 2

The first of the three spirits Marley foretold, a strange, flickering figure both childlike and old, with a bright light streaming from its head. It arrives after midnight and carries Scrooge back through scenes of his own earlier life: his lonely boyhood, the kindly first employer who treated his workers with warmth, and the sweetheart he lost to his growing love of money. Gentle but insistent, it makes Scrooge look honestly at what he once was and what he gave up.

First appears in chapter 3

The second spirit, a jovial giant robed in green and crowned with holly, surrounded by a feast and radiating warmth and goodwill. It shows Scrooge how Christmas is kept across the city, from the modest, joyful table of the Cratchit family to his nephew's merry party. Generous and expansive, it opens Scrooge's eyes to the happiness ordinary people find despite hardship, and gravely draws his attention to the plight of the poor and to the fragile health of the Cratchits' youngest child.

First appears in chapter 3

Bob Cratchit's youngest son, a small, sweet-natured, seriously ill boy who walks with a crutch and an iron frame supporting his limbs. Loving and uncomplaining, he is the treasured heart of the Cratchit household, and it is he who wishes a blessing upon everyone at Christmas. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge that, without help, the boy is unlikely to live, making Tiny Tim the figure through whom Scrooge feels most sharply the human cost of his own indifference.

First appears in chapter 4

The third and most frightening spirit, a silent, hooded phantom draped in black that points but never speaks. It shows Scrooge shadowy visions of a future in which a hated, unmourned man has died, his belongings picked over and his death met with relief or indifference, and in which the Cratchits grieve the loss of a child. Grim and implacable, it forces Scrooge toward the terrible recognition of whose lonely, unlamented death he has been watching.