10 topics, 500 iterations, and 10 words printed

House: room door window round side hand open table dark stood

Investigation: watson case find clear doubt dear police matter point note

Time: night back long morning half passed road light front minutes

30 topics, 2000 iterations, and 50 words printed

Situation: chair sat long looked hand eyes turned fire companion felt pipe silence rose arm half back change laid lit nervous shoulder lamp seated energy cold moved times spring milverton smoke cigar tobacco sharp opposite corner thoughts light smoking seat fingers leaning knees faces leaned breast gas winter dull turning evident

30 topics, 2000 iterations, and 10 words printed

Things: small hand gave side hat cut impression coat glass evidently

Crime: case point matter facts points curious fact affair obvious mystery

Time: night morning day evening clock back told doctor heard happened

People: man young person professor presence short london dangerous means aware

Analyze: police found lestrade colonel crime inspector evidence murder small night

Murder: man dead found lay back body head death blood carried

Here are my ten topics with the words that constituted them.

10, 2000, 30:

Morbid: Man, Face, Eyes, Head, Hands, Turned, Back, Moment, Sat, Looked, Cried, Woman, Held, Thing, Dead, Voice, Deep, Long, White, Spoke, Struck, Told, Mind, Lay, Gave, Full, Blood, Surprise, Fashion.

Services Request: Sir, Matter, Find, Make, Note, Doubt, Letter, Clear, Gentlemen, Dear, Surely, Book, Order, Present, James, Fear, Position, Imagine, Offices, Letters, Point, Some, Danger, Importance, Important, Mystery, Call, News.

30, 1000, 15:

Death: Found, Lestrade, Man, Dead, Death, Lay, Evidence, Blood Long, Carried, Murder, Moment, Crime, Master.

Details: Face, Eyes, Looked, Red, Dark, White, Spoke, Hair, Features, Lips, Thin, Drawn, Figure, Appearance.

Setting: Day, London, Morning, Evening, Train, Doubt, Station, Days, Made, Return, Hours, News, Surprised, Found, Police.

Victorian Women: Lady, Woman, Wife, Life, Mrs, Husband, Poor, Young, Girl, Heart, Maid, Love, Child, Married, Story.

Deep Thought: Chair, Sat, Hand, Long, Turned, Back, Fire, Ligth, Head, Rose, Lamp, Laid, Drew, Companion, Cold.

100, 500, 20:

Action: Suddenly, Forward, Sprang, Instant, Quick, Hands, Step, Feet, Cried, Sight, Appeared, Stepped, Broke, Coming, Burst, Bent, Empty, Rage, Sleeve, Stairs.

Physical: Man, Dark, Tall, Dressed, Beard, Thin Corner, Great, Use, Fashion, Pair, Description, Handsome, Suit, Seated, Powerful, Glasses, Bearded

Terror: Eyes, Face, Spoke, Pale, Coming, Fear, Turned, Nervous, Voice, Horror, Thin, Dreadful, Staring, Frightened, Told, Cheeks, Emotion, Terror, Agitation, Sitting.

This week’s exploits with Mallet and topic modeling have proved to be incredibly interesting to say the least. While discussing topic modeling in class, I had vivid expectations on what would happen upon entering the files into the program. I imagined uploading the Sherlock Holmes books in individual files and getting a set number of perfect topics pop to right up, waiting to be labeled. Whole lot of wishful thinking happening, I guess.

I was astonished by how many nonsensical categories appeared in the outputs. This was even more apparent when stop words were not removed and I had one output of 75 topics and 2000 iterations that was entirely unusable because of this factor. In my first output (50 topic categories), I had only two categories that contained words with an apparent, understandable theme. The second (40 topics) also had two categories. Only when I ran it for 100 categories with 4000 iterations twice and followed with 75 topics and 4000 iterations did I get ten unique topics.

Unsurprisingly to the theme of the books, I got reoccurring topics that I wanted to label as Crime. I used the topic label from my first output. 59 words in the category came from The Second Stain, the largest number, but The Six Napoleons was the best represented for this particular instance, ranking 2-9 in number of words from the section being represented in the category. Murder or Death seemed to occur in all outputs, not dependent on size or iteration. The sections represented came from The Norwood Builder, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Silver Blaze, etc. All the represented stories have a death or murder depicted in some manner. I also got many categories that I felt could be labeled with Case, featuring various words like evidence, crime, mystery, explanation, etc. Nearly all the books were represented in some capacity within the category.

While topic modeling did not match my (outlandish) pre-existing conception of it, I was really happy with the results I got. While these is certainly a need for deeper analysis to make sense of the categories presented, I found that I learned a lot about reoccurring themes in the Sherlock Holmes adventures that match what I have read and hinted at what I have not. My categories seemed to coincide with major themes of the books, which I really enjoyed from an analytic perspective. Topic modeling is a really unique and creative way to examine common themes across literary sources without having to closely read each one. While I would not necessarily base an analysis on the themes alone (there is a degree of subjectivity to it), I think it makes a really interesting supplementary element to literary analysis.

50 topics, 1000 iterations, and 20 words printed

Articles of clothing/Garments: black red glass large coat dress centre top brown observe glasses faced dressed boots colour broad impression pair hat mark

Death: found dead body lay man blood death blow knife unfortunate terrible person lying finally cut weapon evidence constable remained wound

Case: case fact find facts points important mystery obvious curious theory remarked shown present problem confess afraid admit prove appears considerable

50 topics, 2000 iterations, and 50 words printed

House: house night room master bell attention bed asked servants alarm servant ring remained phelps walked butler drawing kitchen finally stay save rope thief scent coffee state joseph rang suspect smell dragged cover cellar burglar ill harrison instantly sounds scene french bound county form rest wished partly pull chamber mr ventilator

Crime Investigation: holmes mr inspector lestrade sherlock case yard detective opinion scotland arrest evidence prisoner official ready practical force quietly bank gregson remarked oldacre mcfarlane final joke absence credit finished rubbed warrant pleasure hands gentlemen norwood fail express suspicious bound wiser chuckled profession afford lucky attempted finds jonas rolled sense martin bradstreet

Employment: years money ago business time week hundred twenty made year thirty ten pay months friends age pounds thousand family england lived month large rich gold meet sum named weeks married honour terms check youth lives ruin paid reputation capital stepfather play fifteen summer stake settle buy bought market fortnight fifty

Crime Scene: made st found home lord police prepared walking matter simon minutes frank clothes occurred gentleman wedding free spoken clair lane conversation strange claim noble disappearance hand turned suddenly back looked quick coming eye caught appeared gave turning stood thin passed direction glimpse energy laid surprise knees shoulder ear fingers faces

60 topics, 1500 iterations, and 25 words printed

Evidence: small box examined large papers floor carefully examination inside cut top square iron carpet showed wooden furnished evidently lower contents central removed mantelpiece careful examining

Characterization: man face dark features tall looked expression pale middle manner appearance figure fashion cut keen clean glance beard gray thin lines handsome head pleasant alert

Body Parts and Reactions: eyes face hands voice cried lips shoulders sat turned air amazement sprang companion stared sunk raised sank eager instant shrugged cheeks staring astonishment angry breast

– Allyson Macci

50 topics, 1000 iterations, 20 topic words printed:

1. Letter Writing: paper note read letter table book box letters papers written handed wrote writing sheet brought importance post write document address

2. Crime: police crime case night evidence murder death account occurred arrest unfortunate effect tragedy violence complete charge appeared reason terrible committed

3. Marriage: woman wife lady husband girl life maid love child married loved beautiful ferguson nature mistress women daughter heart america meet

4. Death: man heard young met found dead words poor knew death returned world fate died left impossible lost smith turn killed

5. Clues: found body returned examined showed ground carefully examination left attention deep marks signs brought edge traces weapon leaving feet ran

6. Physical Description (Male): face man eyes looked thin dark features tall expression appearance middle high pale figure set glasses gray keen clean bear

70 topics, 1500 iterations, 15 topic words printed:

7. Holmes in his chair: holmes sat chair fire pipe gave rose silence silent visitor seated cigar tobacco arm dropped

8. Rooms in a House: door room open opened key stood passage closed steps side locked step hall lock shut

9. London Finance: money business work hundred answered good pounds company asked thousand advertisement city price headed pay

10. Investigation Process: give facts person mystery impossible explanation theory find prove confess solution problem clear admit suggested

Mary Dellas

+50 topics, 1000 iterations, 20 topic words printed, stop words checked:

1. Murder Investigation: man found dead body blood evidence terrible death mark knife blow unfortunate carried police examination person wood murderer weapon arrested

2. Crime: police London made found murder house brought great trace broken violence signs proved failed valuable fallen discovered bust city imagined

+40 topics, 1000 iterations, 20 topic words printed, stop words checked:

3. Writing: paper note letter table read pocket book hand put handed wrote written writing short drew message sheet answer carry document

4. Case: case crime death evidence facts points obvious murder order mystery mind explanation simple arrest formed solution violence caused impossible conclusion

+100 topics, 4000 iterations, 20 topic words printed, stop words checked:

5. Sea Travel: night wind ship sea days rising boat captain succeeded leave moment hands rain peace reached set tongue seaman board cloud

6. Home (Setting): door opened passage room stood led open closed steps step stair stairs turned entered ran sound corridor passed empty hall

7. Emotion: face cried voice eyes hands amazement features stared burst lips air staring broke owe fallen joy laugh gasped heard passion

8. Expression: face eyes looked figure lips expression fixed features gray eager deep raised keen fierce alert tall showed brows lined set

9. Appearance: black face man hair white red dress mouth brown heavy thick thin grey middle short nose broad pair clean yellow

+75 topics, 4000 iterations, 20 topic words printed, stop words checked:

10. Women: woman wife lady girl child married young life love daughter dear beautiful mother nature women nurse ways beauty perfect devoted

75 topics, 10 words, 500 iterations 

Anguish:

cried hands god face voice sake moment soul burst truth

Time/Setting:

night morning heard clock morrow bed early breakfast late waited

Finding a Body:

found dead man body blood knife lay stick carried sign

Losing Hope:

leave hope brought lost dear rest things true kindly wrong

Evidence:

important remarked case great evidence convinced shown show observed put

100 topics, 20 words, 1000 iterations

Smoking:

holmes pipe deal sat cigar tobacco short case smoke busy shining cigarette asked handed gas lit smoked smoking good clue

Facial Expressions:

face eyes turned looked lips sat pale expression fixed eager speak glass brow white horror staring turning emotion smile gleam

Praying:

cried god voice sake hope words soul heaven speak heavens jack frightened swear suggestion truth heart despair manner aid quick

Breaking In:

room door key entered table side locked safe open opened lock left inside furnished bureau doors drawer naturally carrying ascended

Night-Time:

night hour clock morning half past waiting ten morrow late twelve quarter eleven dressed vanished porter hurried sleep usual weary