on this cheat sheet
Everything on the GCSE English Literature A Christmas Carol: Key Characters poster is written out below, section by section. Use it to search the sheet, copy parts into your own notes, or check a fact quickly.
Scrooge
- Ebenezer Scrooge is the novella's central figure, a wealthy, miserly money-lender Dickens introduces as a "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner".
- At the start he hoards money and pushes everyone away, turning down his nephew's invitation and the charity collectors, and grudging his clerk a fire.
- Across the three spirits' visits he is forced to face his past, present and future, and the regret and fear they stir slowly thaw his heart.
- By the end he is transformed, waking "as light as a feather, as happy as an angel" (Dickens uses his change to argue that even the most selfish person can choose to reform).
The Cratchits
Bob Cratchit
- Scrooge's poorly paid clerk.
- A gentle, loyal family man who even toasts his harsh employer as "the Founder of the Feast".
- Dickens uses him to show the dignity and warmth of the struggling working poor.
Tiny Tim
- Tiny Tim is Bob's frail and disabled youngest son.
- He walks with a little crutch and an iron frame on his weak limbs.
- His sweetness and the threat that he will die give poverty a human face.
The Cratchits are moral opposites of Scrooge (rich in love though poor in money). The sight of their home and Tiny Tim's fate does most to move Scrooge to change.
Supernatural visitors
Jacob Marley
"Mankind was my business"
- Scrooge's dead business partner.
- He returns as a ghost weighed down by chains he "forged in life" through his greed.
- Warns "Mankind was my business".
Ghost of Christmas Past
- A strange, childlike figure with a glowing head.
- Leads Scrooge back through his own life, using memory to stir the regret that begins to soften him.
Ghost of Christmas Present
- A giving, jovial giant amid a feast.
- Shows Scrooge how others celebrate Christmas.
- Awakens his pity and his sense of responsibility for the poor.
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
- A silent, hooded figure of death.
- Frightens Scrooge with a lonely, unmourned future and forces his final resolve to change.
Other characters
Fred
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!"
- Scrooge's good-humoured nephew.
- Greets Scrooge each year with "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!"
- Keeps offering warmth despite being rebuffed.
Fezziwig
- The kind employer of Scrooge's youth.
- Throws a Christmas party for his workers, contrasting Scrooge by showing an employer can use money to spread happiness.
Belle
"Another idol has displaced me"
- The woman Scrooge once loved.
- Ends their engagement due to his love of money ("another idol has displaced me").
- Reveals greed cost him his happiness.
Ignorance and Want
- The starved children hidden under the Present's robe ("This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.").
- They carry Dickens's warning about a society that neglects its most vulnerable.