Woman in Either/Or, I & II: A Computer Analysis

Abstract

The author analyzes Kierkegaard's pronouncing on the woman and the feminine in the text Either/Or, specially in parts I and II. For this, key words such as “woman”, “feminine”, “virginity”, “bride”, “wife”, among many others, were selected and Michael J. Greenacre's SimCA 2.0 comparative analysis program was employed in order to show both the common and different perspectives of the aesthete A and the aesthete B, as well as to offer a series of discursive dimensions that are present in the text, which gives a set of valuable conclusions for the understanding of this Kierkegaardian work and the opinion of the danish philosopher on the woman and what is proper to her. The results of the analysis are shown at the end of the paper with tables which compare A's and B's vocabulary and show their frequency; other figures exhibit with graphs the behaviour of the key words against the most important discursive dimensions.