Original artwork, not a still
A Christmas Carol · 1843
Marley was dead: to begin with.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
A narrator announces the death of the man whose ghost will carry the whole story, and does it with such deadpan insistence that the joke does the setting-up for the supernatural. Dickens makes you accept the impossible by first being absurdly sure of the ordinary. It is one of the best-known first lines in English, and the colon-and-full-stop rhythm is why people quote it with the pause.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for A Christmas CarolShow the scene
Stave One of A Christmas Carol, titled "Marley's Ghost", opens on this sentence, with the colon Dickens used in the 1843 first edition. The narrator goes straight on to prove it: the register of Jacob Marley's burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner, who was Scrooge. Marley was, we are told, as dead as a door-nail, and the narrator pauses to joke about why a door-nail should be the deadest of ironmongery. The point matters because the ghost has to come back from a death nobody can doubt. Later that night Scrooge tells two charity collectors that Marley died seven years ago "this very night".
Sources (1)
- A Christmas Carol, Project Gutenberg (1843 first-edition text), Stave OneStave One, opening paragraphs; the charity collectors' sceneReference checked
Context reviewed
