Critical Thinking Supplement – 4
Finding Significance in Books
Note that this supplement was originally created for use by students of ENG 4U1, who
would already be familiar with Ross's short story, "The Lamp at Noon"(Viewpoints 11,
62). Students of ENG 3U1 would benefit from reading the short story before working
through the exercise outlined on the third page of this document. The poem, "The Lady
of Shalott", is not as crucial to the exercise; nevertheless, it can be found online.
In a good quotation analysis, you must:
1. Make a clear statement of significance.
2. Support your statement with textual evidence.
3. Make meaningful explanatory statements connecting back to the point of
significance.
THAT’S IT IN A NUTSHELL. But it’s a fiddly little nutshell. You need to go right
back to the beginning of the quotation analysis process which you learned in grade nine,
(probably dealing with a character sketch), and then develop your skills from that point.
So, to review - You should know from previous English classes how to discuss
character, plot, and theme.
Character
Characters are people presented in works of narrative or drama who convey their
personal qualities through dialogue and action by which the reader or audience
understands their thoughts, feelings, intentions and motives. Characters either remain
stable in their attitudes throughout a work (static characters) or undergo personal
development and change, whether through a gradual process or a crisis (dynamic
characters); but in any case they usually remain consistent in their basic nature.
– The Department of English, University of Victoria, 1995
If you remember from class, characters are revealed through their own words or actions
(or their reactions), or through the words of other characters. Therefore, if you have
decided that a quotation is significant in terms of character revelation, you should focus
closely on what this character says in the quotation, what this character does in the
quotation, or what another character says about this character in the quotation. Make sure
you incorporate a clear statement somewhere in your analysis specifically about how the
character is revealed (one of the three choices).
Don’t wander around in the analysis trying to be eloquent. Just make clear statements
and stick to the point. Connect back to your main character trait at least twice in your
analysis.
Plot
The basics of plot are often diagramed on a “plot graph”,
Climax (sub-climax for subplots)
Rising action (conflict)
Inciting incident
Introduction
Falling Action (conflict)
Dénouement (conflict resolution)
Conclusion
When you are discussing significance, one of your choices is that something moves the
plot forward. That “something” must be an action, though the action can be the act of
speaking some words. The plot does not move forward in the Introduction, that is just
where the foundation of the story is laid. You need to include in your clear statement of
significance exactly what action you think moves the plot forward, and from what point
to what point on the plot graph you think the plot moves forward. Think about plot in
terms of the development of a conflict in the story.
Theme
In the analysis of literature, discovering the theme is an interactive process between the
reader and the text. Teachers and textbooks have confused matters somewhat through
their careless use of the word theme, so let’s be very clear. A one-word summation is
not a theme – eg. love, death, alienation. The theme of a piece of fiction is its view about
life and how people behave. Your thematic statement should therefore contain a view
about some aspect of life. Harking back to your grade nine days, we tried to encourage
you to avoid clichés – Slow and Steady Wins the Race etc. Now we’ll crank our
criticism up a notch and we might tell you that your statement of theme is trite. This
means we want you to reach for a more universal statement or a less superficial
statement.
This is all well and good, but what do you do if you don’t know what the theme is and
don’t want to look trite or cliché? There are a few different ways that the author tries to
communicate his/her worldview. It is rare in a good piece of writing that the author will
explicitly tell you the theme, although this certainly happens in fables and parables. As
an educated reader, you need to pull the theme out from the text you are reading.
How to Identify the Theme
1. Look for a recurring idea. The idea could be presented explicitly, or be illustrated
through a situation.
2. Find the conflict of the story. Remember – person vs. person, person vs. self, person
vs. nature, person vs. technology. The conflict is a way for the author to examine
problems, possible solutions and final resolutions, so it is an excellent clue.
3. The author may use repetitive imagery, patterns, or symbols to encourage her readers
to think about how things are connected or represented. If readers are thinking and
making connections, it’s likely that there is a theme behind all the mental energy.
4. What sorts of things happen to good characters? Noble characters? Generous
characters? If the outcomes tend to be negative, the author may actually be expressing a
negative worldview. Not everyone is happy and in love, you know.
Ok, we’ve covered enough background for you to take a good running jump at your next
analysis.
Let’s try an example from “The Lamp at Noon” by Sinclair Ross:
"Her eyes all the while were fixed and wide with a curious immobility. It was the
window. Standing at it, she had let her forehead press against the pane until the eyes
were strained apart and rigid. Wide like that they had looked out to the deepening ruin of
the storm. Now she could not close them" (Viewpoints, 63).
WAIT!!! Before you read my incredibly insightful, articulate, yet compassionate
analysis, try it yourself. You’ve read the story. Then check mine to see how you did. If
yours isn’t quite so good, don’t feel bad. I’ve had several years of university doing this
stuff. If yours is better, what are you doing in this class anyway? Note that I have put
italicized explanations of the different parts of the quotation analysis in parentheses.
In “The Lamp at Noon”, Ross creates the unforgettable character of Ellen, an unhappy
wife who unwittingly smothers her own child. (Preamble and identification of source
text) Ellen is revealed to be an emotionally fragile character from the time when we first
meet her through her behaviour in the kitchen as she watches a break in the storm. (Clear
statement of significance with specific reference to character’s behaviour) Ellen’s eyes
are “fixed and wide with a curious immobility”. (specific reference to source text)
Staring at something with a fixed gaze generally implies intense concentration, but in this
case, Ellen’s eyes are immobile, as if she isn’t really seeing anything. In fact, Ellen isn’t
looking at anything; she’s trying the potatoes, but she had been staring out the window at
the dust clouds and “the deepening ruin of the storm” and now seems unable to see
anything else. Ellen is not even able to close her eyes, to blot out the suffocating dust,
and in this strained and helpless state, Ross reveals the fragility of his character’s mental
state, and suggests that the “deepening ruin” has taken possession of her. (meaningful
explanatory statement connecting back to point of significance) Ross repeats his
description of Ellen’s eyes, “still wide in a immobile stare” when Paul finds her and their
son. This echo is a “confirmation of what [we] had known since noon”, that Ellen’s
fragile emotional state was soon to deepen into its own storm. (statement of larger
significance within the text)
It is perhaps not a coincidence that Tennyson’s heroine, The Lady of Shalott, has the
same fixed and wide gaze:
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance,
With a glassy countenance-Did she look to Camelot.
(Echoes, 87)
(statement of larger significance outside the text) Tennyson’s Lady looks at her world
through a mirror, Ross’s Ellen through a window, and yet both are under the same curse.
The Lady of Shalott is driven to leave her tower because she is “half sick of shadows”:
Ellen because she too is sick of shadow, though hers are the shadows caused by the
unabating dust storm. Death waits for both the heroines: Tennyson’s Shalott is a “pale
corpse…deadcold”, while Ellen is left oblivious, holding the cold body of her dead child.
It would be interesting to discover if Ross intended this connection, as Tennyson based
his heroine on the character Elaine of Astolat from Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur. (this is just
to impress you) ☺
The end for now – If you are feeling adventurous, you can also examine the trickier
concepts of mood, tone, and irony.