A Christmas Carol: the story, stave by stave

A Christmas Carol is a short novel, or novella, by Charles Dickens. It was first published in 1843. Dickens called its five chapters staves. A stave is a verse of a song, so the book is set out like a carol.

In the exam it is Section B of Literature Paper 1. The question prints an extract, then asks about the novella as a whole, so you need the whole story.

Stave 1: Marley’s Ghost

It is Christmas Eve in London, foggy and dark by three in the afternoon. Ebenezer Scrooge, a rich and mean businessman, is at work in his counting-house, which is his office. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, copies letters next to a fire so small it looks like one coal.

Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, calls in to wish him a merry Christmas and invite him to dinner. Scrooge answers “Bah!” and “Humbug!” and says no. Two gentlemen ask him to give money to help the poor. Scrooge asks “Are there no prisons?” and says the poor can go to the workhouses. If they would rather die, he says, they should do it and “decrease the surplus population”. He gives nothing, and he lets Bob have Christmas Day off only because he has to.

That night the knocker on his door turns, for a moment, into the face of Jacob Marley, his business partner, who died seven years ago. Later Marley’s ghost comes into Scrooge’s room, wrapped in a long chain of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks and ledgers. Marley says he made the chain himself, “link by link”, in a life spent on money. Scrooge’s own chain, he warns, is just as heavy, and it has grown since. Three spirits will visit Scrooge. They are his only hope of escaping Marley’s fate.

Stave 2: The First of the Three Spirits

The bell strikes one, and the Ghost of Christmas Past arrives. It looks like a child and an old man at the same time, and a bright light shines from its head. It takes Scrooge back into his own past.

He sees himself as a lonely boy, left at school over Christmas, reading by a weak fire, and he cries. His little sister, Fan, runs in to take the boy home. Next he is a young man working for Mr Fezziwig, who throws a Christmas party for everyone in his warehouse. Scrooge says Fezziwig’s kindness was worth as much as a fortune, then says he would like a word with his own clerk.

The spirit shows him Belle, the young woman he was going to marry. She ends their engagement because money has taken her place in his heart. She calls it an idol, “A golden one.” Then he sees Belle years later, happily married, with children all around her. Her husband says he saw Scrooge that afternoon, “Quite alone in the world”. Scrooge cannot bear it. He pushes the spirit’s cap down over its light and falls asleep in his own bed.

Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

The bell strikes one again. The next room is hung with holly and piled high with food, and on top sits the Ghost of Christmas Present, a jolly giant in a green robe. He takes Scrooge out into the streets on Christmas morning.

They visit the Cratchits, who have very little money and are happy together. Bob comes home from church with his youngest son, Tiny Tim, on his shoulder. Tiny Tim has a little crutch and an iron frame to support his body. The family share a goose and a small pudding as if it were a feast, and Tiny Tim says “God bless us every one!”

Scrooge asks if Tiny Tim will live. The spirit sees “a vacant seat” by the fire: if nothing changes, the child will die. Then the spirit throws Scrooge’s own words back at him. If the boy is going to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Scrooge hangs his head in shame. Bob still drinks to Scrooge’s health, though his wife is angry about it.

The spirit shows Scrooge people keeping Christmas in hard places, such as miners, lighthouse keepers and sailors. At Fred’s party, Fred says he feels sorry for his uncle and will invite him again every year. Scrooge joins in the guessing games, though nobody can hear him.

At the end, the spirit brings two thin, wretched children out from the folds of his robe. “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.” The spirit tells Scrooge to beware them both, most of all the boy. When Scrooge asks if they have anywhere to go, the spirit answers with Scrooge’s own question: “Are there no prisons?” The clock strikes twelve, and a hooded phantom comes towards him.

Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a tall phantom in a black robe. It never speaks. It only points. It shows Scrooge what may happen in the future.

Some businessmen joke about a man who has just died: one will go to the funeral only if lunch is provided. In a dirty shop, three people sell a dealer called Old Joe the things they have taken from the dead man, even the curtains from round his bed. His body lies alone, with nobody to watch over it. The only people who feel anything about the death are a couple who owed him money, and what they feel is relief.

At the Cratchits’ house it is very quiet. Tiny Tim has died, and Bob weeps for him: “My little, little child!”

Last of all, the spirit points to an uncared-for grave in a churchyard. On the stone Scrooge reads his own name. The lonely dead man was him. He begs for a chance to change: “I am not the man I was.” He promises, “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” As he prays, the phantom shrinks and turns into his own bedpost.

Stave 5: The End of It

Scrooge is in his own bed, and it is Christmas morning. The spirits have done it all in one night. He laughs and cries at once: “I am as light as a feather”. He pays a boy to fetch the prize turkey from the poulterer’s shop and sends it to the Cratchits without saying who it is from.

In the street he meets one of the gentlemen collecting for the poor and promises a large gift. He goes to church, then to Fred’s house, and asks, “Will you let me in, Fred?” He is welcomed in for dinner.

The next morning Bob arrives eighteen and a half minutes late. Scrooge pretends to be angry, then raises his salary and promises to help his family. He keeps his word and does more. Tiny Tim does not die, and Scrooge becomes a second father to him. The book ends with Tiny Tim’s words: “God bless Us, Every One!”

The main characters

• Ebenezer Scrooge: a rich, mean businessman who has shut himself away from other people, and who changes.
• Jacob Marley: Scrooge’s dead business partner, who comes back in chains to warn him.
• Bob Cratchit: Scrooge’s poorly paid clerk and a loving father.
• Tiny Tim: Bob’s youngest son, who is disabled and seriously ill. His life depends on Scrooge changing.
• Fred: Scrooge’s cheerful nephew, the son of his sister Fan, who keeps inviting him to dinner.
• Mr Fezziwig: Scrooge’s first employer, who is generous to his workers.
• Belle: the woman Scrooge was going to marry, who leaves him because he loves money more.
• The three spirits: the glowing Ghost of Christmas Past, the giant Ghost of Christmas Present and the silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

The main ideas

Responsibility for other people. Marley realises too late that “Mankind was my business”. Dickens argues that the rich cannot ignore the poor.

Poverty. Dickens shows the Cratchits as a loving, hard-working family who deserve help. After a law of 1834, many poor people could get help only inside a workhouse, where the regime was “deliberately harsh and often cruel”, as the UK Parliament website puts it. Readers are meant to be shocked when Scrooge praises the workhouses.

Change. Scrooge changes step by step, from tears for his younger self to begging at his own grave. Dickens shows that anyone can change if they face the truth about themselves.

Family. Fan, Belle’s children, the Cratchits and Fred all show Scrooge the love he has shut out.

Christmas. For Dickens, Christmas stands for kindness and sharing, and he wants readers to keep its spirit all year, as Scrooge does.

What to do next

Learn the quotations on A Christmas Carol: quotations to learn, and practise with How to answer the extract question. You can read the whole novella free on Project Gutenberg.

Sources

• Project Gutenberg, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843; ebook 46)
• Charles Dickens Museum, First edition of ‘A Christmas Carol’
• UK Parliament, Poor Law reform
• AQA, GCSE English Literature 8702 specification