Mission Statement
To map whether or not the four different spouses that Ernest Hemingway had affected his writing. This will be fulfilled by the use of Voyant, a text analysis tool, to see how Hemingway's word choice and style did or did not change throughout the his marriages. We can see if the focus of his works shifted and how often or seldom words were used.
To map whether or not the four different spouses that Ernest Hemingway had affected his writing. This will be fulfilled by the use of Voyant, a text analysis tool, to see how Hemingway's word choice and style did or did not change throughout the his marriages. We can see if the focus of his works shifted and how often or seldom words were used.
Phase 1: Assembling the Texts for Analysis
First I obtained PDF copies of all the works that I was going to analyze for this project. Out of Hemingway's large selection of wonderful novels and short stories I felt that The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bells Tolls, and Across the River and Into the Trees would best help me in my search to see how each one of Hemingway's four wives had an effect on his writing. Four wives, four novels. These books were published from 1926 to 1950 so I would be able to see how Hemingway's writing changed over time, the purpose of this project.
Phase 2: Running the Texts Through a Word Analyzer
The next step in my quest to better understand the influence each of Hemingway's wives had on his writing was to run the PDF copies that I had obtained through a text analyzer. For this task I chose the text analyzer Voyant. Having experience with this software in a classroom setting, I felt that I would be able to use its potential to greatly help me in my search to see the influences Hemingway's wives had on his writing. Once I had Voyant pulled up on my browser, I then copied and pastes the entire novels into the word processing box on Voyant's home page. Next I clicked "Reveal" and waited for Voyant to load its discoveries.
Phase 3: "Revealing" the Texts
After "revealing" all four of the books that chose I then changed the setting in Voyant by choosing "English (Taporware)" in the Stop Words List to in order to filter out common and insignificant words such as "the", "and", and "a." This peeled back a layer and allowed me to further look into the mind of one of America's greatest writers, Ernest Hemingway.
Phase 4: Looking at the Revelations
Once the texts were revealed by Voyant, I looked at frequencies of the most commonly used words by Hemingway in these four books. I was not only looking just at how often words were used but more importantly I was looking at the differences in the frequencies of words that Hemingway used. Then I listed out the four to six most common words from each novel and their frequencies; also I wrote down how many total words and unique words there were as well. This was to better help me see how the novels compare to each other side by side.
Phase 5: Comparing the Novels Side by Side
Please go to the chart tab under "Project" to see how the words in each novel compare side by side to one another.
Phase 6: Drawing Inferences From the Data
After putting all the data into charts on Microsoft Excel, I began to look for anything that might give me clues about how Hemingway's writing could have changed. Not only did I compare which words were most popular, but also the frequency that these words appear in each novel. By doing this I did not make the mistake of thinking that "whoa the word 'said' appeared 2,643 times in For Whom the Bell Tolls, but only 911 times in Across the River and Into the Trees." The reason that this is not a valid way at drawing conclusion is because there are 176,425 total words in For Whom the Bell Tolls, yet in comparison only 67,733 words in Across the River and Into the Trees.
Phase 7: Putting Together the Information and Creating a Conclusion
For the conclusion please go to the Conclusion tab under Home.
Once I drew inferences from the data in front of me it was time to create my conclusion. My conclusion needed to state and explain why or why not my wondering if Hemingway's four different wives had any influence on his writing was held up by my findings in this project.
First I obtained PDF copies of all the works that I was going to analyze for this project. Out of Hemingway's large selection of wonderful novels and short stories I felt that The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bells Tolls, and Across the River and Into the Trees would best help me in my search to see how each one of Hemingway's four wives had an effect on his writing. Four wives, four novels. These books were published from 1926 to 1950 so I would be able to see how Hemingway's writing changed over time, the purpose of this project.
Phase 2: Running the Texts Through a Word Analyzer
The next step in my quest to better understand the influence each of Hemingway's wives had on his writing was to run the PDF copies that I had obtained through a text analyzer. For this task I chose the text analyzer Voyant. Having experience with this software in a classroom setting, I felt that I would be able to use its potential to greatly help me in my search to see the influences Hemingway's wives had on his writing. Once I had Voyant pulled up on my browser, I then copied and pastes the entire novels into the word processing box on Voyant's home page. Next I clicked "Reveal" and waited for Voyant to load its discoveries.
Phase 3: "Revealing" the Texts
After "revealing" all four of the books that chose I then changed the setting in Voyant by choosing "English (Taporware)" in the Stop Words List to in order to filter out common and insignificant words such as "the", "and", and "a." This peeled back a layer and allowed me to further look into the mind of one of America's greatest writers, Ernest Hemingway.
Phase 4: Looking at the Revelations
Once the texts were revealed by Voyant, I looked at frequencies of the most commonly used words by Hemingway in these four books. I was not only looking just at how often words were used but more importantly I was looking at the differences in the frequencies of words that Hemingway used. Then I listed out the four to six most common words from each novel and their frequencies; also I wrote down how many total words and unique words there were as well. This was to better help me see how the novels compare to each other side by side.
Phase 5: Comparing the Novels Side by Side
Please go to the chart tab under "Project" to see how the words in each novel compare side by side to one another.
Phase 6: Drawing Inferences From the Data
After putting all the data into charts on Microsoft Excel, I began to look for anything that might give me clues about how Hemingway's writing could have changed. Not only did I compare which words were most popular, but also the frequency that these words appear in each novel. By doing this I did not make the mistake of thinking that "whoa the word 'said' appeared 2,643 times in For Whom the Bell Tolls, but only 911 times in Across the River and Into the Trees." The reason that this is not a valid way at drawing conclusion is because there are 176,425 total words in For Whom the Bell Tolls, yet in comparison only 67,733 words in Across the River and Into the Trees.
Phase 7: Putting Together the Information and Creating a Conclusion
For the conclusion please go to the Conclusion tab under Home.
Once I drew inferences from the data in front of me it was time to create my conclusion. My conclusion needed to state and explain why or why not my wondering if Hemingway's four different wives had any influence on his writing was held up by my findings in this project.