Findings
The first thing I recorded is simply the number of appearances each of the "chums" made throughout the novels. The application Voyant Tools works through textual analysis after uploading a pdf or txt file, then I entered in the eight names I was specifically looking for into the term finder to determine who made an appearance in which novel. These eight were selected because they are commonly referred to as the 'main' Hardy group.
Frank and Joe have 58/58 appearances (it is their book series after all). Chet surprisingly ties the two brothers, making an appearance in every novel, from Bayport to the mysteries in Mexico, Switzerland, Australia, and more. Sometimes a short cameo, in others he is practically a third Hardy brother.
Next is Iola, sister to Chet, who is slightly more involved in the crime solving compared to her only female counterpart. Following her, Tony shows up 40/58 times throughout the series and is the first non-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) as he is an Italian Catholic.
On the lower end of appearances there is Callie, the girlfriend of Frank. Biff is next on the list of appearances for a total of 34/58 novels, showing up typically with another friend and never just himself. Finally is Phil, at the lowest count with 13 appearances and is the 2nd non-WASP in the group due to his Jewish heritage.
Character Frequency
To get produce the visual aids, Voyant Tool documents the raw frequencies of each of the selected names when I uploaded pdfs of each novel into an online, browser based application. While the graph indicates who shows up in which novel, the algorithm also displays how often a character speaks or is referenced throughout the story. This indicates a degree of importance to the novel's plot as the names show up more frequently when characters engage in certain activities, ie. "Chet is driving his yellow jalopy." Frank and Joe are mentioned the most as the brothers are the center of the novels, but at times we can observe that Chet and even Tony almost eclipse their presence in the series with how often their name is detected.
By clicking on a characters color in the legend, you are able to directly compare a character to 1 or more other characters. This feature is necessary because outside of Frank, Joe, and Chet, the rest of the cast struggles to make an impact in a majority of novels. Rarely do the side characters get to shine - the girls, Iola and Callie suffer the most in plot relevance- but thanks to the textual analysis by Voyant, we can find some chums are able to stand out. Tony is repeatedly written in #35: The Clue in the Embers, and Biff in #50: Danger on Vampire Trail.
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Unfortunately, while designing the textual display, there is not an option to fully customize the graphs x and y axis. Instead, the algorithm does the calculations on its own to determine what is needed. Nevertheless, because we are able to turn off variables whenever we need to, getting readable data-points is simple by clicking on a data point to get the book title, and total number of hits.
The Chums
The context command included '5' words to the left of my 'term' and '5' words to the right. With Voyant Tools, the lower limit was '2', and an upper limit of '10'. By selecting '10', Voyant Tools gives out entire paragraphs in its text reader which is a time consuming and ultimately inefficient method '10' really means 20 words since it concerns both the left and right limits. '2' does not often give enough detail on a character if I wish to see more description. Depending on the text, some variations would be more beneficial than others, but for The Hardy Boys which is primarily a children's book, the sentences will be much shorter and to the point which is why I choose '5' as a approachable parameter for my project.
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Using Voyant Tools, the following descriptions are frequent traits I discovered assigned to these characters by using their name as the 'term':
Iola Mortan
Chet's younger sister / dark-haired / pretty / witty / lighthearted / Joe Hardy's girlfriend / slim / vivacious / cute / intelligent/ pale
Callie Shaw
Blond / Iola's best friend / bright smile / Frank Hardy's girlfriend / brown-eyed / Hardy neighbor / tall / white/ considerate
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Below is an example table using the Term: iola*
Document Refers to which book
Left is the 5 words before the term "iola"
Right is the 5 words after the term "iola"
Outcomes
Poster for the Hulu adaptation. Many changes to characters were made to depart from the original series homogeneity
Mystery of the Whale Tattoo written by Tom Mulvey. It is a reinforcement of the idea that criminals and gang members are the kind of people of who get tattoos, while our heroes are 'clean'.
Summary
My project confirms The Hardy Boys as an all white cast of friends going on adventures together that prop up an idealized American teen. The group of friends is good-looking, athletic, can drive cars, sail boats, and the Hardy boys even fly planes. With the books published in the mid-twentieth century, for a teen to be capable of all these feats is a sign of remarkability and privilege. They work hard in school, attend social events like dances, and of course, solve crimes. There is a respect for the law and a mentioned friendliness between the Bayport police and Frank and Joe. They all possess a homogenic mindset in their morals, race, and sexuality. And as noted through the frequency test, plot relevance is dominated by the male characters throughout the entire canon.
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Overall, I was able to determine a good deal of contrast between the main cast and the antagonists. Of the men, nearly all were described as muscular, Chet, who is “plump” and Phil, who is “diminutive”, are still athletic in their own right. The main cast are all white figures, with easy access to cars, boats, and planes. Always quick-witted and intelligent, they outsmart the inferior villains (often people of color) who act emotionally or fail because of poor decision making. They are not smart, they are "sly, scheming, or cunning." Not a single protagonist would be described as dirty, slow, or aggressive. Instead the protagonists are only highlighted with desirable traits.
The two girls, Iola and Callie, while they appear quite often in the series, the girls rarely actively participate in the mystery solving, instead cheering on the boys or engaging with them in social activities like school dances. While they mentioned having licenses to drive, the boys are the only ones behind the wheel, often at the insistence of Frank or Joe.
Using the close-readings done by Wood, Deane, and Connelly, my findings of the protagonists stand opposite of many villains and side characters they identify in their work. The characters of foreign origin speak in strong accents like Luke Jones in The Hidden Harbor Mystery, who constantly makes reference to Jim Crow ideas in a broken southern accent. The “Oriental” and mysterious nature of Asian people documented in Footprints Under the Window is condemned by Wood for portraying Asians as unapproachable, and as people who enjoy walking in the shadows to better surprise people. The Hardy boys and friends instead are portrayed as an idealized white citizen. Frank is the "captain of the team", Chet is a "good soul". They are never "strange.
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Consideration must be made that at the time the first series was written, "hostility to Jews and Italians was intense" (Connelly, 2012, pg. 99), and to give the original some credit for including Tony and Phil as minority figures with somewhat frequent appearances in the main cast of heroes. After Chet, Tony Prito was the most prominent male friend to the Hardy's which was groundbreaking to have an Italian fill such an important spot in a novel. So while we would consider him white now, he represented a group that did experience hate in American cities. He is never described as inarticulate like the other Italians who adopt crude accents and are seen shaking their hands in every conversation.
On the other hand, Phil is left out a majority of the stories and unlike the other males, he is "skinny, diminutive, and an artist". He is the other half of the Hardy's minority subgroup that faced discrimination. The other boys play football and baseball, are muscular and good with their hands, while he is bookish and plays tennis. He is physically described similarly to the girls, of being small in stature. Noticeably, he is not referred to as being Jewish in many of his appearances, instead its omitted as though to avoid any backlash of being anti-Semitic whereas Tony is proudly Italian.
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I acknowledge that in the later novels that the Hardy Boys widen their cast of friends to include different ethnicities, but that is not until the 1960s when the publishing company was under heat and was looking to rebrand the books. The first 38 novels were revised on multiple occasions for the very reason of racially charged language in their contents.
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The project was an interesting dive into a beloved childhood classic that spawned a deep interest in the mystery genre. Future projects would hopefully explore a wider range of characters in the original canon of The Hardy Boys, to include Fenton Hardy, Aunt Gertrude, and others. This could broaden the analysis of how and why certain adult characters were portrayed in the way they were, and what kind of message that might send to young readers.
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