This distant reading assignment proved to be very challenging to me, due the fact I could not upload my word cloud, using Wordle or Voyant, on Tumblr.The novel of my choosing was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I found this novel from what I goggled to be a novel about women’s roles and how those roles affects society. I tried not to summarize my thoughts concerning the novel. Nevertheless, I found it beneficial to scan over the text to gain a better understanding of the text.
In my discovery process, I noticed the words future, connected, civil and vanity were all used 18 times in the text. These words intrigued me greatly. I don’t think that Jane Austen placed this critical vocabulary in the text by accident. The exact number of times used for these words produces some type of effect for the reader. Most of the words in pertained to a female character. I am assuming that this female character is undergoing some type of rite of passage, into woman hood. Marriage may be involved through the usage of the word civil, which would denote some type of union. Vanity is usually associated with women.
I also noticed that many times the author used the word absence 27 times. Absence means not present in a certain place. Someone presence is lacking in the novel. The word usually is “connected” with a female character. What in the character life is missing? Another word that appears many times in the novel is “your”. It appears 465 times in the novel. Someone is being addressed in a direct manner. The word is functioning as a declaration to someone one. It is asserting to some character, which must be given some type of direction. The word “after” appears 199 times. After usually shows an action that has occurred after one instance. What function does this word serve in this novel? What is the effect of so many events happening after? Austen may be using many of these repetitive words to draw close attention to the actions of the main characters. Most frequent words used included the (4,496), to (4,209), of (3,717), and (3,607), her (2,216). The word “her” stuck out the most. This led me to believe that a woman was the antagonist of the story and centers around some type of conflict. The article “the” is not usual, because it usually starts a new sentence and begins a coherent thought.
Nevertheless, as I continued to scan for the frequency of more words I found the name of Elizabeth, which appeared 593 times. Elizabeth must be the focal character of the novel, because her name appears the most in the novel. After I noticed the name I discovered the focus on titles in the novel. The word ‘’miss” appears 283 times and “Mr.” appears 783 times. These are titles used for respect for adults. The male address appears more times than the female address. This suggests some type of division between the two sexes.
Overall, this assignment proved to very enjoyable. It allowed me think about dissecting a text by completely focusing on the words. The words form sentences and the sentences form the novel. From the words, a reader can learn what the text is attempting to communicate. The title itself suggests some type of division. A prejudice communicates division of some sort and pride is a behavior that is usually associated with “vanity”.