Data Visualization: Millenium Hall

Positive Impressions

When placed against the situations presented for the ladies in the inset narratives, the positivity seen in the data seems jarring. The unfortunate circumstances that led these women to establish and join Millenium Hall could be seen as enough to justify a melancholic outlook on life. As Mrs. Maynard translates these women's stories to Lamont and Ellison, it is easy as a reader to sympathize with the women of Millenium Hall. The important distinction, when you actually look at the words on the page. Well as readers we might be attached to the sad melancholy story, the women in Millenium Hall are much more willing to live in the present rather than the past, as suggested by the use of the positive terms we see in the text. Additionally, because this is a utopian model for women, it makes sense that the women would be more focused on the present than on the past. The circumstances of their past brought them to this place, something that likely would not have been created without this background. These observations also seem to give insight into Sarah Scott's own outlook on life - perhaps that it is more important to value the things that have brought you to where you are, given you the opportunities you have and created the life you lead rather than to get stuck in a past that you had little to no control over. The women seem content with their present situations because they do have some autonomy and agency in their lives.

When I first started reading the novel, I was surprised at the vastness of the positive language within all of the hardships and heartbreak but I was not at the same time. I amazed at the multitude of negative energy coming from the novel yet we have all of these positive words. When you read the novel, you sympathize with the ladies of Millenium Hall because you hear about their horrible pasts. Then you start to root for them because they want to look to the future so you can understand the use of the positive words to further the novel as a whole. 

Rule of Law and Disobedience

Just as any good utopia would, Millenium Hall lures you in with the promise of freedom and happiness and white, fluffy clouds.  However just over halfway through, the laws and the rules are laid out to the visitors and residents.  These rules are laid down all at once.  After this, disobedience shows up.  After all if there are no rules, there is nothing to disobey.  It is interesting that the first mention of disobedience is right at the point at which rule and law is the most heavily addressed.  After the enormous burst of rule and law, that talk subsides but disobedience is still a factor and has another spike.  The peculiar thought that this graph brings to my mind is whether we can have a utopian novel at all without at least a hint of a developing dystopia to offset the perceived perfection.

Work, Education and Gender Roles

Although Millenium Hall is written as a female utopia, “man” is used 111 times while “woman” is only used 90 times.  On the gender roles in the novel, it is interesting that the words “man”, “woman” and “work” all begin relatively proportionate and end at the same point.  “Education” and “work” seem to oppose each other at the beginning and end of the novel, although they follow each other closely throughout.  The interesting points to observe are at the beginning and at the ending.  This information could make a profound statement about the novel as to what the ladies of Millenium Hall have accomplished.  So at the beginning, we have “man” valued higher than “woman” as well as “work” valued higher than “education.”  This is in the “man’s world” – the patriarchy.  At the end of the novel, the effect of Millenium Hall seems to be a close equality of “man” and “woman” while “work” and “education” have managed to close the gap ever so slightly.  It could be stated that this mirrors the conclusions drawn by the men who have spent so much time visiting the Hall.

Conduct and Behaviour

According to the OED, ‘behaviour’ is defined as “conduct, general practice, course of life; course of action towards or to others, treatment of others.” Conduct, then, is defined as “manner of conducting oneself or one’s life.” So while the words share a similar meaning—the way you act—there is a small nuance in that behaviour tends to be a more public affair, and it tends to be short-term in the novel.

Behaviour shows up most during the narrative of Mrs. Morgan’s and Miss Mancel’s lives—Lady Melvyn’s behaviour towards her step-daughter, Mr. Hintman’s behaviour towards Louisa, Sir Edward’s behaviour, and so on. Behaviour is always used to refer to how they act towards other people: to engage their affections, to attempt to dissuade them from said affections, or simply to try and make them hate someone less (Lady Melvyn and Miss Melvyn). Conduct tends to be used to describe someone’s long-term behaviour. Conduct also frequently shows up when someone is reflecting back on how they’ve acted—Lady Mary reflects on her conduct rather than on her behaviour, for example.

Despite the amount of times these words show up—behaviour at 47 and conduct at 57—I wouldn’t say the novel is overly concerned with instructing readers on how to act. In large part the words show up in the inset narratives, during which time the conduct of the ladies and of the people around them bring them close, but never quite to ruin. So while the novel may be praising the good and criticizing the bad, I wouldn’t say that it is trying to influence its audience.

Timeline- Millenium Hall

1652-1660: English Republic (Commonwealth)

This is the period after the Second English Civil War and the execution of Charles I. After the execution the Rump Parliament took control. In 1653, the Rump Parliament was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell, an army leader of the New Model Army, who turned England into a military dictatorship. Cromwell was known as the “Lord Protector” and the time of his rule became known as the Protectorate. During this time, England was divided into military districts with a commander in charge of each district. Because military rule was expensive taxes went up. Cromwell was offered the crown, but declined. He did, however, nominate his son Richard to succeed him after his death, but he could not maintain the policies of his father. The Rump Parliament was recalled and the monarchy restored. This period that England was not controlled by the monarchy arose out of the multitude of ideas about how England should be governed.

This time period is significant to Millenium Hall because, according to the notes in the book on the novel, “in seventeenth century England, Puritan republicans saw the millennium as a ‘fifth monarchy,’…and many equated it with the Commonwealth or English republic. Later on, republicans and commonwealthmen were sometimes called ‘fifth monarchy men.’ Thus ‘Millenium Hall’ suggests both a Christian tradition and a political one, except that this ‘fifth monarchy’ is ruled by women.” (27). The women of Millenium Hall try to create a new form of government with their own religious and political traditions.

1673: Makin Essay

Bathsua Makin published an essay in 1673 titled An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Women. This essay discusses that educating women better will in turn make them better wives, a sentiment that is shown within Millenium Hall. We see this idea in the novel with the charity that the women employ to educate women and find them husbands within their community. We can also see the idea of further educating women throughout the whole novel, as the women at Millenium Hall are themselves educated on at least some level and aspire to be cultured through literature, music, and art. We can also assume that Scott had this essay in mind while writing her novel due to the fact that Makin helped to educate Scott’s own grandmother.

1748: Friendship with Lady 'Bab' & Bath

After the death of her mother, Sarah Robinson traveled to Bath with Elizabeth Montagu. While on this trip, and before her marriage, Sarah met Lady Barbara Montagu, a woman who would become her best friend throughout life; some even later questioning if the two women weren't actually a couple. This relationship/friendship became something very dear to Sarah and one of the great highlights of her life, as her later marriage to George Lewis Scott was one that ended up being short lived and quite unhappy. Being able to develop such a relationship with another woman, Sarah Scott was sure to realize the type of conversations and authority that women could possibly carry on their own; if not dominated by a patriarchal world. These types of ideas resonate all throughout Millenium Hall, as the women hold positions of authority and are able to operate their daily lives on their own.

1750: Bluestocking Assemblies

Bluestocking feminism was a movement among upper and middle class women that appeared around the middle of the 18th century. Generally, bluestocking feminism sought to address the oppression of women from the viewpoint of the group while remaining interested in economic politics as well. Essentially the Bluestocking ladies sought to further the capitalist agenda while gaining more rights for women within this economic viewpoint. These ideas are largely represented in Millenium Hall as it is, through the perspective of the women, a female utopia. To further align the novel with bluestocking ideologies, the women in the novel are very concerned about “entrepreneurship [and] investment,” two capitalist practices that the bluestocking women applied (Kelly). During their assemblies the women were also interested in becoming well-groomed, so to speak, that is educated and cultured, an aspect that certainly appears among the women at Millenium Hall who all paint or write or read or play an instrument to pass the time. Another connection drawn between the novel and the Bluestocking assemblies themselves arrives through Scott’s own involvement in Bluestocking feminism as well as her sister’s involvement on a much greater level.

1751: Sarah Scott’s marriage to George Lewis Scott

In 1751, Sarah Robinson married George Lewis Scott for only a few months. According the introduction in Millenium Hall, the bond was formed more from mutual inclination and respect than family interest. George was a highly respected mathematician and musician. He was thought to be witty, well-mannered, agreeable in company, and was well known in society. George was well connected at court and was made the sub-preceptor to Prince George, who would become George III. Sarah Robinson was thought to have an interest in politics of the day, which made the pair well suited. After they got married, the couple moved to a house in the neighborhood of Leicester Fields in London. The marriage, however, lasted only a few short months. The reason for the separation is not known, but her family supported her leaving him, which would suggest abuse or an affair on George’s part. According to the introduction, “her brothers persuaded her husband to provide a decent allowance, though this gave him power over her and made her continually anxious as to whether or not he would keep up payments” (21). The couple never actually obtained a divorce because of the laws of the time.

Sarah Scott’s short marriage is significant to Millenium Hall because of its inspiration on her writing involving female communities. Her failure in marriage could be linked to her ideas of marriage displayed in Millenium Hall. The duties she was expected to observe in her marriage could be part of what inspired her writing against such matrimonial duties. Her marriage could have influenced her writing about female communities where the women are not required to follow such duties to marriage.

Context: Millenium Hall

Context:  Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1651)

Hobbes and his ideas on government played a major role in the governing structure of the all female society that is found in Millenium Hall. Hobbes wrote Leviathan in 1651 after the English civil war. This was a time of great distress for Hobbes because his country was falling apart. He saw his society in turmoil and decided there needed to be steps taken to control, rebuild and stop this sort of thing from happening again.  He realized that countries need strong governments in order to maintain control of its people. There are four parts to this treaty; Of Man, Of Common-wealth, Of a Christian Common-wealth and Of the Kingdom of Darkness.  Of Man is referred to in Millenium Hall on page 111; when the way the women run their own government is discussed.  Throughout Millenium Hall, it is not certain whether the women subscribe completely to the Hobbes view or not.

Context: The History of Sir George Ellison Vol. 1 & Vol. 2, Sarah Scott (1766)

Sara Scott wrote The History of Sir George Ellison after Millennium Hall. This novel follows Sir George as he applies all that he learned about governing to his own farms in Jamaica.  This novel shows how a man can implement the same governing rules as the women and have success in his business.  This reinforces the male/female debate of who can lead and who can not.  It is evident from the sequel of the female government that Scott believes that it does not matter if a woman or man is in charge as long as you follow the "rules".  This sequel may also stand for the future expansion of Millennium Hall and its ideals and practices.

Context: Paradise Lost, John Milton (1667)

Milton’s Paradise Lost was published in 1667 as an epic poem written in blank verse. The first edition included ten books and the second edition, published in 1674 included twelve books. Paradise Lost became an English “classic,” specifically in the Anglican church, though Milton was known to be a republican commonwealthman. Though Milton’s epic poem was written without meaning to dialogue about religion or religious issues, “his poem does embody the theology of free will, or salvation by true faith and good works…” (Kelly 38). Free will and salvation by good works are both relevant themes in Millenium Hall. Miss Melvyn quotes Paradise Lost a couple times in her discourse with Sir George Ellison and Mr. Lamont. The learned ladies of Millenium Hall would have surely read Paradise Lost in their desire to adequately educate themselves. It would have been a cultural, philosophical, and religious read for them. Miss Melvyn, upon explaining Millenium Hall’s view of charity and good words says, “…thus the receiver of a favor form a truly generous person, ‘by owing owes not, and is at once indebted and discharged’”(Scott 94). She uses Paradise Lost to illustrate the Hall’s doctrine that “the greatest proof of a noble mind is to feel a joy in gratitude,” that one who gives feels the joy of giving as well as the joy they allow the benefactor of their actions to feel (Scott 93).It is interesting however that Millenium gives as much credit as it does to Paradise Lost. Millenium Hall is a female utopian novel, and varies greatly from Milton’s illustration of Eve, a woman, causing the fall from paradise for all of mankind. Milton is often characterized as an “anti-feminist,” so the relationship between his writing and the ladies of Millenium Hall may seem odd. Milton’s Paradise Lost can be read as descriptive of the debate of “anti-feminism” that was prominent in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Milton’s description of Eve before and after the fall illustrates his “anti-feminist” view. Before the fall, Eve is described by Adam as “fairest of Creation, last and best / Of all God’s Works” (9.896-97). Then, after the Fall of paradise, a consequence of Eve eating the fruit, Adam describes her as “create[d] at last /This novelty on Earth, this fair defect / Of Nature” (10.890-92). Shannon Miller, in her article entitled “Serpentine Eve: Milton and the Seventeenth-Century Debate Over Woman” states, Milton’s poem, more so than any other analogue or source for the story of the Fall, explores what this “principall esse” is in Eve by delineating her “inclinations.” The protracted experience that Adam and Eve have in the Garden—rather than the almost immediate Fall conventionally represented within analogues—allowed Milton time to explore Eve’s character” (Miller 56). The very fact that Milton explores Eve’s character but does not explore Adam’s shows he feels woman’s  characters are worth doubting and questioning, while the questioning of mans’ character is unnecessary. The woman of Millenium Hall would disagree with this. While they do establish and maintain a certain standard of morals for all woman living in Millenium Hall, they also question the men and those men who visit to learn about their utopia. There questioning of character is not gender biased. They established Millenium Hall to escape from those who think of women as Milton does. Miss Melvyn’s quoting of Paradise Lost then shows her learnedness of cultural and religious text, and her ability to think of philosophical issues, as she would not have been allowed the opportunity outside of Millenium Hall. 

Context: "Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences", David Hume (1742)

Written in 1742 and included in David Hume’s Essays,Moral and Political, Volume II, the essay “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences” argues that arts and sciences emerge first in republic societies before they can develop in “civilized monarchies”  (Meek Lange).  The essay also contends that the development of artistic and scientific excellence must be rooted in a legal, orderly structure such as government.  Though artistic progress may flourish in a monarchy, scientific advancement appears to thrive in republic societies, thus strengthening the notion of public rule and the need to align with other governments.

In contrast, the society in Millenium Hall is governed by a selective group with the pretense of democracy separate from the outside world.  However, this semblance of shared governing seems disproportionate with the “founders” of the society relegating the rules.  Lamont points out that “everyone may demand an equal power, but laws seem to require obedience; pray, from whence do you take those which you wish to make your rule of life?” (Scott 166).  Mrs. Mancel’s response that the society is upheld by the “Christian laws” does not negate the society’s method or those in power of enforcing these laws.  Thus, the society may be closer to a monarchy-type government and the artistic advancement of its residents an indirect result of the societal structure of laws. In turn, these laws, though credited to the doctrine of the bible, reflect the influence of predetermined governing laws.

Context: Portraits in the characters of the muses in the Temple of Apollo, Richard Samuel (1778)

The Bluestockings Society, or Bluestockings Circle, originated with upper class women and a few men gathering socially to exchange intellectual conversations in a moral and virtuous setting.  Though there are many references to “bluestockings” in the 15^th and 16^th century, the renowned Blue Stocking Society of England was formed in the 1750’s by an elite group of women, Elizabeth Montagu, Frances Boscawen, and Elizabeth Vesey.  By the 1770’s the term “bluestocking circle” was widely attributed to female literary circles and encouraged the scholarship of underprivileged women.  The society consisted of artists, poets, musicians, actors, politicians and writers such as Sarah Scott. Her novel Millenium Hall was based loosely on this social group.  Though the society fell out of favor by the end of the century, the interactions and friendships of these prominent women continued through the late 1790s.

Richard Samuel’s painting of the nine muses in mythology included several bluestocking members such as Elizabeth Carter, Angelica Kauffman, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Catharine Macaulay, Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Griffith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Ann Sheridan and Charlotte Lennox in recognition for their success in poetry, writing, scholarship, leadership, and other arts.

Context: The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World, Margaret Cavendish (1666)

Written by Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle and an early example of science fiction, the Blazing World is about a separate world at our North Pole populated by several species of animal men (and women) and other sorts of men, unlike our own. The separate world is written as a utopia, where all the species speak one language and have no enemies. The book begins with a note from the author "To all Noble and Worthy Ladies," expressing Cavendish's desire for females to read this tale, and that although she "cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second; yet, I will endeavor to be, Margaret the First" (Cavendish). The lead character in the story, only referred to as the Lady, finds her way to the Blazing World after being forced away by a man who had fallen in love with her. All the male crew members on the ship die, and the Lady is taken to the Emperor of the world by several beast-men. Here she is mistaken for a Goddess, and is made their new ruler (and given a spear to defeat enemies, of which there are none yet.) After "The Description of" in the title, we begin to see similarities to Millennium Hall. Her first act as ruler of the new world, that was getting along just fine, is to expand their arts and sciences. She sets up schools, and "founded several societies" (Cavendish) by splitting the races into different specializations. The Empress inquires about their lack of laws, and the natives explain that too many laws lead to divisions among the people, then factions, then war, so it seems they run the world with a minimal rule-set, like or unlike the ladies in Millennium Hall. The Empress's new government breaks down into divisions and factions, and she must go to war, and comes out victorious, so the utopia is basically dissolved at this point. In the epilogue Cavendish claims herself to be the Empress of the Philosophical World.

Data Visualization: Castle of Otranto

Data Visualization: The Castle of Otranto

Names and Titles

 
In a gothic novel where doppelgangers and confusion are absolutely necessary for the novel to achieve its desired effect, I was rather surprised to see the amount of proper names and titles used for the characters.  If you add up the full amount of times that the characters are either directly named or referred to by title, it makes up almost five percent of the entire novel.  In other words, for every twenty words in the novel, at least one of those is either a character’s name or their title. When I first saw the main word cloud that we came up with on the program and eliminated the articles, I was instantly surprised to see that each and every one of the titles and names in the above chart is used often enough to appear in the word cloud. This could mean that The Castle of Otranto may be more about character identity than I had initially suspected.  Of course, with each identity comes the title which is attached to the identity.  So, when considering that proper earned title is one of the big questions of the novel, it may not be so shocking after all.

Character Traits

 

I decided to look at character traits in Otranto. The most heavily described characters, I found, were Matilda, Hippolita, and Theodore – words like gentle, amiable, gracious, virtuous, and noble were used in excess with these three.

The words I found that described Manfred most were impious and unhappy. Jerome frequently called Manfred impious, whether referring to his plans or just to Manfred in general, while Manfred called himself unhappy in most of the references.

Most of the words I looked at were attributed to Hippolita at least one time, with the exception of impious. She was often referred to as ‘gracious Lady’, ‘excellent Lady’, ‘virtuous Lady’, etc. She was the only one whom Manfred referred to in a positive way—he called other characters presumptuous, audacious, and traitorous, etc, but Hippolita was always ‘excellent’. She was, in turn, often the only one to attribute certain words to Manfred—gracious, especially, a word which was otherwise used for her. She definitely seems to be a one-sided character, but she was easily the most described in the novel, despite doing pretty much the least of anyone.

The Supernatural

When examining the first gothic novel, it seems only appropriate to consider the use of ghosts and spirits in the novel. Walpole established many of the widely accepted tropes of the gothic genre in The Castle of Otranto from the beginning of the novel. The plot is driven by the characters’ reactions to the supernatural happenings in the castle. As prince and ruler of the castle, Manfred especially is impacted by the prophecy that seems to be coming true before his eyes when a giant helmet crushes his sole heir, Conrad, on the day of his wedding. Interestingly, ghosts are only discussed shortly after Conrad’s untimely death at the beginning of the novel and then not discussed again. Spirits and spectres are used to describe the supernatural occurrences from there, but even then the relatively few times each word is used, nine and seven respectfully, out of the 34,000 words in the entire story proves that it is not necessarily the sight of the supernatural that creates suspense, but rather the lingering thought that it could exist, and has some control over the actions of those who believe in it.

Religion and The church

In The Castle of Otranto, the Church plays a significant role in the lives of the characters. When I was reading the novel, I noticed that Jerome was the character that referenced the word church the most. The word church was used only 28 times while religion was used only 3 times. I was interested in the way church was used throughout the novel. The huge dip in the graph between seven and eight in the frequency graph was very odd in my opinion. I thought since Jerome had a significant role in the novel, I thought more inferences of the church would be more prevalent.  Also, with the word religion I was surprised at the lack of it but it was in reference to religion as a whole and not as an individual entity. 

Love and Marriage - Otranto and Sidney Bidulph

The Castle of Otranto

Sidney Bidulph

When the idea of comparing the uses of “love” and “marriage” in Otranto to the uses in Sidney Bidulph, I thought about simply seeing which was used more often in each and how the usage compared as a whole across both novels (meaning how much more frequently each was used in one novel over the other).  I had my suspicions that Sidney Bidulph would have more uses.  I was wrong.  Looking at the scales, the relative frequency of these words is much higher in Otranto.  The much more interesting discovery is the relationships these words have to one another within the novels.  On the left, Otranto’s uses of “love” and “marriage” are at inverse proportions – when the use of one goes upward, the use of the other drops.  In Sidney Bidulph on the right, we see just the opposite and we have a directly proportionate relationship up until they meet at the very end.  Based somewhat on Tuesday’s discussion, which novel appears to be more about marriages?