Looking into the Use of Letter in Pride and Prejudice
Last week I discussed the use of letter in works of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice extensively uses letter quote. With new techniques from last class, I can delve into this idea, analyzing the epistolary usage in each chapter.
There are three parts of my code.
Part I divides the text into chapter.
#####A bunch of useful code
rm(list=ls())
library(stringr)
library(ggplot2)
##### PART I: DIVEDE INTO CHAPTERS
### Function to read the text
my.scan <- function(x){
Raw_Text.scan <- scan(paste(“C:/Users/klijia/Desktop/HIST582A/W3/Raw Text/”, x, sep = “”),what=”character”,sep = “\n”)
Raw_Text.df <- data.frame(Raw_Text.scan, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
}
Pride.raw <- my.scan(“Pride.txt”)
Pride.cut <- Pride.raw[c(16:10734),]
### Find the start and the end line
chapter.line <- grep(“^Chapter\\s[[:digit:]]+”, Pride.cut)
start.line <- chapter.line + 1
end.line <- chapter.line[2:length(chapter.line)] – 1
end.line <- c(end.line, length(Pride.cut))
Pride.df <- data.frame(“Start” = start.line,”End” = end.line, “Text” = NA)
i <- 1
for (i in 1:length(Pride.df$End)){
Pride.df$Text[i] <- paste(Pride.cut[Pride.df$Start[i]:Pride.df$End[i]], collapse = ” “)
}
### Now the text is nicely cut in chapters
Part II uses ggplot to create scatter plots that shows the use of the word “letter(s)” in each chapter.
##### PART II: SCATTERPLOT of USE OF THE WORD IN EACH CHAPTER
Pride.df$letter <- str_count(Pride.df$Text,”\\bletter\\b | \\bletters\\b | \\bLetter\\b | \\bLetters\\b”)
Pride.df$count <- str_count(Pride.df$Text,”[[:alpha:]]+”)
Pride.df$Chapter <- 1:61
ggplot(Pride.df, aes(Chapter, letter,color=non.null)) +
geom_point(color = “orange”) +
xlab(“Chapter Number”) +
ylab(“Use of ‘letter(s)'”)
Pride.df$letter.per <- Pride.df$letter/Pride.df$count*100
###Another graph in percentage
ggplot(Pride.df, aes(Chapter, letter.per,color=non.null)) +
geom_point(color = “orange”) +
xlab(“Chapter Number”) +
ylab(“Use of ‘letter(s)’ in percentage”)
I made two scatter plots. The first is the use of word “letter(s)” of each chapter. The second is the use of word “letter(s)” in percentage. They look similar, but the second graph would be better, if the novel has a chapter that is too long or too short.
From the graphs, we see that the first 20 chapters do not use the word, except for chapter 10 and 13. After chapter 20, the chapters that does not use the word become exceptions. There is a transition in at chapter 20 or 21 that may be interesting. Using the key word in context method will make this easier.
Part III attempts to use KWIC to look closely in to the text.
##### PART3: KWIC OF THE WORD LETTER
Pride.kwic <- paste(Pride.cut, collapse = ” “)
Pride.kwic.fine <- unlist(str_split(Pride.kwic , “\\W”))
location.kwic <- which(Pride.kwic.fine == “letter” | Pride.kwic.fine == “letters”| Pride.kwic.fine == “Letters” | Pride.kwic.fine == “Letter”)
start.kwic <- location.kwic – 5 ## Change 5 to any numbers
end.kwic <- location.kwic + 5 ## Change 5 to any numbers
start.kwic <- ifelse(start.kwic > 0, start.kwic, 0)
end.kwic <- ifelse(end.kwic < length(Pride.kwic.fine), end.kwic, length(Pride.kwic.fine))
KWIC.letter.df <- data.frame(“Start” = start.kwic, “End” = end.kwic, “Text” =NA)
k <- 1
for(k in 1:length(KWIC.letter.df$End)){
text <- Pride.kwic.fine[KWIC.letter.df$Start[k]:KWIC.letter.df$End[k]]
KWIC.letter.df$Text [k] <- paste(text, collapse = ” “)
}
write.table(KWIC.letter.df,”C:/Users/klijia/Desktop/HIST582A/W3/KWIC_letter.txt”,sep = “\t”)
I created two files, one for text that is 5 characters before and after the keyword and another for 25 characters. With the shorter texts, I could read through it quickly, but sometimes I would look at the longer text for more details.
We also need to pay attention to chapters that uses the word a lot, because those chapters may describe writing letter as an activity or involving people talking about writing letters (as in chapter 10). In this situation, all the start and end positions cluster tend together. The first ten entries do not use letter quote.
Some text, however, shows there is use of letter quote. Just a few examples (in 132 entries):
"13" 22775 22875 " dear sir with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters your well wisher and friend WILLIAM COLLINS At four o clock therefore we may expect this peace making gentleman said Mr Bennet as he folded up the letter He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man upon my word and I doubt not will prove a valuable acquaintance especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again There is some"
"49" 75133 75233 "of consulting him I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning I will only add God bless you FITZWILLIAM DARCY Chapter 36 If Elizabeth when Mr Darcy gave her the letter did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers she had formed no expectation at all of its contents But such as they were it may well be supposed how eagerly she went through them and what a contrariety of emotion they excited"
"84" 108958 109058 " It was as follows MY DEAR SIR I feel myself called upon by our relationship and my situation in life to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire Be assured my dear sir that Mrs Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you and all your respectable family in your present distress which must be of the bitterest kind because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove "
"99" 118499 118599 "soon as she possibly could She was no sooner in possession of it than hurrying into the little copse where she was least likely to be interrupted she sat down on one of the benches and prepared to be happy for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial Gracechurch street Sept 6 MY DEAR NIECE I have just received your letter and shall devote this whole morning to answering it as I foresee that a _little_ writing will not"
"130" 144183 144283 "with philosophy the conviction that Elizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude and falsehood had before been unknown to her and in spite of every thing was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on to make his fortune The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received from Lydia on her marriage explained to her that by his wife at least if not by himself such a hope was cherished The letter was to this effect MY DEAR LIZZY I wish you joy If"
As we see Jane Austen uses capital letters for the names of senders and receivers in letters. Sometimes greetings and dates can be helpful in identifying a letter quote.
Further Question:
As I was writing the post, I was thinking about does it really matters that how frequent the use the word “letter(s)” is. Maybe it is more important that Austen uses it or not in a chapter?