Why Does Dickens Send Three Ghosts in A Christmas Carol?

By the time Ebenezer Scrooge sees his own name on a gravestone, Charles Dickens has already made him think about his clerk’s Christmas. The order matters. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge what generosity once meant to him. Christmas Present shows him whose lives his choices touch. Christmas Yet to Come asks him to reckon with where those choices lead. His fear at the grave has force because, by then, he has people besides himself to fear for.

This guide discusses the ending of A Christmas Carol. Jacob Marley appears first and warns Scrooge about the three Christmas spirits.

Christmas Past shows Scrooge what a good employer can do

The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to a schoolroom where he spends part of the holiday alone. Later, Scrooge watches his former employer, Fezziwig, throw a Christmas party for his employees and their guests. The loneliness explains why the party means so much to him. He knows what it feels like to be left out and what it feels like when somebody makes room for him.

When the spirit draws attention to how little the party cost, Scrooge defends Fezziwig. A few words and gestures from an employer, he says, can make work a pleasure or a burden. Then he thinks of Bob Cratchit and wishes he could speak to him. It’s the first time in the visits that Scrooge measures his own conduct against a standard he already believes in. Watching Belle end their engagement later in the same visit shows him how much he has already given up for the security he expects money to buy.

Christmas Present gives Scrooge a reason to care what happens next

At the Cratchits’ Christmas dinner, everyone has something to do. The children help, Mrs. Cratchit worries about the pudding, and Bob proposes a toast to his employer despite his wife’s objections. Their celebration gives Scrooge a view of Bob’s life beyond the countinghouse. Mrs. Cratchit’s reaction to the toast also gives him a glimpse of what his name means in that household.

When Scrooge asks whether Tiny Tim will live, the spirit warns that the boy will die if the future stays as it is. Then it throws Scrooge’s own phrase about the “surplus population” back at him. Earlier, he could say those words to men collecting for charity and send them on their way. At the Cratchits’ table, he has to hear them while thinking about a child whose name he now knows.

Christmas Yet to Come lets Scrooge draw the conclusion himself

The final ghost stays silent. Scrooge hears businessmen discuss a death with indifference and sees people sell belongings taken from the dead man’s room. Dickens delays the name on the grave long enough for Scrooge to see what the man’s death means to other people. At the Cratchits’, meanwhile, Tiny Tim’s absence changes the whole room. The difference between the two households gives the prospect of Scrooge’s own death its sting.

At the grave, Scrooge asks whether he has seen what will happen or what may happen. The ghost keeps pointing. Scrooge has to act without a promise that his efforts will work. On Christmas morning he sends the Cratchits a turkey. After the holiday he raises Bob’s salary. The turkey is a welcome surprise, but the raise is the clearest answer to the Fezziwig scene. Scrooge finally uses the power he once admired in his old employer.

What to watch for on a reread

Follow Bob Cratchit through Staves Two to Five. Scrooge first remembers him while watching Fezziwig, then sees him at home with Tiny Tim, then sees him grieving. By the time Bob walks back into the countinghouse, the reader knows how much can turn on what Scrooge says next. Read the full text at Project Gutenberg.

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For a print edition with an introduction and explanatory notes by Dickens scholar Michael Slater, see A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings in Penguin Classics on Amazon.

If you’re coming to the novella through the film, see how Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer compares with Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

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