This week I read the short story While the Nightjar Sleeps from the online Granta magazine and chose to examine it through a network analysis.
The story narrated in first person through the eyes of the young boy. It starts off on a cold winter evening when the boy has finally grown old enough to go hunting with an uncle – Mr. Davidson. During this hunt, they come across a Nightjar that the boy is instructed to take back to the house.
As they near the house, the boy hears laughter and assumes that Mr. and Mrs. Davidson have invited their friends over. Ever since his father died, his mother and him rarely visit this house anymore unless Mr. and Mrs. Davidson are hosting something. The boy is congratulated on catching the bird, and the bird is placed in a bowl. In the meantime, one of the guests – referred to as the mole man, begins to tell the legend of the Nightjar as part of tradition. After the story, everyone rises and forms a circle around the bird and start laughing hysterically. The boy is confused and frightened, when the mother signals for him to follow her and tells him they are the chosen ones this year.
He follows his mother upstairs, into his father’s study where he sees a man, with his back faced towards them, sitting in his father’s chair. His mother breaks down and starts talking to her husband, when the boy knows that this really isn’t his father. It’s just an illusion created by the “red dust” the people have created.
I chose to represent a network diagram of the relationship between the prominent characters. I decided that each relationship would signify that one character directed addressed the other and communicated with them. Due to the short length of the story, there are only few characters that had prominent speaking roles. Additionally, since it was in first person, most of the dialogues were spoken to the boy. The size of the bubbles shows which characters were interacted with the most; hence the boy with the biggest node.
The story sounds compelling and it is a real network connecting every character in the story. However, I am not sure how to see the whole plots with the net. For example, how to analyze the bird and the party scene with the map. So perhaps the network does not include everyone or all the main characters that appear in the story.
Also, what does mean that the boy speaks the most? Does it mean he is a just focal observer who passively delivers the happenings to us or does it mean that he has a significant role in defining the meaning of the story?
Wow that sounds like a very interesting story, and almost scary. I think it would be really cool if we could create a complex network analysis that could tell more of the narrative. But I think for what tools we had this week you did a great job telling the narrative and assisting the story with your network graph. If I only had the graph, I definitely could not have known too much other than the fact that the boy is a vital character. Great job!