Christmas Carol Ghost Profiles

Text Version of Christmas Carol Ghost Profiles

Jacob Marley’s Ghost

Ghost Job: Teacher

To give Scrooge the opportunity to change his ways before he dies and ends up like Marley.

Imagery: An allegory of unshared wealth

  • Disrupts Scrooge’s bleak routine → appears in the door knocker.

  • Death imagery → pale face, shriven, cloth tying mouth closed

  • Cloth tied around his head → victorian way of keeping the mouths of dead people closed

  • Chained to heavy ledgers and money boxes -> tortured by the things he loved. Never wanted to help the poor when alive, and now he can’t.

Best Quotes

  • “I wear the chain I forged in life” - This is my fault.

  • “Mankind was my business” - I should have focussed on people not money

  • "I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer" - I set all of this up to give you a chance to put everything right, so you don’t end up like me.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

Ghost Job: Psychiatrist + Carer

To force Scrooge to see where his sadness and isolation comes from, and to reclaim him for God and Goodness.

Imagery: The connection between boy and man

  • Young boy and an old man at the same time → connection between his abandoned youth and his cold mean adulthood.

  • Beam of light from head -> truth, love, and kindness → these emotions make him vulnerable so he shut them away.

  • Ramming the cap on the ghost’s head → It’s too painful for him to confront the truth and decisions he regrets.

Best Quotes:

  • He is here for Scrooge’s “reclamation”.

  • At Fezziwig’s party, the ghost says: “A small matter, to make these silly folks so full of gratitude" imitating what Scrooge said to Fred visiting his office. This makes Scrooge explain they were all so grateful because of kindness, not money.

The Ghost of Christmas Present

Ghost Job: Entertainer + Moral Guide

To show Scrooge that Christmas brings joy to everyone - it’s not dependent on wealth.

Imagery: The Green Man + Father Christmas

  • Beard, green robe, and evergreen plants → THE GREEN MAN: Pagan god promising life will begin again in Spring.

  • Surrounded by food and festive decorations → mid-Winter feast to celebrate surviving half-way through Winter with the worst behind them.

  • A giant with a firey torch → light represents hope, truth, and clarity. Size represents his joy at Christmas time.

Best Quotes:

  • “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”- repeats Scrooge’s stave 1 comments to show him how compassionless he was about the poor.

  • “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy” - class divide creates Ignorance (lack of education), and want (lack of basic needs like food and shelter), but Ignorance is is the worst because without intervention that child has no hope of escaping povety and prison.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

Ghost Job: Motivator

To urge Scrooge into action by showing him time is running out.

Imagery: THE GRIMM REAPER / Death

  • Dead people don’t speak → Scrooge knows what to do, he just needs to start.

  • THE GRIM REAPER → personification of death. Death is coming for Tiny Tim and Scrooge. Change must start now.

  • You cannot see its face: Mysterious → The future is unknown, it depends on how Scrooge acts.

Best Quotes

  • *SILENT HAND POINTING* (He doesn’t speak!)