Ebenezer Scrooge is a penny-pinching
miser in the first degree. He cares nothing for the people around him
and
mankind exists only for the money that can be made through
exploitation and intimidation. He particularly detests Christmas which
he views as 'a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour
richer'. Scrooge is visited, on Christmas Eve, by the ghost of his
former partner Jacob Marley who died seven Christmas Eves ago. Marley, a miser from the same mold as Scrooge, is
suffering the
consequences in the afterlife and hopes to help Scrooge avoid his fate.
He tells Scrooge that he will be haunted by three
spirits. These three
spirits, the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, succeed in
showing Scrooge the error of his ways. His glorious reformation
complete, Christmas morning finds Scrooge sending a Christmas turkey to
his long-suffering clerk, Bob Cratchit, and spending Christmas day in
the company of his nephew, Fred, whom he had earlier spurned. Scrooge's new-found benevolence continues as he raises
Cratchit's salary and vows to assist his family, which includes Bob's
crippled son, Tiny Tim. In the end Dickens reports that Scrooge became
' as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good
old city knew