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Literary Analysis--Fiction

The Language of Literature

 

          Poets and prose writers may use different techniques to emphasize the tone and meaning of their works, but they depend upon common literary devices to suggest levels of meaning beyond the literal: figurative language, allusions, imagery, and symbolism.

 

          Figurative language refers to the many devices of wordplay that a writer can use, such as metaphors, similes, synecdoche (using a part to suggest a whole, as in “head” to refer to cattle or “brain” to refer to a bright student), onomatopoeia (words that echo the sound of their referents, like “buzz”), puns, and ironic understatement (litotes) and exaggerations (hyperbole). Of these, probably the one most crucial to poetry is metaphor. Much of the way humans learn involves linking one perceived thing or event to another. Literature presents the readers with vicarious experiences, stimulating new insights and fresh perceptions of relationships between things. Metaphor, the verbal linking of disparate things, is at the heart of poetry’s power to increase its readers’ awareness of reality, to instruct and delight.

 

Metaphors

          A metaphor may be extended, with many points of comparison explored, to the point where it develops as an analogy. Anne Morrow Lindbergh builds her reflective essay “The Channeled Whelk” by finding the shells she finds on the beach to be intricate analogies of human life.

 

Imagery

          Imagery is another major element that contributes to the texture and tone of literature. Imagery refers to words that evoke for readers their physical senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. By using image-laden words, the writer is able to build a densely imagined scene in the readers’ minds. Images tend to sharpen the picture brought to the imagination by verbs or nouns, making you aware of a specific object, not a generalization, a concrete object that can be sense physically, not an abstraction. For example, if you say “the man ate a vegetable,” you are not giving enough information for a reader or listener to call it vividly to mind. A writer wishing to convey a picture of this man and vegetable will add image words, which may consist of nearly every part of speech—nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or prepositions. The writer observes the scene closely—either an actual scene or an imagined scene—and chooses his words carefully to evoke the senses:

 

The thin young man, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt that hung loosely from his shoulder blades, stared at the artichoke lying sideways on the cracked plate before him, wondering how to eat the thing, wondering what to eat of the thing, hesitating, poking it with his fork, probing the mystery of its pale green leaves that spiraled densely around the monstrous flower bud, each leaf hostile with its thorn-tipped crown, smelling like boiled spinach, hissing with the steam rising from its hidden heart, daring him to eat it.

 

          This example is, of course, exaggerated; you would probably not create such a long and complex sentence, but it illustrates how you can create a scene or character that engages the imagination of a reader because it has first engaged the imagination of the writer. Good writing of the mimetic forms, that is, the forms that mirror reality, as poetry, fiction, and drama, build on the foundation of sense images that allow the reader to have a vivid experience of the world the literature ushers in.

 

          While some students think poetry is difficult because it is too “abstract,” the opposite is usually true. Poetry characteristically does not draw out explicit abstract meanings—leaving these for the reader to work out. It presents images. It is concrete. It tugs at our senses, putting our imaginations to work. And it results from a belief that the thing itself, the object portrayed with all its density, can mean many things to a discerning reader. As good craftsmen, poets are respectful of their subject (the sensuous world they inhabit) and their material (the words they order and shape upon the page). Poems, then, while they may not be always easy to understand, do evoke the sense, awakening the imagination to the colors, shapes, lines, the tone and rhythms, the smell and feel of the real world. Poetry may lead readers to ideas, but it leads them through the sensuous world of humans and nature. It rarely is vague, general, or abstract—and its claim to validity is not its logic. Poetry appeals to memory and hope, to the imaginative world of the heart and the senses.

 

          Prose similarly uses concrete imagery to bring a scene or story to life. Think of how George Orwell, in his essay “Shooting an Elephant,” builds his scene of a Burmese village and portrays the maddened elephant. Anne Morrow Lindbergh beautifully describes the shell of a channelled whelk in her essay of the same name, closely observing its details and conveying the picture she observes to her readers with carefully chosen images:

 

But his shell—it is simple; it is bare, it is beautiful. Small, only the size of my thumb, its architecture is perfect, down to the finest detail. Its shape, swelling like a pear in the center, winds in a gentle spiral to the pointed apex. Its color, dull gold, is whitened by a wash of salt from the sea. Each whorl, each faint knob, each crisscross vein in its egg-shell texture, is as clearly defined as on the day of creation. My eye follows with delight the outer circumference of that diminutive winding staircase up which this tenant used to travel.

 

          This quality of writing paints a vivid picture in the readers’ minds; as description, it is far more effective than more abstract writing would be.

 

Allusions

          Allusions, mentioning earlier works of art or historical figures in a text to bring in the cultural heritage of the past—its art, music, literature, and history—add another element to the textual richness and meaning of a literary work. A writer may also allude to current events or arts, bringing in the present cultural environment as another way to enrich the text. In the art of cinema, directors sometimes copy well known scenes from earlier movies, thus alluding to them and creating a subtext to their story. And in painting and music, artists and composers will similarly include images or themes from the works of others.

 

          The essay “My Wood” by E. M. Forster is enriched by allusions, mainly by Scriptural allusions. An audience unfamiliar with these Scriptures or unfamiliar with other allusions, such as “Bolshies,” misses much of Forster’s lively wit and finds the essay difficult to understand. On the other hand, readers who have some knowledge of the Scriptures and other allusions are able to understand his play with word meanings, his tone, and the basic points he makes about the negative effects of owning things. These readers can successfully read the essay as a satire permeated with irony.

 

          The literary devices discussed above—figurative language, metaphors, similes, imagery, and allusions—all contribute to make a literary work resonate with meanings on various other, symbolic, levels. The meaning of a poem, a story, or a drama begins with its literal level; the reader understands this level by tracing the most obvious aspects of the story, the setting, the characters. If you were to tell a friend about a movie you had just seen, for example, you would tell him the basic story first, filled with sufficient detail to allow him to understand it. Since your friend has not seen the movie, he or she must depend on the details you have observed and express in your summary. These details sketch out the story, providing answers to the “reporter’s questions”: the who, what, when, where, and why of an experience. From a clear picture of this literal level, the two of you may then explore the symbolic levels of the film. Perhaps you find specific images that suggest meanings as they appear in a scene, or perhaps you find the whole film meaningful in terms of your emotional life or spiritual life. In interpretive discussion of literature, as of film, symbolic interpretations need to start from the literal level and be supported by their context in that level.

 

Symbolism

          Symbols may be of two types: natural symbols, which tend to be universally used and understood, and arbitrary symbols, which depend upon cultural backgrounds and societal agreement. Things that are perceived as natural symbols are themselves instances or types of the more abstract quality they symbolize—as bread is a type of nourishment it commonly represents. In John Updike’s story “Pigeon Feathers,” the beautifully articulated colors and shapes of a common feather made it, to David, an instance of a greater principle of order and divine caring—that is, it is, as he perceives it, a natural symbol suggesting by its very being David’s longed for assurance of a loving creator.

 

          Most of the powerful symbols of literature are, when analyzed, natural symbols. A natural symbol is not merely a symbol taken from the world of nature—but indeed these things are often chosen for their inherent suggestiveness as analogues to human life, as when a writer uses autumn or evening to suggest the ending of life, or the felling of a great old tree to suggest the diminishment of nature as humans use it for their own purposes. A natural symbol, more accurately, is defined by the English writer Dorothy L. Sayers, as “one that is itself an instance of that greater thing for which it stands.” A well-shaped bowl may be a natural symbol of the potter’s skill; the aria sung by Luciano Pavarotti may represent his amazing voice; the basketball shot made from a hanging-in-air Michael Jordan may represent his athletic prowess; dusted furniture, washed and pressed clothes, and clean dishes may represent the diligence of a young person living on his or her own from the first time. These are all natural symbols, because the items or events themselves are instances of what they suggest. The poet Hopkins sees a natural symbolism in the gracefully gliding small hawk in his poem “The Windhover”; it is itself an instance of the principle of creaturely mastery and beauty. Hopkins was a devout Christian, so he saw the hawk as a specific instance of the mastery, mystery, grace, and beauty that originates in Christ, the Creative Word of God. By such analogical thinking, he reflects on the bird as an analogue of Christ, and constructs the poem out of that vision of the integration of natural and supernatural spheres. You may consider whether this symbolical level—the Christic meaning—is natural or arbitrary. Someone of another faith might not find these qualities as stemming from Christ specifically, but they would be able to understand how the hawk, simply by its gliding flight, suggests such mastery and beauty.

 

          Arbitrary symbols are created by social agreement and cultural attitudes. Because they depend on specific cultural definition, arbitrary symbols are not universally understood as natural symbols tend to be. Koreans give newly married couples a pair of wooden ducks to signify their marital happiness; Americans throw rice (or bird seed) on the couple. These are examples of arbitrary symbolism, by which different and unrelated objects can take on cultural meaning in a particular society, a meaning that may not be shared outside that society’s national border. The American flag, for example, is in itself merely an arrangement of shapes and colors on a cloth. A piece of cloth does not in itself represent a nation. When the need of a national symbol occurs, the citizens design a flag, choosing emblems, colors, and shapes that they believe represent their country. A church, a scout troop, or other organization may also decide to make a flag, an emblem, or a logo. The key here is that the object to be invested by symbolical meaning is designed (chosen) and accepted by society. A flag that no citizen would recognize as standing for the country would be useless. Hang a solid blue flag on your porch for the Fourth of July and neighbors would ask you, “What does that mean?” It cannot function to symbolize, to give meaning, because it does not rest on social agreement. It is not itself a specific example of the abstract quality, patriotism; it is not a natural symbol. But social agreement and tradition make real national flags powerful symbols of patriotism. This is why people demonstrating against the United States, whether here or abroad, sometimes burn the American flag.

 

          If you were to destroy a natural symbol, for instance, the bird that Hopkins describes in “The Windhover,” you would have destroyed a being that was itself a creature demonstrating the beauty it symbolizes; but if you destroy an object made meaningful by arbitrary symbolism, your damage is harmful because your society interprets your act in terms of the symbolism it has established. Looking back on our example of the flag, we can say that on one level burning a flag is simply destroying a piece of cloth, nothing for anyone to get upset about. However, the act obviously means much more than that to people who burn the flag in a political protest and to those citizens who find such gestures unpatriotic or obscene. Many controversies over art arise because society has established certain things—monuments and medals, songs and sayings, pledges and personalities—to symbolize strongly held values; these highly potent symbols give artists and writers ready-made material for satire or other effects.

 

          To analyze style, tone, and structure that communicate a literary experience, you need to understand the elements of literature. Reviewed below, these elements allow you to see how the author puts together the diction and rhythms that constitute his or her distinctive style.

 

Analyzing Style, Tone, and Structure

 

          Analysis is useful to discuss or write about literature because most good literature can have application, or meaning, on various levels. To analyze the style, tone, and structure that a writer uses to communicate a literary experience, you need to understand the basic components of literature: its language, forms, and sounds, and the distinctive elements of poetry and fiction. These are discussed below. You prepare for interpretation by observing the text. Answering the initial questions after a selection trains you to read closely, to carefully observe details of the literary text, to explore how these details function in the works. The next part of the process, reflecting, is called for by other questions, questions dealing with theme and meaning. The final part of the process of interpretation, telling, is structured by the questions which ask you to write imaginative responses or essays of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

 

Elements of Fiction

Plot

          Writers of fiction have some fundamental tools they use to shape their stories. They may emphasize plot, a series of events which occur in time, with each event influencing or causing the following event. The plot’s movement usually goes from a section of exposition, where background is revealed, to a conflict which builds to a climax and ends in a sense of resolution. The conflicts of stories vary greatly. Some stories tell of simple struggle—one man against another or man against nature. Other stories develop more complex conflicts, the psychological struggle of a man against himself or a man against his society.

 

          In the folk tale “Cinderella,” the plot can be traced clearly: the exposition related in the story’s opening conveys information about Cinderella’s situation, living with her cruel stepmother and stepsisters. When the news about the royal ball is announced, the conflict builds; Cinderella longs to go, but she is forbidden to attend. The fairy godmother enters the conflict to equip Cinderella with all she needs to make a grand entrance to the ball, including a pair of glass slippers. She arrives at the ball in splendid attire, and she wins the heart of the prince as he dances with her. Before she can reveal her identity, however, her godmother's warning comes to mind: she must leave the great hall before midnight. The climax of the plot occurs when she runs out at the clock's strike of midnight, her clothes turn back to rags, her carriage reverts to its original state as a pumpkin, her horses to mice, and she flees home in disgrace—leaving only a glass slipper as evidence that she had been there at all. The resolution then comes as the prince, searching his kingdom for the owner of the small glass slipper, finally discovers Cinderella, the only woman in the kingdom who can wear the tiny slipper. Like most of the stories we call "fairy tales," the prince marries the poor girl, and they live "happily ever after."

 

Characters

          Character is another major concern of writers shaping a story. They may develop their characters by telling directly about them, as a kind of commentary given by an omniscient author. They may provide many details about the character's physical appearance, revealing personality through such clues as dress and mannerisms. Other characters' comments can inform readers, as can a character's own thoughts—if the author chooses to reveal them. Probably the best guide to our evaluation of a character comes from his actions; what he does shapes our sense of what he is.

 

          Authors may create characters who are dynamic, changing in response to events that occur to them, such as the priest in Maupassant's story "Moonlight" or Mrs. Turpin in Flannery O'Connor's story "Revelation." Or authors may create static characters who remain basically unchanged through the plot. Characters may also be described as round, portraying many dimensions in their personalities, or as flat, one-dimensional personalities who respond in predictable ways to nearly all events. Flat characters in fiction are frequently stereotypes: the assumed characteristics by which we tend to label and view people. The absent-minded professor, the good cowboy in the white hat, the evil villain dressed in black, the mad scientist, the rebellious teenager—all these are stereotypes that may show up in literature, or in our own language, especially when there is no fresh observation of particular human beings.

 

Setting

          Writers take great care in describing the settings of their stories—the particular place and time of the events. In their descriptions, they use sense imagery to bring alive the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of the setting. Flannery O'Connor, for example, in her story "Revelation," provides many physical details which allow her readers to imagine the doctor's office at the beginning of the tale and the pig parlor at the ending. Thoughtful readers often find the setting of stories and poems to have thematic significance—as these from O'Connor's story do. When setting suggests meaning or significance beyond itself, it may be serving a symbolical function.

 

Archetypes

          The notion of archetypes stems from the psychological theories of Carl Jung, who believed that certain images and patterns existed in all people and cultures as a “collective unconscious.” Below individual consciousness, these still affect humans as powerful, evocative images. Literary scholars have identified several “archetypal symbols” that show up in the imagination of people from diverse ages and places, in myths, dreams, fantasies, religion, and folklore. Examples are found in the celebrating of major events of life—birth, coming of age, marriage, old age, and death. Around both birth and death are images invoking the ocean or water; the Christian sacrament of baptism is an example of water being an agent for spiritual rebirth, cleansing, and freedom. Darkness often represents dying, and light represents hope. The seasons reflect the stages of life—spring suggests birth and youth; summer suggests maturity; autumn suggests the decline of old age; and winter evokes the sense of dying. These experiences are conveyed in the archetypes of literature and other arts.

 

Conflict

          Conflict between opposing forces impels the plots of poems, stories, and drama. These forces that struggle for dominance may be internal, as in emotional or psychological conflicts—a struggle of an individual with his or her self. They may be conflicts between humans and nature, or conflicts of individuals against society or an economic or political system. In many stories, the conflict is between one character and another. Conflict of any nature is important to the structure of a literary work, for it creates the tension that interests a reader and leads to a climax and resolution or conclusion.

 

Foreshadowing

          Foreshadowing in literature is a technique in which an experience or subject that occurs later in the work is anticipated by something that occurs earlier. A mood established by the imagery, the setting, or the attitude of a character, for example, may create an expectation or anticipation of what will shortly happen in the text. Detective stories will scatter clues through the action that will hint of the solution of the mystery. Adventure stories will typically show the hero escaping dangerous predicaments or battles prior to a final, most challenging conflict. These are foreshadowings of events to come, preparing the reader for ensuing action.

 

Symbolism

          Another useful way of classifying symbols is to see some as natural symbols and some as arbitrary symbols. A natural symbol is itself an instance of the greater thing it symbolizes; examples include such things as a rock representing stability or security, a well of water representing sustenance, a tear representing sorrow or loss. These are common images that resonate with meaning universally. Arbitrary symbols, on the other hand, are made by societal agreement, and their assigned symbolic meaning may be limited to particular cultures. Examples of arbitrary symbols include such things as dressing in black to mourn the death of someone (the Chinese dress in white), the colors worn by priests for different liturgical seasons, the flag, and the national anthem. These arbitrary symbols can also be very powerful in a story or poem, and authors often link natural symbols with their personal, arbitrary symbols as they create a web of meaning in their works. Analyzing Scripture according to the “four-fold” levels that medieval Christians sought to find, as discussed in the introduction, is one method of examining a text for its symbolic meanings

 

Thesis

          Authors of persuasive essays and books generally have clear theses in mind as they select material and write their prose. They reveal their theses, which may be stated directly or left for their readers to infer, by the gradual unfolding of their essays. Poets, dramatists, and fiction writers generally do not have their aims so clearly defined as to be stated as a thesis. These are mimetic writers, telling stories and writing poems or dramas that present images of life. When the literature seems to suggest a meaning (an insight into character, a value, a strength, a message), it may be said to have a theme; indeed, many informal essays have loosely drawn themes rather than a thesis. Students often too quickly identify a work’s theme by summing it up in one word. They might say that the theme of Maupassant’s story “Moonlight” is “tolerance” or identify the theme of Lindbergh’s “The Channeled Whelk” as “simplicity.” These words may name the subject of the works, but, like a thesis, a theme is a statement that asserts something—a sentence that sums up the meaning suggested by the whole piece. The theme of “Moonlight” could be stated as, “Seeing the beauty of love and of the natural world can be humbling, making one or more tolerant of others and more appreciative of God’s mercy.” The theme of “Channeled Whelk” could be stated as, “Lives cluttered with possessions, relationships, and duties must be refreshed and made simple again by time spent in leisurely reflection of nature.”

 

Assumptions and Attitudes

          Most of the fiction selections in this collection suggest cultural assumptions and attitudes, making clear that their stories belong to a particular time and place. You can examine the underlying assumptions behind a text—assumptions that an author has as a member of a particular culture, a particular time and place. Also, you can examine your own assumptions as a reader, the values and attitudes you hold as a contemporary American. Recognize that these unspoken assumptions shape both the author’s words and your own interpretations.

 

Narrative Point of View

          Writers choose from a variety of points of view by which they relate their stories. They may be able to enter any character's mind and reveal background from the past or events of the future—such an all-knowing point of view is called the omniscient narrative technique. The point of view may be limited to varying degrees. A limited omniscient narration reveals events from the knowledge of one character, but the story is told in third person, referring to every character as "he" or "she." First person narration has one of the characters telling the story in his own voice, the "I" of the story having his distinct diction and attitudes.

 

          The objective point of view records only what can be sensed—primarily what can be seen and heard—without authorial comment or interpretation and without any revealing of the interior feelings of the characters. This narrative technique is sometimes called a "fly on the wall" point of view. It can also be explained as giving the type of information that a video camera would record. Readers must sometimes remind themselves that even though the author seems to be providing an objective narrative voice, each detail of the text has been carefully selected, chosen to present the author's deeply imagined story.

 

          Non-fiction literature may have its own "voices" in the text. Any writer assumes a persona as he or she writes. We can assume in most straightforward prose, such as articles and opinion editorials, that the persona is quite similar to the author—after all, the author is expressing a personal description of how things seem to be—but even so, the author chooses words carefully to maintain a consistent voice throughout the piece, thus creating a persona. By bringing other voices into a text, by quoting or alluding, the author enriches his or her discussion with another perspective which may agree, dissent, add to the author's credibility, or provide a "straw man" to argue against.

 

          Other influences revealed or assumed in the text might be thought of as a deep, but not explicit, voice—the culture, the values, and the attitudes of the author's contemporary society. When reading E.M. Forster's essay "My Wood," for example, the Christian values of his audience allow Forster assurance that the irony of his narrator will be understood. His many Biblical allusions simply reinforce these societal values. Similarly, Jonathan Swift relies on the repulsion of Christian society to eating human flesh. Without an audience "voice" of moral outrage, his satire could easily be mistaken for what it sounds like on the surface, a remarkably well thought through, logically presented way of helping the Irish reach economic self-sufficiency.

 

Style

          The narrative point of view chosen by an author determines some important aspects of style. Mark Twain uses his character Huck Finn to relate the adventures Huck and Jim have on their journey down the Mississippi River. Huck's voice, with its distinctive dialect and diction, vividly creates the world of the mid-nineteenth century rural South for Twain's readers. Huckleberry Finn has been praised for its authentic style, for Twain here captured the sound of spoken American English better than any previous author who experimented with dialect. By employing the rather naive, but observant and objective, consciousness of Huck, and by telling the story through Huck's words, Twain created effects of irony and humor that would have been difficult to achieve through other methods.

 

Diction

          A reader analyzes style by paying close attention to words, sentences, and figures of speech. When you are reading any selection, be aware of the wording the author uses. What about the level of diction? Is it formal or informal? Do you think the vocabulary conforms to a certain time or place, to a particular class of society, to an ethnic group? Is the writer using the level of diction employed by journalists and academic writers, what is called Edited American English? Do the writer's characters have their own speech characteristics? Is jargon used for special effects, like humor or satire—as in the E.E. Cummings’ poem "next to of course god america i." Answering these questions will give you a good start toward understanding the writer's style.

 

          Note how the writer varies the length and type of sentences, creating a rhythm in his prose or poetry. This flexible rhythm helps him shade his meanings, for he can imitate the very process of developing ideas by the way he shapes his phrases, by his syntax (word order), and by the patterns of subordination and coordination he uses.

 

Tone

          Twain's novel and Forster's and Swift's essays alert us to another important facet of writing—tone. An author's tone reveals an attitude toward the material of the work; it shapes the way the piece is perceived by readers. A speaker can reveal his tone by the inflections, the accents, the pauses, in his speaking. Usually we can tell when someone is telling a joke, or is angry, or is respectful just by listening to his "tone of voice." Authors cannot use the physical voice to suggest their tone, so they must rely on diction and narrative techniques to reveal their tone.

 

          A writer's tone may be straightforward, sentimental, comic, formal, ironic, satiric, or sarcastic. There are other tones, of course—an angry tone, a sad or disillusioned tone, a pretentious tone—but the tones specified above are the dominant ones found in written literature.

 

          A straightforward tone is created when the author appears to be using his own diction, sounding sincere, not using his vocabulary to appear pompous or ostentatious, not hinting of satire or irony. Reading a story or article with a "straightforward" tone, you can be fairly certain the voice of the narrator, the piece's persona, is very close to the voice of the author.

 

          A sentimental tone exists when an author desires to evoke a great deal of emotion, often excessive emotion, from the readers. Sentimentality was very popular with writers and readers in the nineteenth-century. Some major authors, such as Charles Dickens (author of A Christmas Carol), used sentimentality to reveal the plight of the poor or the enslaved, urging indirectly, through their fictions, reform of society.

 

          A comic tone may be achieved as writers attempt to evoke humor. They may exaggerate their diction, misuse their words, fill their speeches with bombastic alliteration, or use other techniques to develop the effects they want—absurdity, slapstick, or satire.

 

          The seriousness of a formal tone is usually achieved by the author's using a high level of diction, without colloquialisms or slang expressions. The grave manner of the formal tone usually reflects a serious subject matter. It may, however, become ironic, as in Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and Forster's "My Wood." A writer's use of tone can be complex—the surface tone of the text's literal level of meaning may contribute to an effect of irony, satire, or comedy that the reader perceives only by careful attention.

 

          An ironic tone is achieved when the reader notices a disparity between what the narrator is saying (or the way he is saying it) and the content of the narration. An example of this kind of irony is found in the Cummings' poem "next to of course god america i," the naive narration of Huck Finn, and the logical, analytical voices of both Swift and Forster in "A Modest Proposal" and "My Wood."

 

          A satiric tone is most often used to make fun of something. It may be created by exaggeration (hyperbole), by understatement (litotes), or by other devices that call readers' attention to the element of the absurd in a situation or a person. In oral speech, a satiric tone is signaled by certain vocal inflections: "He is the big man on campus" may be spoken in several ways; a straightforward statement, or one with the accent falling on "the," would allow a listener to receive the literal meaning; accenting "big man" however, would probably indicate a satiric meaning, suggesting that the person spoken of only thinks he is "the big man." Satiric tones are often found in informal essays, such as the newspaper columns of Dave Barry, and in cartoons. Stories and poems revealing the foibles of humans can also be satiric.

 

          Sarcasm takes satire a step further. A sarcastic tone is more cutting and tends to be generated by anger. The English word sarcasm comes from the Greek word meaning "to tear the flesh." Sarcasm is then, a destructive tone, usually used to convey contempt or strong disapproval. In colloquial speech, sarcasm is too common; in literature, it may be used for political or propagan­distic purposes, but it does not often appear in serious poetry and fiction.

 

Structure: Repetition

          Readers analyze structure by finding the patterns formed in the text by repetition and juxtaposition. As you read, you may notice certain words or phrases repeated in ways that suggest a building emotion or a developing significance. Martin Luther King uses repetition of phrases to intensify emotion, to increase that quality (pathos), in his oratory and writing. King employs this powerful structural device in the same way the writers of biblical poetry do, for Hebrew verse is characterized by a rhythm created by repeated phrasing, called parallelism, rather than by rhyme. Notice the opening of Psalm 149, a clear example of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry:

O sing unto the Lord a new song;

Let the congregation of saints praise him. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him

And let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.

Let them praise his Name in the dance:

Let them sing praises unto him with timbrel and harp.

 

Structure: Juxtaposition

          Juxtaposition refers to the way words, phrases, or other elements of the writing, such as scenes, incidents, or characters, are placed together in the text. A writer may place ideas together or combine words in surprising or paradoxical juxtapositions. Jesus often used such unusual combinations to shock His hearers into new ways of looking at things, provoking new insights into spiritual values they had misperceived: the "meek" are called the "inheritors of the earth;” the outwardly pious are placed below the "tax collectors" and "sinners." Note how Flannery O'Connor draws on this kind of juxtaposition of spiritual values in her story "Revelation," in which Mrs. Turpin has a vision which reveals her own spiritual pride as she sees the kind of people she has judged to be inferior to herself preceding the "quality folk" in the procession into heaven.

 

Structure and Theme

          Flannery O'Connor has also juxtaposed scenes in this story in such a way as to support her theme, the meaning that the reader reaches as the text is thoughtfully considered. O'Connor begins her story with the setting of a doctor's office, a place for healing. Significantly, Mrs. Turpin is not there to seek healing for herself, but for her husband, whom she dominates as she tends to dominate all her environment by her judgmental attitudes. The last scene of the story has a "pig parlor" as its setting. You may be reminded here of the story of the prodigal son, who was reduced to tending swine—animals considered by the Jews to be ritually unclean. In this humbled state he comes to insight, knowing his depraved condition and longing for his father's house. O'Connor has Mrs. Turpin called a "wart hog from hell" in the doctor's office, the place for diagnosis and treatment. She tends her pampered pigs in the well-kept "parlor." Even if O'Connor is not directly alluding to the story of the prodigal son, she is using the general symbolic connotations associated with pigs to support her theme and to provide meaning for the settings she juxtaposes.

 

Assignment

Writing a Literary Analysis of a Fictional Work

 

          A literary analysis is an attempt to find the full meaning of a work through analyzing various elements of the work: character, setting, point of view, plot, structure, imagery, symbolism, tone, and literary techniques such as allusions, metaphors, personification, and alliteration. You are not expected to discuss all of these in a literary analysis paper, but you do need to select a few to discuss in detail, showing how they contribute to the work's overall theme and purpose. Below are some guidelines for writing a literary analysis.

 

          Brainstorm by finding examples on each of the elements (approximately three) you think you want to include in the paper. Brainstorming should help you decide if there is enough material to develop each of the aspects. Search through the work to find as many examples as you can of each element you've decided to analyze. Group these examples together by similarity. If you have chosen symbolism, for example, group the examples together that represent a particular concept or theme. If you choose plot as one of the elements, recognize that a literary analysis on plot demands more than a summary of the story; instead, you need to analyze the plot's structure and determine how it contributes to the work as a whole.

 

          Analyzing these parts can help you determine the meaning of the whole work. Consequently, you need to discuss what you find about the elements and how those lead you to the meaning of the entire piece. You should be able to construct meaning from specific symbols, points of view, plot structures, or other aspects you are analyzing; these elements should support the themes of the work.

 

          In the end, your essay needs to include these parts of an analysis: an introduction that contains your thesis, a brief summary of the plot, several paragraphs that analyze the aspects you chose, and a conclusion. Refer to the discussion of the elements of fiction in chapter one.

 

Introduction

          The introduction to this analysis should be similar to those you write for other expository prose. Begin your introduction with a sentence to engage the readers, and lead them in the direction of your thesis. Along the way, state the author and title of the work you're analyzing and a brief comment on what the piece is about. In a sophisticated way, present your purpose, but avoid "announcing" it blatantly, as in the example "What I want to analyze in this paper is. . . ." Instead, write a thesis that makes an assertion of the meaning and explains how the literary techniques the author uses create that meaning. For example, if you are analyzing John Updike’s “Pigeon Feathers,” your thesis might read, "Updike employs imagery of layered colors—holes dug into layers of earth and the layered color of each hair of his dog, Copper—to foreshadow the climactic moment when David gains reassurance of God’s love.”

 

Summary

          Summarize the plot in one paragraph to provide a context for the analysis. Readers unfamiliar with the work would not understand the analysis without a synopsis of the work.

 

Analysis

          Analyze each of the three or so elements you've chosen, fully developing each part because this section is the main focus of your essay. Analyzing involves more than just listing the elements and examples. Instead, a thorough analysis demands taking apart the element and discussing its meaning and its relevance to the overall theme. In the “Pigeon Feathers” example, the first thing you are told about David is that his family have moved from their hometown to a smaller, more rural area. This disruption is followed by a spiritual disruption in which David is tempted to doubt that God will give him eternal life. No adult, no spiritual authority, can reassure him. During this time of his questioning and doubt, he . . .

is visited by an exact vision of death: a long hole in the ground, no wider than your body, down which you are drawn while the white faces above recede . . . . There you will be forever, in an upright position (blind and silent), and in time no one will remember you and you will never be called.  As strata of rock shift, your fingers elongate, and your teeth are distended sideways in a great underground grimace undistinguishable from a strip of chalk.  And the earth tumbles on, and the sun expires, and unfaltering darkness reigns where once there were stars.

 

          A later experience with his dog, Copper, shows how this “vision of death” begins to transform into a more assuring image of stratified earth. David comforts his dog, who has been frightened by the shots David has taken to kill the pigeons in the barn. In petting Copper, he notices details that appear to him as signs of “intricacy,” of “sureness”: “[the] dog’s ears, laid flat against his skull in fear, were folded so intricately; so—he groped for the concept—surely.” He then imagines the image of layers of earth as he examines the dog’s hair as it was pushed up by his collar:

Each hair showed a root of soft white under the length, black-tipped, of the metal color that had lent the dog its name.” David then sees the dog as a “whole whirling, knotted, jointed body . . . a wealth of such embellishments. And in the smell of the dog’s hair David seemed to descend through many finely differentiated layers of earth: mulch, soil, sand, clay, and the glittering mineral base.

 

Finally, as the story reaches its climax, David experiences a reassurance of God’s love for the creatures that builds on this movement of the layered earth as an image of death and annihilation, to an image of careful design, and then to an image of the prodigal love of God the Maker:

The feathers were more wonderful than dog’s hair, for each filament was shaped within the shape of the feather, and the feathers in turn were trimmed to fit a pattern that flowed without error across the bird’s body. He lost himself in the geometrical tides as the feather now broadened and stiffened to make an edge for flight, now softened and constricted to cup warmth around the mute flesh. And across the surface of the infinitely adjusted yet somehow effortless mechanics of the infinitely adjusted yet somehow effortless mechanics of the feathers played idle designs of color, no two alike, designs executed. In a controlled rapture, with a joy that hung level in the air above and behind him . . . . Into the fragrant open earth he dropped one broadly banded in slate shades of blue, and on top of it another, mottled all over in rhythms of lilac and gray. The next was almost wholly white, but for a salmon glaze at its throat. As he fitted the last two, still pliant, on the top, and stood up, crusty coverings were lifted from him, and with a feminine, slipping sensation along his nerves that seemed to give the air hands, he was robed in this certainty: that the God who had lavished such craft upon these worthless birds would not destroy His whole Creation by refusing to let David live forever.

 

Conclusion

          After you have analyzed all the instances of this image, devoting at least a paragraph to each, you need to write a concluding paragraph. As in the introductory paragraph, don't announce what you're doing, such as saying, "In conclusion. . . ." Instead, briefly discuss how the items contribute to the overall theme; however, do so on a more abstract level, in more general terms. Speak of the value of experience in building faith; of the power of observing natural things around you; of “being there,” in the present moment, rather than distracted; of reflecting and seeing repetitions and patterns in existence, in your world and in yourself.

 

Selections to Use for a Literary Analysis of Fiction

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