A Christmas Carol Analysis

A Christmas Carol – Chapter Summaries

Stave 1: The scene is set as a foggy, cold Christmas Eve in London in which a mean, selfish, old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge works in his counting-house. This counting house was co-owned by Jacob Marley, Scrooge's now dead business partner, who had died seven years earlier. Scrooge has a clerk, Bob Cratchit, who he employed to work for him but treats the man poorly refusing to pay a single cent for another lump of coal to heat up the freezing office (which is relevant as it is the middle of winter in London, where it reaches freezing temperatures).
Early in the Stave we meet Fred, Scrooges nephew, who exclaims "Merry Christmas!" and stopped by the counting house to invite Scrooge to Christmas dinner. Scrooge replies with a "Bah! Humbug!" and refuses Fred's offer, clearly despising his Christmas cheer. After Fred leaves, a pair of charity workers (labelled as “Portly Gentlemen” in the text”) enters the counting house to ask Scrooge for a donation for the poor. Scrooge replies that prisons and workhouses are the only charities he supports, in which he follows up with ``If they would rather die ... they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” and the charity workers leave empty-handed. Scrooge then complains about Bob wanting a day off for Christmas day. "What good is Christmas ... that it should shut down business?" Scrooge eventually agrees to give Bob a day off but tells him that he must arrive at the office early the next day.
As Scrooge follows the path up to his house, the doorknocker of the front door catches his attention. A ghostly image of Jacob Marley’s face seems to have become the doorknocker which shocks Scrooge, but upon second inspection it seemed that nothing wa...

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...nd just seems to radiate so much joy and Christmas spirit that the members of Fred’s family can barely believe it’s really Scrooge!
The next morning, Scrooge gets to the counting house early and takes a stern expression when Bob Cratchit arrives a whole 18 and a half minutes late. Scrooge, pretending to be disgusted, starts telling Bob off, until he sprung his plans to give Cratchit a pay rise and help out his struggling family. Bob is very surprised, but Scrooge promises that he is telling the truth.
Over time, Scrooge helps the Cratchits out and becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim who doesn’t end up dying like the ghost predicted. People are confused by Scrooge's sudden change in behavior, but he just goes on without any regard to it. The narrator closes the story with a final, impressionable statement, "and so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, Every one!"