A Christmas Carol

Sunday. 15 December, 2019 - 1 min

"There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor."

Braid

There’s no better book for a Christmas reread than A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. It is book to reflect on our attitudes and our relation with our closest friends and relatives, about kindness and the human condition.

The braid is divided into chapters to observe better the influence of the different spirits:

The first chapter is marked by the ghostly apparition of Marley, Scrooge’s deceased business partner, who is being punished for his greedy life.
After him comes the Spirit of Christmas Past, who takes Scrooge on a tour through his lost youth.
The Spirit of Christmas Present appears next, showing Scrooge the misery of his employee Bob Cratchit and his son Tiny Tim.
The last Spirit is that of Christmas Yet to Come, who reveals Scrooge the product of his greed.
Finally, Scrooge wakes up and decides to change his way of life, treating his employee better and helping those in need.

The grid shows a greedy accumulation of the interactions by Scrooge: he is involved in 3/4 of the interactions and appears alone in 30% of the total. The Spirits interact almost uniquely with Scrooge and the occasions of refering to another character are very rare. Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and Fezziwig appear alone more than they interact with Scrooge, implying the Scrooge sees them all, in the past, present and future, as something distant and not very related with his present self.

This braid ends the braid season for this year. I hope that you have enjoyed visualizing character interactions, and that you are here next year to discover the novelties that we have prepared.

Merry Christmas, and see you soon!

So long for this week’s braid. You can always find more at Literary Braid’s Twitter and Instagram.