I chose the short story “Blue Jay” by Lillian Li for this week’s blog post. This story follows the complicated close friendship between the narrator and a girl named Jay, encompassing the tragedy, addiction, romance, anxieties, and painful events that the two experience with one another. The narrator tells the story of their relationship by reflecting back on moments that reveal both of their insecurities and struggles, left as unspoken words and disregarded text messages by the end of the summer in which it takes place.
The network map I created exhibits all of the characters – which are my nodes – mentioned in the short story that create some type of impact on Jay and the narrator’s lives. The two girls are central on the map, and the thickness of the lines connecting the characters vary based on the strength of the relationship. The connections are based on either encounters that Jay shared with the narrator or flashbacks, revealing her vulnerabilities from past romantic relationships and several step-relatives that bear no significant familial bond with her. Jay’s side of the map seems to be much more extensive than the narrator’s, but most of the connections are short-lived relationships with random men she’s infatuated with, lead to dead ends, or are distant family that only further isolates Jay (such as her distress over how her step-sister had a baby, triggering her lack and need of being mothered herself). On the narrator’s side, she has few connections but they represent her sense of security and belonging in comparison to Jay. Her parents coddle her even while away in college, hence the thicker lines connecting to Mom and Dad, and her ability to fit in with the classmates at the party contrasts with Jay’s awkwardness and home-schooled habits. The Chinese program teachers (the narrator studied at Beijing over the summer) is the only other connection that Jay and the narrator have in common, because those tutoring sessions were the only time the narrator openly confided in someone about her anxieties regarding Jay – and the teachers knew concealed secrets about Jay indirectly through these stories.
While the network map illuminates many relationships that shape a character whether it’s directly or indirectly, it does have its limitations. The connections between the characters merely show how strong it is, but does not tell the story behind it or if it’s a positive or negative effect in the concerned parties’ lives. It also lacks a visual representation of location, which plays a crucial role during the story since the characters were across the globe (Beijing, Australia, New England) and a major source that carries on the narration are bits of text messages rather than face-to-face interactions.
I really like how detailed and comprehensive your network graph is. The comparison you made between Jay and the Narrator’s number of connections and depth of relationships was very interesting! It is neat to think that on this graph, Jay seems to have far more connections and relationships, where – in fact- the Narrator has deeper, more meaningful relationships (though fewer in number). I like that, in your case, the weight of the edges was representative of the closeness of a relationship. For my short story, it was not. So, it is curious to see how different short stories are represented in varying degrees of accuracy by the same type of visualization.
I really enjoyed the topic you chose, because the network illuminates a lot about the story. I can tell a lot about the story without actually reading the story! I really appreciate your post especially because it must have been a lot of work to make the edge list. I also enjoy your analysis, which really helps explain what the network is showing, and the limitations. While I felt like I knew enough from just the network graph, reading your blogpost made me realize that I missed a lot of details just from the graph it self.
I really like your network diagram, you really went deep into the more detailed parts of the story by giving each relationship weights by depicting them with the lines. It makes me really want to read this story, since all the relationships sound so interesting! Particularly the compare and contrast between Jay and the Narrator. In social network theory, it is often mentioned that larger networks are composed and subsist off of weak ties, as strong ties tend to only be formed within closer-knit networks that have more triadic closure, which is seen through the two different types of networks of Jay and the Narrator’s relationships.
Your use of thicker lines as an indication of relationship strength really adds to the visualization. I also appreciate the way that your visualization lends insight to the characters’ personalities and the way that they connect with others socially. We can easily see that Jay has more social interactions/connections than the narrator. It would have been cool if you had incorporated some aspect of color to show the type of relationships these nodes represent, whether beneficial or malevolent.
Interpreting the story by making a network diagram between the two main characters is an ingenious idea! I am really amazed by your analysis, which categorizes and explains the connections of the two girls clearly. After reading through the story, I am inspired by your discussion about the limitations of this approach. A great blog post indeed!