Lab Activity: Digital Humanities - CLiC Dickens Project

 Hello everyone, welcome to my blog! This post is crafted in response to the lab activity assigned by Dilip Sir. Our task involves exploring the CLiC Dickens Project and its accompanying activity book, followed by completing a small activity derived from that booklet.

1st Thematic Activity:-

The Creation of Fictional Characters 

Book characters are like real people in our minds. We imagine what they think and feel, just like we do with our friends or family. We picture them in places, talking to others, and having experiences. Because we think of them this way, we can feel strong emotions about them, even though we know they aren't real. It's like our brains trick us into believing they are real people.

As an example in this section, Let's talk about Mr. Dick from Dickens' book, David Copperfield. At first, Mr. Dick seems like a small character, but he's actually really important to the whole story. Dickens wrote David Copperfield about his own life, and Mr. Dick is like a funny version of him. Both did similar jobs and even wrote stories about their lives. Mr. Dick is writing a story about himself too, but he gets distracted a lot.

Picking out the character:

Firstly, this activity reveals that the character Mr. Dick is mentioned 299 times.

 

So, we noticed something weird about Mr. Dick. It seems like other people are always doing stuff to him, instead of the other way around. He's more like a spectator than a player. And when he does talk, he's mostly just thinking or watching stuff. Basically, he's kind of like a passive guy. Plus, we mostly hear about him from what other characters say, not from his own words.

Picking out the characterisation

Some changes have been made to this activity.

The changes include removing 'all type of text' from the subsets column and adding 'non-quotes'.

As a result of the changes, we can observe that the character Mr. Dick is mentioned 178 times.

Isolating the reporting clause

Some changes are applied through this activity.

changes:

In the "Concordance" column on the right, please update the "Search for terms" instruction to, "said Mr. Dick."

The outcome of changes in this activity:

We found that about one-third of the times Mr. Dick is mentioned, the story tells us what he said. There are lots of words used to show he's talking, like "said," "returned," "suggested," and "cried." So, Mr. Dick gets to speak for himself quite a bit.

We also noticed something interesting. Sometimes, when the story tells us what Mr. Dick said, the writer stops to add their own little comment. It's like they pause the story to say something about Mr. Dick or what he's saying.

We also find that 'said Mr. Dick' is referred 52 times in whole text.

Exploring the narrative comments on the character

In this activity, the changes include selecting "David Copperfield" in the "Search the corpora" section, choosing "Long suspensions" under "Only in subsets," and entering "Dick" in the "Search for terms" field.

The outcome of changes in this activity:

There aren't many lines about Mr. Dick only 12 times he mentioned, but most of them talk about how he looks or feels. We can see this by looking at words that describe his body or his mind. It seems like his head and face are important parts of how he's described. Let's look for words that tell us about different parts of his body to learn more about him.

Face and features of the character

In this activity, the changes include selecting "David Copperfield" in  the "Search the corpora" section, choosing "All text" in the "Only in subsets" section, inserting "Dick" in the "Search for terms" field, and experimenting with a variety of terms such as "head," "face," "eyes," "mouth," or actions like "looked," "watched," "seemed" in the "Filter rows" section.

The word "Head" appears sixteen times in the novel, as determined by this activity.

2nd Thematic Activity:

Social protest writing: Hard Times and Oliver Twist

 In this activity, we will delve into the intricate characterization of Mrs. Sparsit, a prominent figure in Charles Dickens' novel, Hard Times. By carefully examining the textual evidence, we will attempt to gain a comprehensive understanding of her personality, motivations, and role within the narrative. Subsequently, we will shift our focus to another character, Oliver, from Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop. Through a similar analytical process, we will explore Oliver's character development, contrasting and comparing him to Mrs. Sparsit.

Sparsit

Process of this activity:

The outcome of this activity:

When we examined the points where the narrative interrupts Mrs. Sparsit's dialogue, we noticed a recurring pattern. Almost all of these interruptions occur during her speech, as indicated by the frequent use of speech verbs such as "said Mrs. Sparsit," "pursued Mrs. Sparsit," and "Mrs. Sparsit interposed." This suggests that the narrator often feels compelled to interject comments or observations during Mrs. Sparsit's utterances.

Moreover, these interruptions frequently include vivid descriptions of Mrs. Sparsit's physical demeanor. Phrases like "with a shake of her head," "in a very impressive manner," and "in a highly superior manner" provide insights into her character and convey her attitude through nonverbal cues. These descriptive elements enhance our understanding of Mrs. Sparsit's personality and the overall tone of her interactions with other characters.

The character of Mrs. Sparsit is mentioned 22 times.

Oliver

In this activity, changes include the use of 'DNov' because there are no other "Olivers" in Dickens' works (apart from a single mention of "Oliver Cromwell" in The Old Curiosity Shop). Select "Only in subsets" and choose "Long suspensions" to locate the narrative description close to direct speech.

The outcome of this activity:

When we looked closely at the parts of the story where the author interrupts what Oliver is saying, we found some interesting things. The words used often show strong feelings, actions, or even scary body language. It's like the author is trying to tell us something important about Oliver through these interruptions.

To compare, we can do the same thing with another character, like Bill Sikes. We can look at the parts where the story stops to talk about him. This will help us see how the words used for Sikes are different from the words used for Oliver. For example, we might find that the words used for Sikes are more violent or scary.

There's another way to do this, too. We can use a special tool to mark different parts of the text. This will help us organize our findings and look for patterns even better.

Thank you!!