Experimenting with Voyant Tools

I never experienced using a tool like Voyant before or to be even more honest, I never thought of analyzing literature in a scientific way. For a first-time user, Voyant can be overwhelming, and confusing. Within one overarching tool, there is a multitude of other tools that can lead to different ways of looking into the text. For me, the amount of accumulated data, paired with all the accessible modules that create a visual analysis of the text led me to curiosity but it also felt overpowering. Since this is a new program to me, the lack of knowledge I had about the system frustrated me as well; however, with more practice, the tools seemed less confusing and more intriguing.

My favorite aspect about Voyant is the amount of control the user has when it comes to which words are inputted and outputted. It lessens the clutter and lets me focus on the more significant words. With that being said, the text I analyzed was “Peter Pan” by J.M. Barrie and the graph I found most helpful was the frequency graph. With the frequency graph, I focused on the names of the characters and tried to see if the correlations on the graph also showed hints at the relationships between the characters.

The frequency of the names: “Peter”, “Wendy”, and “Hook”

For instance, I looked at the relationship between Peter and Wendy versus Peter and Hook. I Imagine that when two points intersect it means that there is some type of interaction between the characters. Throughout the book, Peter and Wendy have countless interactions and are considered to have a more positive relationship than Peter and Captain Hook. Therefore the frequency of their names are more prominent and have more intersections in the graph. 

The frequency of the names “Peter” and “Wendy”

On the other hand, Peter and Captain Hook have a more strained relationship leading to the frequency lines having fewer intersections until the very end when they confront each other.

The frequency of the names “Peter” and “Hook”

Overall, I think the Voyant Tool does have its benefits. When it comes to efficiency, it can easily accumulate data and show patterns about the text, that might take one person hours to find on their own. However, besides acquiring numbers, and generating visual graphs to further enhance the data there is not much beyond that. It can help as evidence but not so much for interpretations.

One thought on “Experimenting with Voyant Tools

  1. A good start. Did your first pass through with Voyant suggest other/additional lines of inquiry? I wonder if other Voyant tools might help to reveal more about character relations? Or, patterns in the relations among/between characters?

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