Jacob Marley

Jacob Marley is a ghost that has accompanied Scrooge through his travel. Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Marley is described in a next way: “The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its vivid color made it horrible; but his horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.”

The basis of the story of the Christmas fairy tale is the miracle of the festive night. There is a certain event—and the spiritual rebirth of a person who forgets that he is created in the image and likeness of God. The door knocker turns into Jacob Marley's face, who died exactly on a holy evening seven years ago, the tile of the Dutch oven, which depicts scenes from the Scriptures, suddenly shrinks the face of the deceased, the spirit of Marley himself warns the second about the consequences of life without God's spark in the soul, Christmas perfumes are led by Scrooge from childhood to death and all this is interspersed in the event of one night in order to completely change the life of the old wreckage.

Consequently, Marley's ghost does not appear accidentally. He doesn’t only scare him but also gives the opportunity to change his life until it is too late until he has forever lost his ability to do good; he gives him a chance to save his soul from eternal suffering, to return to Christian values: mercy, love, forgiveness, goodness. That’s why the author used the fantastic elements of the narrative in the image of Jacob Marley.