Stave 1

Summary:

The novella opens with the statement that “Marley was dead” — establishing a gothic and supernatural tone.
Ebenezer Scrooge is introduced as “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”
He runs his counting-house coldly and cruelly, underpaying and mistreating his clerk, Bob Cratchit.
Scrooge’s cheerful nephew Fred visits to invite him to Christmas dinner. Scrooge rudely refuses, calling Christmas “a humbug.”
Two charity collectors arrive asking for donations for the poor; Scrooge coldly replies, “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”
Later that night, Scrooge returns home to his gloomy house and is terrified when the door knocker turns into Marley’s face.
Marley’s ghost appears, bound in “chains forged in life”, symbolising his greed and selfishness.
Marley warns Scrooge that he will share the same fate unless he changes his ways.
He tells Scrooge that three spirits will visit him on three successive nights — though they all come in one.
The stave ends with Marley’s ghost flying out into the night, surrounded by other tormented spirits, and Scrooge falling asleep.

Key ideas: introduction of Scrooge’s character, greed and isolation, supernatural warning, foreshadowing redemption.