Malamud at Oregon State: A Digital Humanities Project

Levin-Focused Visualizations

 

The following graphs focuson Levin's actions over the course of A New Life rather than his behavior around specific characters. In these graphs "Other" signifies any other character that Levin has an interaction with in the novel.



Note in the above graph that other characters tend to give Levin information more than Levin gives them. Also note the apparent oscillations in information exchange; the dips in the center are of particular interest. Perhaps they correlate with Levin's inward spirals during moments of crisis? (See: Minor Characters page)

The above graph seems to indicate that situations where Levin is asking for information are occasionally discrete from situations where others are asking information of him. Do conversations in A New Life tend to shy away from two-way exchanges? (For examples see: Bucket and Levin and Fabrikant and Levin)

Surprisingly, Levin appears to give more information than he asks for (especially in the first half of A New Life). Keep in mind that "Levin asking for information" is not the same as "someone giving information to Levin."

It may not come as a surprise that Levin learns information much more frequently than he refuses requests from others. It IS interesting, however, that Levin's refusals are concentrated just before the midway point of the novel, and that they correlate with a dip in information learning. Similarly as information learning starts to rise at the novel's end, Levin's refusals decrease dramatidcally.

It can be difficult to pin down correlative trends between Levin giving information and Levin obfuscating; they don't appear to follow patterns in relation to one another (except for intense moments of activity near the mid-point for both categories). However, while the moments of information obfuscation are sporadic, they are also surprisingly regular and consistent; a lack of change is just as important as the presence of change in a dynamic context.

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