Project 2: The Mill on the Floss, a visual analysis
How to Not Read a Novel
Deven Tokuno
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Scatter Plot visualization
From the visualizations tested (especially the word cloud and scatter plot, see above links) The Mill on the Floss seems to be a character-driven, thinker. That is, several of the most common words were characters’ names and words such as “think”, “mind”, “know”, and “thought”. Some other key words:
- “Mr.” and “Mrs.” appear quite a lot- perhaps there is an established married couple? Or, perhaps an affair (George Eliot had an affair with a married man, and writers often include little snippets of their own experience in key novels)
- “…” is also one of the top “words”. This is interesting, again relating back to the “thinker” words that appear most commonly in the word cloud
- “Glegg” appears a lot- not sure if this is a name or an actual word, or a name, or…? Perhaps even an emotion?
- “Come”, “know”, and “thought” are some of the top action words. Come, perhaps there is much travel in the novel? And again, the “thinker” words. Maybe not as much action as thought/ planning? Often in Victorian novels, there is a lot of pre-meditation and plotting which spurs the story/ drama
- Another confusing one: “O’” appears a lot- this is strange as “O’” is usually accompanied by a name- such as O’Leary or something along those lines- maybe this “O’” is more of an emotion or expression thoughout?
- The assumed main characters names appeared in the word cloud, including Maggie, Tulliver, Tom, Lucy and Philip. Maggie is the largest character name/word, so I assume that she is the main character of the novel.
George Eliot’s (or, Mary Anne Evans’s) novel The Mill on the Floss consistently appears on the top 100 books to read before you die. As a classic (although not necessarily in the Canon), prior to any exploration I assumed that it dealt with facets of life that still remain pertinent and affect society today but also that the novel might shed light on societal culture in the Victorian era, when Eliot wrote. Just from the title, I would assume that the location (the mill, on the floss river) is of utmost importance or influence on the novel itself, though it is interesting to note that none of the words in the title appeared prominently in the word cloud.
The significance of words that appear most in the word cloud is that they drive the novel’s plot, character development, and overall story. Without the most common words, or with different ones, the story would be completely different. Some notable patterns include positive words including “life”, “good”, “home”, and “great”. Some negative words include “money”, “poor” and “pullet” (assuming pullet is negatively associated). Some other interesting words are those associated with the human body, including “eyes”, “face”, “hand”, and “head”. Familial words are also present in the most common word word-cloud: “mother”, “sister”, and “father”.
Contradictions and inconsistencies can also be found in the association charts and visuals, though limited. For example, “young”, “new”, and “old” are present in the word cloud, as is “poor” and “money”, and “come” and “going”. It is also interesting to note that the word “things” takes up a lot of space on the cloud, signifying its relevance and immense presence in the novel. As compared to the other words present, including happy/ family words, “things” is materialistic and not descriptive—it is the only word of its kind in the cloud.
This application fits interestingly into the models of close reading. As discussed in class, as students, we have essentially been trained to do close reading and nothing else (though distant reading has become increasingly popular due to the ease and efficiency). This tool seems effective, especially when used with the entire voyant-tool setup, showing the text in the middle and tools on the side. In this way, readers can easily locate and make associations between words, characters, and topics in the novel. As a fan of distant reading, this project proved effective and insightful. Not only are we provided statistics for a non-mathematical project, but we are provided the means by which to control the text and essentially make it work for us as readers. I enjoyed visualizing the novel without illustrations of the plot, which one might associate with novel visualization. The voyant-tool might even prove more effective in visualization than movie renditions of the novel, allowing for word-association and evidence (statistical) of the heart of the book at hand.
The process of “normal” book reading is very different than the inference reading done for this project. With normal reading a reader obviously knows what is going on, who the main characters are and their relations to one another, as well as the main plot line. However, with this project and machine/distant reading, as a reader I noticed the importance of key words, which shed light on the overarching significance of the novel. For example, I can infer that much emphasis was placed on the character development and dialogue as the character names are most prominent in the analysis. It can also be inferred that this is a “thinker” novel as plotting words are common. Perhaps, as in some of the novels we have already read in class, this novel focuses on the characters thoughts rather than actions, allowing the actions to come through in the dialogue? Or, perhaps little dialogue or plotting occurs and much narration instead. In this way, the narrator/author would describe the plotting between characters, thereby using character names and plotting words more often than other words. It is interesting how much could be inferred simply by looking at the most common words. Once “the”, “and”, and “it” words are eliminated, the heart of the novel comes through but can be interpreted in many different ways. Is the author pushing an agenda, or simply allowing the characters to “live” through dialogue? Is the book about relationships, the power of thinking, or how one affects the other? I look forward to reading this book on Project Gutenberg following this project, and hope to see my assumptions realized.
As a whole, this project was fun and shed light on the effectiveness of tools available for distant/machine reading.