Euripides Textual Analysis
It is no surprise that Ancient Greek society, like most other ancient societies, held very male-centric (and misogynistic) ideals and views. This is clearly reflected in most greek works (such as The Odyessy and Argonautica) where a majority of the characters were male, and female characters were severely lacking or poorly represented.
Due to this, the works of Euripides, a well-known tragedian, were quite controversial due to their female protoganists and female perspective.
A few scholarly journals (linked below) have already debated whether or not Euripides’s works could truly be considered feminist. The amount of female catalyst characters in these works has also been analyzed to show a sort of break from what would have been considered the societal norm. This analysis will take a quantitative look at how female characters were portrayed in these works (Medea, Trojan Women, and Electra) compared to their male counter parts. While this analysis cannot prove whether or not Euripides was a feminist during this time period, comparing the frequency of female-centric words versus male-centric may indicate a more in depth female perspective, which would have been quite rare at the time.
The hypothesis of this analysis is that female-centric words will appear in equal frequency, if not more, to the male-centric words. This could indicate that Euripides’s female characters were just as, if not more, important than their male counterparts to the story’s plot. It may also allude to female characters having the same amount of depth and development as the male characters, although this may not be a lot due to the writing style of the era.
Medea Word Count Analysis
The following graph shows the 31 most frequently used words (31 was chosen to account for the filler words, such as “thou”, “thy”, “thee”, “hath”, and “tis”, which were not removed from the data using the stop_words function). The words the appear to be the most female-centric are “Medea”, “woman”, “women”, “chorus”, “bride”, and “nurse”, while the more male-centric appear to be “Jason”, “Aegeus”, “King”, and “Creon”. The name “Medea” was used 150 times versus the male antagonist “Jason” who was mentioned 100 times. Overall, the top female-centric words were mentioned 329 times, while male-centric words were mentioned 209 times. It is important to reiterate that there were more female words used than male in the top 31 words used in this work, and this hypothesis is based on that frequency alone.
Classes 'tbl_df', 'tbl' and 'data.frame': 3360 obs. of 2 variables:
$ gutenberg_id: int 35451 35451 35451 35451 35451 35451 35451 35451 35451 35451 ...
$ text : chr " THE MEDEA" " OF" " EURIPIDES" "" ...[1] 3360 2
Trojan Women Word Count Analysis
This next graph follows the same constraints as the previous graph with the top 31 words used. The most frequently used words related directly to females are: “Hecuba”, “woman”, “women”, “Andromache”, “Helen”, and “mother”. The most frequently used male-centric words are: “Talthybius”, “Pallas”, and “Menelaus”. “Hecuba” was the most frequently mentioned word (84 times), while “Talthybius” was only mention 34 times. In total, the top female words word mentioned 254 times, while the male words were mentioned 58 times. It is important to reiterate that there were more female words used than male in the top 31 words used in this work, and this hypothesis is based on that frequency alone.
Classes 'tbl_df', 'tbl' and 'data.frame': 3137 obs. of 2 variables:
$ gutenberg_id: int 35171 35171 35171 35171 35171 35171 35171 35171 35171 35171 ...
$ text : chr " THE TROJAN WOMEN" "" "" "" ...[1] 3137 2
Electra Word Count Analysis
This next graph follows the same constraints as the previous graph with the top 31 words used. The most frequently used words related directly to females are: “Electra”, “mother”, and “Clytemnestra”. The most frequently used male-centric words are: “Orestes”, “Aegisthus”, “father”/“father’s”, and “brother”. “Electra” was the most frequently mentioned word (189 times), while “Orestes” was mentioned 172 times. In total, the top female words word mentioned 267 times, while the male words were mentioned 304 times. It is important to reiterate that there were more female words used than male in the top 31 words used in this work, and this hypothesis is based on that frequency alone.
Classes 'tbl_df', 'tbl' and 'data.frame': 3611 obs. of 2 variables:
$ gutenberg_id: int 14322 14322 14322 14322 14322 14322 14322 14322 14322 14322 ...
$ text : chr "THE" "" "ELECTRA" "" ...[1] 3611 2
Conclusion
In regards to the word count analysis, the hypothesis that the female-centric words would be used as frequently, if not more, seemed to be correct.
In all of the works analyzed (Medea, Trojan Women, and Electra) the female title characters were mentioned more than the male counterparts. In the case of Electra, “Orestes” was mentioned almost equally as much as “Electra”, this could indicate that both characters were the protagonists of the story, and that they had equally important roles to play.
Similarly, the additional male and female-centric words/side characters were both mentioned with about the same frequency as each other. From this, it could be assumed that due to the equal amount of frequency by which these words are mentioned, that both males and females play equally prevalent roles. While this does not prove or disprove a feminist agenda, it does shows a higher female representation rate than what was normal for the time.