A Christmas Carol: Stave 1 Summary & Analysis

The narrator states that there was no doubt about Marley’s death. Scrooge, Marley’s business partner, signed the register of his burial. The narrator considers that the phrase “dead as a doornail” doesn’t even describe Marley's lifelessness well enough. He adds that Scrooge very much knew that Marley was dead, having been his partner and only friend. The narrator adds that he's focused on this point because it is vital to what follows, as the death of Hamlet’s father is vital to Hamlet.

Scrooge did not seem to grieve much (apart from the loss of business), and got a bargain price for Marley’s funeral. Since the firm’s name has always been Scrooge and Marley, Scrooge has taken to answering to both names. The narrator describes Scrooge as “Hard and sharp as flint.” His appearance matches his character, with cold-looking, pointy features. He keeps his office cold, not even heating it at Christmas time. Consequently, everybody who comes into contact with Scrooge avoids him. Even the beggars in the street are silent when he passes. But this is exactly the way Scrooge likes it, says the narrator.

On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is in his counting house. It is a freezing, foggy day and is quite dark even though it’s only three o’clock. Scrooge has a small fire, but his clerk, Bob Cratchit, who works in a little cell attached to Scrooge’s office, barely has a coal to warm him. Scrooge keeps the coal bucket and will not allow Cratchit to take any.

Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, enters the office, wishing a merry Christmas. Unlike Scrooge, he is a picture of health and happiness. Scrooge replies with “Bah! Humbug!” He says he doesn’t understand how his nephew can be merry when he is so poor. Fred wittily responds that Scrooge has no right to meanness when he is so rich. Scrooge protests that he is living in a world of fools, and anyone who wastes their time being merry when they should be paying their bills should be “buried with a stake of holly through his heart”.

Scrooge tells Fred to leave him alone, that Christmas has never done any good. Fred responds that though it hasn’t brought him any profit, Christmas has done him good. Apart from its sacred meaning, it is a time for goodness and charity. Bob Cratchit applauds from his cell and Scrooge threatens to fire him if he makes another sound.

Finally, Fred asks Scrooge if he will dine with him and his wife for Christmas dinner. Scrooge objects to Fred having married at all. He especially objects to Fred’s reason for marrying: that he fell in love. Scrooge refuses to hear anymore. He drowns out Fred’s questions with an angry “good afternoon!” Fred leaves kindly and on his way out wishes Cratchit a Merry Christmas. Scrooge mutters that Cratchit, with a wife and family and nothing to live on, can’t possibly be merry.

Two gentlemen call next, asking Scrooge which one of the two partners listed above the door he is. Scrooge informs them that Marley died seven years ago this very night. The two gentlemen hope that Scrooge will be as generous to their cause as Marley was. They say the poor are especially in need at Christmas time.

Scrooge inquires about the prisons and workhouses, and, hearing that they still exist, doesn’t see any reason why anyone should be worried about the poor. The gentlemen reply that the workhouse hardly encourages Christian seasonal merriment, and that some would rather die than be put there. Scrooge responds that the poor deserve to die and relieve the surplus population. The gentlemen leave and Scrooge goes back to work in even more of a temper.

As the day passes, the fog and cold become more severe. The clock tower that looks down on Scrooge’s office chimes. The shops, decorated with seasonal regalia, are strangely bright in the gloom. Meanwhile the Lord Mayor gives orders to his servants to enjoy Christmas. The cold deepens. A youth out in the street crouches to Scrooge’s keyhole and sings “God bless you, merry gentlemen”. Scrooge, now in a miserable mood, throws a ruler at the door, scaring the poor boy off.

At closing time, Scrooge turns to Bob Cratchit and taunts him for wanting the day off for Christmas day. He doesn’t understand why he should pay a day’s wages for no work, but he lets Cratchit leave on the condition that he will arrive early on Boxing Day. Scrooge goes to have dinner at his usual miserable tavern and Cratchit performs a Christmas eve tradition of going down a slide twenty times, before going home to his family. Scrooge, meanwhile, goes home to a suite of gloomy rooms that used to be Marley’s. The narrator describes the building as completely out of place, as if it was once playing hide and seek and got stuck in its hiding place. It was dark and deserted and surrounded by a dark yard.

Before telling us the incident with the door knocker, the narrator makes a point of telling us that Scrooge’s door knocker had always been a very ordinary door knocker, and Scrooge himself a very somber, sane man. He also mentions that Scrooge had not been thinking about his late partner Marley. The narrator then explains what a surprise it is to Scrooge when he looks at his door knocker that night and beholds Marley’s face. It isn’t a trick of the shadows but a real ghost in the shape of Scrooge’s old partner, as if alive but motionless.

But as Scrooge looks, the ghost turns into a knocker again, and Scrooge hurries indoors, annoyed by the apparition. He stops briefly to check that the back of Marley’s head is not similarly behind the door. Again scorning his fear, Scrooge goes upstairs to bed. The narrator describes the staircase as wide enough for a carriage to pass through sideways, and this may explain why Scrooge has a vision of a funeral hearse leading him up the stairs. He is not afraid of the dark, though. In fact, he likes its cheapness. Scrooge checks that his rooms are in order. Everything is as it should be, everything simply furnished and a saucepan of gruel on the stove.

Scrooge bends over his weak fire. The fireplace is adorned with tiles that illustrate stories from scripture but over all of these famous figures comes Marley’s ghostly face again. Scrooge dismisses the vision with a “Humbug!” but suddenly a bell in the room, which has been out of order for some time, starts to toll, and is followed by the chiming of all the other bells in the house. After a long minute of this cacophony, the bells stop and are replaced by a clanking noise, coming closer and closer. Scrooge remembers hearing ghost stories of spirits dragging chains. He refuses to believe it until the door actually opens before him and he sees with his own eyes: “Marley’s ghost!”

The ghost appears just as Scrooge remembers Jacob Marley, except that he is totally transparent and carries a huge chain about him. But even as he perceives the very texture of Marley’s hair and handkerchief, Scrooge cannot bring himself to believe it. He demands to know who the ghost is and the ghost answers that he was Jacob Marley when he was living.

Scrooge asks Marley to sit. He wonders, because of his transparency, if he is able to sit, but Marley takes the seat with ease and confronts Scrooge about his disbelief, asking him why he doubts his senses. Scrooge responds that he can’t trust a thing that is affected so easily, by indigestion for example. He then makes a joke that Marley is more “gravy” than “grave”. He feels the “infernal” power of the ghost’s eyes on him, and tells the ghost to look at a nearby toothpick, which Scrooge says would cause no end of specters if swallowed.

At this, Marley shakes his chain and makes a terrifying sound. Scrooge admits that he believes now but questions why a ghost should come to pursue him. Marley explains that he is destined to walk the earth to change the wrongs he failed to change in life – the chain represents this self-made trail of regrets. Marley warns Scrooge that he is making a terrible chain for himself. Scrooge asks for comfort, but Marley cannot give any. He says it is not his job to bring comfort.

Marley cannot stay long, with many journeys ahead of him. Scrooge jokes that he must have been wandering slowly, having taken seven years to get here, but Marley says he has travelled incredible lengths – there is much remorse in the world. Scrooge doesn’t understand, because Marley was a “good man of business”. Marley is affronted at this phrase. He says business is nothing in comparison to the trade of human woes that he deals in. He says it’s even worse at Christmas, seeing all the poor folks that he did not help when he was alive.

Scrooge is now terrified and vows to listen. Marley tells Scrooge that he will soon be visited by three spirits, and he has the chance to avoid Marley's fate of purgatory. But if Scrooge chooses not to listen to these visitors, there is no hope for him. Marley tells Scrooge that the first spirit will appear at one o’clock that night, the next at the same time the following night and the third the night after that. Lastly, he implores Scrooge to remember what he has said, and, with his eyes fixed on Scrooge, walks backwards as the window behind him slowly opens.

Then, Marley’s ghost beckons Scrooge over. Scrooge begins to hear a chorus of wailing sounds, which Marley’s ghost joins. Then Marley floats out through the window. Scrooge looks out and sees the air filled with chained spirits, including many that he recognizes as figures from his past who had not regretted their actions in time. Then somehow the spirits fade and the night is as it was. Scrooge begins to utter his “Humbug!” but stops and goes directly to bed.