THE ALICE PROJECT

Analysis of Top Speaking Individual Characters

What did we end up finding out?

Alice: speaks 380 times

• Alice is by far the character that speaks most...380 times, more than five times the amount of the second most wordy character, the Red Queen. We wouldn't think that this is super surprising, considering that Alice is present in every single chapter, unlike every other character. That could definitely be one explanation for her wide array of literary devices used.
• Alice's syntax clearly defines her as a childish, fun character---about forty five percent of her speech is exclamatory, adding a sense of heightened excitement. Also, a quarter of her speech ends with question mark. Like the exclamation points, her abundance of question marks help to keep her in character as the inquisitive child.
• The literary devices used by Alice also help to create her childish persona. Her abundance of apostrophes--by far the most used device in her speech--means that she spends much of her time talking to objects that she clearly knows will not talk back. Quite the childish behavior! Her next highest type of device--allusions--reminds us how she always mentions the stories from which the allusion characters come. Again appropriate, considering how those most familiar with nursery rhymes are the children who hear them! Also sprinkled through her speech are the most simplistic devices, such as hyperboles or similes--considering they're much more easier to understand and use, these can also be characterized as more childlike. Though she does employ irony, it's at a much smaller rate than other characters.

Red Queen: speaks 66 times

• The Red Queen speaks the second most amount of times--considering she also speaks in multiple chapters (Chapters 2 and 9), perhaps this gives her a nudge above most of the other characters. In any case, her high number of speeches doesn't change the fact that she only employs four types of literary devices.
• The Red Queen's syntax demonstrates clearly her dominating yet whimsical personality that sets her apart! The sentence type most used is neither exclamatory nor questions, pointing to either a good presence of imperatives or declaratives. However, they are not the far majority, so we can also assume from the graph that a more fun side comes out in her questions and exclamations....plus we shouldn't forget that much of her exclamtory talk comes out in the form of imperatives, furthering her bossiness!
• Her spread of literary devices is much more narrow than Alice's, pointing to not only a more sophisticated form of silliness in her voice but also a much more specific one. The Queen's language is very centered around flipped meanings--she uses plenty of ironic "backwards" statements, uses puns, and has the sole instance of parody, found in Chapter 9. Even though the relatively high presence of "nonsense" shows that sometimes she can spout off things that make absolutely no sense, the rest of her devices define her as a character of the backwards looking glass world--everything is a reflection of reality, as is much of what she says.

Humpty Dumpty: speaks 59 times

• Humpty Dumpty is the third--which is noteworthy, considering he is only in Chapter six and still manages to outspeak several characters which appear multiple times. Thus, the stage is set for how Humpty Dumpty manages to define himself as a dominating, bossy character with even more audacity than the Red Queen.
• Humpty Dumpty's syntax is by far mostly imperative or declarative sentences, a testament to his desire to dominate the converation. A little over a quarter of his speech is indeed exclamatory (usually berating Alice, again a show of a type of bossiness), but a very tiny number of questions is an extremely clear demonstration of Humpty's complete lack of curiosity concerning anything but his own opinion.
• He doesn't appear to have too many literary devices in his speeech, but those that do stand testament to both his audaciousness, his identity as an allusion character and a "backwards" tendency similar to the Red Queen. Of course, Humpty Dumpty is himself an allusion and thus would refer to his own rhyme--but this is surprisingly minimal, expecially when one considers this only appears half as many times as irony. His use of personification and puns, while both are minimal, also give him the Looking Glass manner of describing things in a "backward" way. Words have personalities to Humpty Dumpty, quite different from back through the glass! His audaciousness is also further heightened by his small use of repetition--mainly when he yells "provoking!" at comments made by the poor heroine.

The White Queen: speaks 57 times

• The White Queen also appears as a speaker several times throughout the book (Chapters 1, 5, and 9), accounting for a higher amount of speech. However, taking a look at her syntax and literary devices characterize her as the more childish queen--when we discuss her husband, we'll see if that's a white chess royalty characteristic.
• The White Queen's syntax certainly makes her more childish than the Red Queen. While her number of questions is relatively low, her highest count is exclamatory--quite different from the declarative Red Queen. However, she does have a good amount of declarative sentences (more than Alice, at any rate), so her childishness/excitability is lessened.
• This hybrid of Alice's childish behavior and the Red Queen's more dominating mix is furthered by the literary devices employed by this queen. She has the high level of irony and a relatively high level of puns that reflect the well thought out "backwards" nature of Looking Glass character speech, but she also has more simplistic devices such as repetitive phrases or hyperboles that make her appear more childish and in alignment with Alice.

The White Knight: speaks 51 times

• The White Knight is, like Humpty Dumpty, another character that only appears once (in this case Chapter eight), but still manages to surpass at least one character with multiple appearances--in this case, the White King. Like Humpty Dumpty, this might be attributed to a more boastful, domineering persona.
• Despite how bumbling the Knight might as first appear, his syntax is actually by a far, far majority composed of declarative or imperative sentences, showing how he is defined by a more domineering speech. Only a little over twenty five percent is either exclamatory or questions, showing how this character is just like Humpty in a type of self assuredness not easily displayed through questions or exclamatory speech.
• His limited spread of literary devices, however, shows that he is a blend of the more "tricky" backwards nature of Looking Glass wordplay and more simplistic devices such as similes or repetitive phrases, showing that he also has a more childish side not as easily seen in characters like Humpty Dumpty.

The White King: speaks 32 times

• The White King appears multiple times throughout the book (Chapters 1 and 7), but strangely speaks less than a few characters who only appear once--this may be a hint to the more simplistic, childlike personality that is quite different from more audacious characters like the White Knight.
• Though the White King does not ask many questions, but a large amount of exclamatory sentences make him seem much less controlled and collected than more declarative/imperative driven characters like the Red Queen. The very fact that his declarative/imperative count is just barely under fifty percent is another pointer to his more childlike, uncertain character.
• The king has a small, limited use of literary devices which not only make his speech less exciting and noticeable, but also the same blend of childish/sophisticated found in characters like the White Knight. He uses puns and irony, but at extremely tiny rates compared to his counterparts, barely reaching 6.25 each. His use of similes and repetitive phrases though point to a more simplistic type of wordplay which may characterize him as more childish, but these appear at such small rates (less than half of pun or irony), that his speech is more bland than fun even at the best of times.

Tweedledee and Tweedledum: speak 23 and 28 times, respectively

• What we found extremely interesting was how these twins found in Chapter 4 did not speak an equal or near equal number of times--Tweedledum speaks a full five times more than his brother! We decided to take a closer look to see what else might set these two characters apart who at first glance appear to be completely doppelgängers.
• Tweedledum's syntax is significantly different than his twin's. While Tweedledum's exclamatory sentences have the highest count by a slight margin (with a near equal number of of declarative/imperative sentences), Tweedledee's declarative/imperative count is about twenty percent higher than his exclamatories! Tweedledum also has a greater number of questions. This could mean that Tweedledum is distinguished within this set as being the more excitable, perhaps more childish twin, despite that the two are apparently completely identical. Who would have thought?
• There is also a slight difference in the literary device usage, despite that for both the characters the literary device usage is quite minimal. Tweedledum is the only one who references the allusion that is their origin, when he ignites the fight famous in their story. However, their extremely tiny amounts of irony are about equal, meaning that in literary device usage they are about as equal as they first appear. Their humor then comes from the fact that they are humorously similar people themselves, rather than any type of literary wordplay.

The Fawn: speaks 21 Times

• The fact that the fawn found in Chapter 3 appeared as high up on the list as it did was a surprise to us, for it seemed like such a minor character in the scheme of things--I'd forgotten about it before we'd reread the book, actually. But in any case, what can we find?
• The fawn's syntax is fifty percent exclamatory, perhaps alluding to its lack of self-assuredness or an easily exciteable nature--after all, it bolts right away when it discovers that Alice is a human child! However, it still has a higher level of imperative and declaratory sentences, so any childishness or lack of self confidence is certainly not due to much inquisitiveness.
• What's interesting about this character is how it is the first character on this list to have a complete lack of literary devices--no wonder I didn't remember this character, its speech is defined by a lack rather than an abundance of a certain type! However, perhaps this is due to the fact that it is also the first anthropomorphic character, which reminded us of how in the "species" metaData graph the animals had a very minimal amount of devices. Perhaps this is because animals are whimsical solely on the fact that they are animals?

The Lion and the Unicorn: speak 8 and 13 times, respectively

• The Lion and the Unicorn found in Chapter 7, much like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, are grouped together as a pair of allusions. Funnily enough, once again there is a five speech gap (the unicorn speaks 13 times, the lion 8). And funnily enough, there is once again a more dominate half of the pair....the surprisingly, the unicorn.
• Syntax wise, they have the same descending order of sentence types most used: exclamatory, then questions, then declarative/imperative. However, in their context we'd suggest that the exclamatory was not so much a sense of childish excitement as an expression of excitement over their ongoing battle for dominance through winning of the meek White King's crown. However, the Lion uses far more exclamatory sentences, and the unicorn uses far more declarative/imperative--suggesting that the unicorn is in fact the one who is defined as the more collected of the pair, as the lion rides on one continuous wave of excitement.
• Literary device wise, they carry the fawn's trend of lacking a wide and varied literary device use--they seem to be entertaining solely by their stature as animals and allusions. Both use irony, but with small amounts--the lion especially so, coming in at about half the unicorn's amount. The unicorn also has a tiny amount of puns. Despite these, it seems pretty clear that literary devices is not what defines these characters at all--perhaps it is the exclamatory, excited speech, the fact that they are a recognizeable allusion, or maybe that they are lifesize animals. In any case, they can't be compared to some of the characters listed above!

The Rose and the Tiger Lily: speak 11 and 9 times, respectively

• The Tiger Lily of Chapter 2 is one of the dominant figures in Alice's visit to the flower bed...at nine instances of speech, she far surpasses most of the other buds, with the exception of the Rose (also of Chapter 2), who holds eleven instances of speech. We took a look to see if anything fun concerning the two of them could be found.
• There are absolutely no questions in the Tiger Lily's speech, making her limited speech quite self assured or dominating--she certainly seems to show no weakness or curiosity to Alice, who is percieved as a lesser flower. While the Rose has a few questions for Alice, her vast majority of declarative/imperative sentences(75%) show that she is hardly excitable. Could the flowers be described as a quite self assured, confident bunch? Considering the rudeness to Alice in their scene, we would say the syntax supports this 100%.
• However, she does have a pun--and considering she only speaks ten times, this makes her more "literary," if you will, than characters who spoke much more than her yet had similar numbers of devices in their speech. We'll see if the pattern carries into the other talktative flower. The Rose, like the Tiger Lily, has very limited literary device use--she uses an instance of irony. While of course these tiny numbers must be attributed to their lack of speech in general, it is important to see that their wordplay is more sophisticated, and not just the simple hyperboles of Alice and the White Queen or the similes of the White Knight. Rather, they still hold the well-thought, "backwards" style of the Looking Glass World despite their lack of speech overall.

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