Victorian
The following images, graphs, and charts will look at the 1882 version of the Brothers Grimms' Children and Household Tales and discusses the textual analysis of some of the most well-known stories by the Grimms. Since more stories were added each edition, each tab will analyze and look at three different stories and have at least one that is in common with the 1882 edition. The 1853 edition of the Brothers Grimm will look at "The Two Brothers," "The Seven Crows," and "The Town Musicians of Bremen" (shared with the 1882 version). The stories being examined for the 1812 edition include "Little Snow White," "King Thrushbeard," and "The Wolf and the Seven Goslings" (shared with the 1882 version.).This page will look at "The Town Musicians of Bremen" (shared with the 1853 version.), "Cat & Mouse Partnership," and "The Wolf and the Seven Goslings" (shared with the 1812 version.).
In Harriet Ritvo's article, "Learning from Animals: Natural History for Children in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" she argues, "Understood in the context of an unbridgeable gap between human beings and even the most advanced and sympathetic quadrupeds, the similarities between animals and people made it possible to teach children lessons about hierarchy and power that might have been unpleasant, even frightening, if expressed directly... Only animals that had been humanized and sentimentalized could be admitted into Victorian nurseries as teachers." (Ritvo, 91.) All of the following tales examined on this page will include animal stories and is the most relevant to my research and to this time period.
The first story examined is "The Musicians of Bremen" This tale (also found in the 1853 Edition.) tells the story of four aging domestic animals, who after a lifetime of hard work are neglected and mistreated by their former masters. Eventually, they decide to run away and become town musicians in the city of Bremen. Contrary to the story's title the characters never arrive in Bremen, as they succeed in tricking and scaring off a band of robbers, capturing their spoils, and moving into their house.
Similiar to the Word Cloud utilized in the 1853 version. a strikingly comparable visualization appears. However, there are some differences that are worth pointing out. For instance, the word dog is the second most used terms in the 1882 edition, but in the 1853 version. it is barely even in the top five used words. This may seem like minute details, but the term is used twice as many times in the 1882 version than it is used in its 1853 predecessor. According to Ritvo, when discussing the Victorian era, "Even more eager and aware in accepting the bonds of servitude was the dog, the favorite species of almost all the writers who described the animal kingdom for children. Like the horse, its only competitor for the highest appreciation, the dog was said to combine extreme sagacity (the term regularly employed by those reluctant to assign "intelligence" to animals) with affection and obedience." (Ritvo, 84.) The Cirrus word cloud tool provides a visual instance of this.
Another tool used to show this discrepancy between these two editions is the Bubbles tool. It shows that the term cat has been replaced by the word dog. Although the term cat is only utilized one less time in this version compared to the 1853 edition, there is a possibility that it is important to analysis. Ritvo states, "Although the cat could not have been more different from the pig in its beauty and cleanliness, it had similarly resisted human efforts to mold it physically. Nor did it seem disposed to accept other forms of domination. It served man by hunting and thus did not depend on people for sustenance. It was suspected of having "only the appearance of attachment to its master," really either "dreading" him or "distrusting his kindness"; people feared that "their affection is more to the house, than to the persons who inhabit it." It was considered faithless, deceitful, destructive, and cruel; it had "much less sense" than the dog, with which it was inevitably compared; and,in all, it was only "half tamed."" (Ritvo, 85.) These might seem like outlandish claims, but these tools can be utilized for evidence of these statements and possibly larger ones.
In the "Cat & Mouse Partnership" story a cat and a mouse, to the custom of their kinds, become friends, such good friends that they decide to share a home. That they might have something to fall back on in time of need, they buy a pot of fat and hide it away in a nook of a church for safekeeping. However, as can be imagine by these animals, this friendship does not last.
Utilizing the Links tool we are able to see the connection between certain terms. Such as the most obvious association between cat and mouse, but we also see that the term god is important to this relationship. It begs the question why? If we look at the TermsBerry we see that god is connected to father and child, could this be important to us? According to the story, the Cat leaves the Mouse to slip away to eat the pot of fat. In order to do this he needs an excuse. His excuse is that a relative has him to be their child's god-father. These tools are smart enough to show this relationship, but without this context we might not know what they mean. These tools are fascinating and can be exceedingly helpful, but we also have to make sure we cannot look at them individually.
This story (a similiar story is also found in the 1812 Edition. tells the story of a mother who leaves her seven children at home while she ventures into the forest to find food. Before she leaves, she warns her young about the Big Bad Wolf who will try to sneak into the house and gobble them up. The wolf will pretend to be their mother and convince the kids to open the door. The young children will be able to recognize their true mother by her white feet and sweet voice.
The Trends tool application from voyant was utilized to show the most popular words within the corpus. As can be seen from this tool, the word wolf is significant throughout the story, but unlike the 1812 Edition. it has three significant dips. Furthermore, the terms mother and children dip early on in story and remain rather mute compared to the wolf term. By looking at this version in comparison to the 1812 Edition. we can begin to decipher what the meaning is behind this. Furthermore, in the 1812 edition the children are goats and in this version they are goslings. While this is not significant to the tale, why did this change? It is rather peculiar why they would change animals. Is this because geese were beginning to become a more standard animal in the domestic sphere of western culture? And possibly goats were not seen as important anymore? Yet again we can quote Harriet Ritvo, "Understanding the order of creation would also encourage children to treat animals with kindness. Late eighteenth-century moralists were almost obsessively concerned with children's propensity to torture insects, birds, and small domestic animals, as much because it was a prognostication of adult behavior to fellow humans as on account of the animal suffering it caused." (Ritvo, 77-78.) By showing the kind goose and her kids, maybe the moralists could shift children from torturing birds to wanting to take care of them.
The Bubblelines tool from Voyant shows the distinction of words along a granulated medium. By tabbing over to the right and clicking on the Separate Lines for Terms box you are able to see clusters of that terms usage, when it was mentioned in the text, and the count of each term. When the box is not clicked it shows the the usage of terms in a concentrated continuum. I think it is easier to understand the relationship of words when they are separated though, so I recommend separating the lines. Furthermore, by looking at the word usage and placement in the text it is possible to see the correlation of the two. For instance, Wolf and Mother are the two most widely used words throughout the text; however, the Wolf has large clusters of usage while the mother has a steady presence throughout the entire story. Does this imply that the Wolf is more important? Or, does it only imply that he is talked about more than the Mother? Furthermore, the story revolves around the children and not the mother, but they are not discussed nearly as often as the mother or the wolf. Regardless, this tool can provide insight into these kinds of questions and potentially cause more.
All sources utilized can be found on the Sources Page.
