The
Specifics of Analysis
 Tears a text down into its parts and
explains how those parts work
together
 Examines a subject part by part
 The activity we engage in every
time we listen, read, or take in
sensorial impressions
Analysis = Specifics
Induction = Sections
Hypothesis = Focus
 Textual
 Sociological
 Psychological
 Mythological
 Deconstruction
The play’s the thing.
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet
 Examines the following….
 Work’s structure
 Rhetorical techniques (irony, tone, etc…)
 Figures of speech
 Sound devices
 Other literary stylings
 Visual Traits: Look at the length of the paragraphs and
the arrangement of lines and stanzas.
 Syntax: Grammatical constructions. Consider the use of
pronouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Note the order of the
subject, predicate, complements and modifiers
 Sentences: Length and structure. Look at the number of
words, kinds of sentences (simple, compound, complex,
compound-complex), and sentence patterns. In poetry
check out the line(meter) and stanza length.
 Point of view: Speaker. Determine how the author chooses
to tell the story. Does the point of view shift?
 Diction: Choice of words. Determine whether the
words are formal or informal, concrete or abstract,
connotative or denotative.
 Sound Devices: Look for sound devices: assonance,
consonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia.
 Imagery: Word pictures. What mood does the
imagery evoke? Examine the images for connotative or
symbolic overtones.
 Figures of speech: Literary devices: simile, metaphor,
symbol, personification
 Structure: Arrangement of ideas: Look for chronological presentation,
flashback, stream of consciousness, connection by suggestion, contrasts or
comparisons. Is the piece primarily narrative, descriptive, or expository. If
the piece is a poem, is it arranged in traditional structures, or is it free
verse?
 Tone: Tone is the attitude the speaker takes toward the subject matter, the
emotional coloring of the work.
If, for instance, a friend tells you, “I’m going to get married today,” the
facts of his statement are clear. But the emotional meaning may vary according to
the tone of voice with which the statement is made. He may be ecstatic (“I’m
getting married today!”); he may be incredulous (“I can’t believe it. I’m getting
married today.”); he may be resigned (“Might as well face it: I’m getting married
today.”); he may be in despair (“Horrors! I’m getting married today.”).
Design
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-If design govern in a thing so small.
~Robert Frost
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way.
~Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
 Concerned with the way social groups operate
 Examine the nature of power inherent in all
relationships
 Targets groups of characters, isolating the conflicts
and inadequacies in the arrangement and between
individuals within and without those groups
 Examine interactions within cultures
 Isolates the forces that create conditions under which
the characters operate
 SOLDIER'S HOME, by Ernest Hemingway
Krebs went to the war from a Methodist college in Kansas. There
is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them
wearing exactly the same height and style collar. He enlisted in the
Marines in 1917 and did not return to the United States until the second
division returned from the Rhine in the summer of 1919.
There is a picture which shows him on the Rhine with two
German girls and another corporal. Krebs and the corporal look too big
for their uniforms. The German girls are not beautiful. The Rhine does
not show in the picture.
By the time Krebs returned to his home town in Oklahoma the
greeting of heroes was over. He came back much too late. The men from
the town who had been drafted had all been welcomed elaborately on
their return. There had been a great deal of hysteria. Now the reaction
had set in. People seemed to think it was rather ridiculous for Krebs to be
getting back so late, years after the war was over.
Why then will you say that I am mad?
~Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
 An analysis of a character’s personality could
be applied to characters and their
motivations
 Deals with the conflict between what a
character unconsciously desires and a
contrary desire on the part of the same
character that violates social norms
 Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
 Pre conventional stages-behavior motivated by anticipation of
pleasure or pain
 Punishment and obedience
 Bartering and exchange
 Conventional Morality
 Interpersonal Conformity
 Law and Order
 Post conventional or principled morality
 Prior Rights and Social Contract
 Universal Ethical Principles
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TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why
will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not
destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard
all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How,
then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell
you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once
conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there
was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given
me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He
had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell
upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my
mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
~THE TELL-TALE HEART
by Edgar Allan Poe
(1843)
“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if
you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
~Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
 Hero
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The innocent
The trickster
The warrior
The teacher/prophet
Wise fool/saint
 Journey
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Innocence
Initiation
Chaos
Resolution
 The Innocent
 Possess an innate understanding that has little basis in
wisdom or knowledge
 Child/Childlike
 The Trickster
 Deception and playfulness
 Young teen/challenges the status quo
 Charms but teaches us
 The Warrior
 Faces the system straight on
 Acknowledges the rules and matches his strength
against established boundaries
 The Teacher/Prophet
 Matured Hero
 Uses experience and wisdom to guide others
 Wise/Fool/Saint
 Returns to the state of innocence
 Lifetime of experience
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These archetypes appeal to our need to find means by
which we might recapture some sense of paradise that
we can no longer apprehend in our state of ignorance or
prepare us for a future paradise.
The Stages of the Journey… Innocence
 In the stage of innocence, the world and we are
one.
 We feel no division or separation from others,
believing we are the center of the universe.
 Suffering is minimal and short-lived, and death is
a foreign concept.
 For the most part, our lives are happy.
 Three kinds of events can cause our fall from
innocence:
 Death-Death tells us that someone we love dearly
can be separated from us; it tells us that no one,
including ourselves, is immune. Our awareness of
death is an awareness of our own mortality.
 An Awareness of Evil- violates our belief in the
fairness and justice of the world. We are left
wondering what the good of good behavior is.
 An awakening- creates intense desire within us, a
desire that can either be frustrating or, in the event
of a failed relationship, fulfilled and then retracted.
 The state of chaos is where all art is created.
 It is the struggle of our existence to reconcile the
information revealed to us through the initiatory
experience and move on despite our belief that
the future holds only more pain and unrelieved
suffering.
 For many, the desire is to move backwards, to
return to a state of innocence, to employ denial
against what we do not want to acknowledge.
 The true hero is not defeated by this knowledge,
instead transforms it into wisdom.
 The hero who advances to this stage does so with open
eyes.
 The hero is not that person who has learned how to
evade the knowledge of the fall, but has instead
integrated it into a wider, fuller, and truer vision of
the world.
 In literature, some heroes who fail to achieve the
resolution of the final stage are: Huck Finn and Jay
Gatsby
 By contrast the heroes and, mostly, heroines of
feminist and ethnic literature tend to find a way
through the darkness to a kind of peace, usually
finding aid through community.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
~The Wizard of Oz
 Meaning behind the meaning
 Dismantles the text into its component parts,
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deconstruction examines the parts themselves-not
what they mean but why were they selected
Why does the text exists at all and what the motive is
behind its creation?
Staple of media studies
Analysis = what does it mean?
Deconstruct = what is its intent?
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zJWA3Vo6TU&fe
ature=player_detailpage
Two Poems: You’re Missing and My Way Home
 First Step- complete a textual analysis on each poem.
 Second Step- complete a sociological analysis on each
poem.
 Third Step- complete a psychological analysis on each
poem.
 Fourth Step- complete a mythological analysis on each
poem.
 Second Step- complete a deconstruction analysis on
each poem.