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Ebenezer Scrooge

The miserly protagonist and sole surviving partner of the firm Scrooge and Marley. He is described as squeezing, wrenching, grasping, and covetous, shunned by all who know him. Over the course of the story he is visited by three spirits and forced to reckon with his past, present, and future. He is the sole executor, administrator, and residuary legatee of the late Jacob Marley.

Jacob Marley

Scrooge's deceased business partner, dead for seven years at the story's opening. His ghost appears to Scrooge on Christmas Eve, dragging a chain forged from cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses—symbols of his earthly greed. Marley serves as a warning, telling Scrooge he will be visited by three spirits who offer him a chance to escape Marley's fate of restless, tormented wandering.

Ghost of Christmas Past

The first of the three spirits foretold by Marley, appearing at the stroke of one o'clock. It looks like both a child and an old man simultaneously, wearing a white tunic with a belt, carrying a sprig of holly, and emitting a bright jet of light from the crown of its head. It transports Scrooge back through memories of his own past Christmases, showing him his lonely boyhood, his sister Fan, and his apprenticeship under Fezziwig.

Fred (Scrooge's Nephew)

Scrooge's cheerful, warm-hearted nephew who visits the counting-house on Christmas Eve to invite his uncle to Christmas dinner. He is the son of Scrooge's late sister Fan, and represents the spirit of generosity and forgiveness that Scrooge lacks. Despite Scrooge's repeated cold dismissals, Fred refuses to leave without goodwill.

Bob Cratchit

Scrooge's underpaid clerk, working in a cramped, coal-starved cell called 'the Tank' adjoining the counting-house. He earns fifteen shillings a week, has a wife and family, and lives in Camden Town. Despite his miserable working conditions he remains warm-spirited, applauds Fred's speech about Christmas, and slides down Cornhill with boys on Christmas Eve.

Fan

Scrooge's younger sister, glimpsed in a vision shown by the Ghost of Christmas Past. She came to fetch the young Scrooge home from his boarding school, full of joy and love. The Ghost notes she died as a woman and had one child—Scrooge's nephew Fred. She represents warmth and familial love lost to Scrooge's past.

Old Fezziwig

Scrooge's former employer, a jovial, generous warehouse owner glimpsed in a vision of Scrooge's apprenticeship years. He throws a lavish Christmas Eve party for all his employees and their families, transforming his warehouse into a ballroom. Fezziwig represents the kind of employer and human being that Scrooge could have become.

Dick Wilkins

Scrooge's fellow apprentice under Fezziwig, mentioned warmly by Scrooge when he sees the vision of his past. Little detail is given, but Scrooge recalls him as very much attached to him. He appears only in the Christmas Past vision.

The Charitable Gentlemen

Two portly, pleasant gentlemen who visit Scrooge's counting-house on Christmas Eve soliciting donations for the poor. They represent society's better impulses and the season's call to charity. Scrooge dismisses them coldly, insisting prisons and workhouses are sufficient provision for the destitute.

Scrooge and Marley's Counting-House

The firm's place of business, still bearing both partners' names above the warehouse door years after Marley's death. It consists of Scrooge's main office, where he keeps the coal-box and watches his clerk, and an adjoining dismal cell called 'the Tank' where the clerk copies letters by a near-dead fire. The atmosphere is cold, dark, and foggy on Christmas Eve.

Scrooge's Chambers

A gloomy suite of rooms in a lowering, isolated building in a dark London yard, formerly belonging to the late Jacob Marley. The chambers are old and dreary, the yard so dark Scrooge must grope his way by hand, and the building so out-of-place it seems to have wandered there accidentally. It is here that Marley's ghost appears to Scrooge, and where the first spirit visits him.

Victorian London Streets

The fog-choked, frost-bitten city streets surrounding Scrooge's office and home, depicted on Christmas Eve. Gas-lamps flare in the brown air, link-boys run before horses, labourers warm themselves at braziers, shop windows blaze with holly and provisions, and carol singers brave the cold. The streets embody both the misery of urban poverty and the warmth of communal Christmas celebration.

Scrooge's Childhood School

A large mansion of dull red brick in the countryside, once prosperous but fallen into broken fortunes, used as a boarding school. It is the place where the young Scrooge was left alone at Christmas while other boys went home. Seen in a vision by the Ghost of Christmas Past, it represents Scrooge's formative loneliness and emotional isolation.

Fezziwig's Warehouse

The place where the young Scrooge served his apprenticeship, visited in a vision of Christmas Past. On Christmas Eve, Fezziwig transforms it from a place of business into a warm, bright ballroom for a grand party. It stands in contrast to Scrooge's own cold counting-house and represents generous, humane employer-ship.

Camden Town

The neighbourhood where Bob Cratchit lives with his wife and family. Referenced briefly as the place the clerk runs to eagerly after work on Christmas Eve. It implies a working-class district at some remove from the City of London.

Marley's Chain

The spectral chain that Jacob Marley's ghost drags and wears, clasped about its middle and wound about it like a tail. It is forged from cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel—each link a symbol of Marley's greedy and selfish choices in life. Marley tells Scrooge that Scrooge himself already bears an equally heavy chain, forged link by link over seven more years.

The Ghost's Law of Chains

In this world's supernatural cosmology, every person forges a spiritual chain in life through their selfish acts and failures of compassion. Those who die without having walked 'abroad among their fellowmen' in charity and kindness are condemned after death to wander the earth endlessly, witnessing human suffering they can no longer alleviate. Marley explains this directly to Scrooge as the metaphysical law underpinning his haunting.

The Three Spirits

Three supernatural spirits are sent to visit Scrooge on consecutive nights following Marley's warning: the Ghost of Christmas Past (appearing at one o'clock), the Ghost of Christmas Present (the second night), and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (the third night at the last stroke of twelve). Together they represent the mechanism by which a living person may still be redeemed from Marley's fate, by confronting what they were, are, and will become.

Victorian Christmas Customs

Christmas in this setting is a time of communal feasting, charitable giving, family gathering, dancing, carol-singing, and goodwill. The holiday carries both sacred significance (its 'sacred name and origin') and secular festivity. It is also a time of acute poverty for the urban poor, making charitable acts especially urgent. Scrooge's rejection of all Christmas customs marks him as morally deficient in this world's terms.

The Poor Law and Workhouses

The story references contemporary Victorian social institutions including prisons, Union workhouses, the Treadmill, and the Poor Law as the official societal response to poverty. Scrooge endorses these institutions as sufficient, dismissing private charity. These institutions are portrayed as inadequate and cruel, unable to provide 'Christian cheer of mind or body.'

Phantom Host of the Guilty Dead

Beyond Marley, the night air outside Scrooge's window is filled with a host of phantoms—all former humans, all wearing chains, moaning and wandering in restless haste. Some are linked together (described as possibly guilty governments). Their torment is that they long to help suffering humans but have lost the power to do so forever. This implies that Marley's condition is not unique but a universal fate for the selfish dead.