Analysing a prose
Context
Content / plot
Characters
Theme (s)
Narrative voice
Diction / language
Literary
techniques
Structure

What clues are given about when / where the extract is
set?
 What is the passage about?
 Who do we meet?
 How are they presented to us? By what they do / say?
What other characters / the narrator say about them?
 With whom do we have empathy / for whom do we have
sympathy and why?
 Who do we dislike and why?
 What central ideas are contained in the extract?
 What views are expressed about them and by whom?
 Who is speaking / writing? A character? An omniscient
narrator?
 1st or 3rd person? Effect of this?
 What tone is created by their voice?
 Word level - Be aware of descriptive / figurative (simile /
metaphor / personification) technical / neologism / slang /
pun / vivid / unusual / emotive / colour / sensory language
 Think about adjectives and adjective phrases
 Are there examples of exaggeration / hyperbole?
 Are there examples of contrast or juxtaposition /
comparison?
 Look for contrasts / patterns / repeated words and images
the effect they create
 Look for adverbs of time, manner and place (when / how /
where?)
 Is the register formal / colloquial? To what effect?
 Is dialect used? To what effect?
 What mood (atmosphere) is created and by what means?
 Look for onomatopoeia / alliteration / assonance /
consonance / sibilance / length of vowel sounds etc
 Humour / irony
 Sentence level – simple / compound / complex or a
variety?
- statement / directive (command) /
interrogative (question) / exclamation
- active / passive clauses
- conditional clauses / sentences
- patterns / rhythms
- syntax – unusual / inverted
- parenthesis / ellipsis / suspension points
- noun and pronoun / adjective / verb phrases
 Where are the above used and to what effect?
 Are the tenses used important in any way?

Audience


Text level – length of paragraphs
- sequencing of plot / character details –
chronological / non-chronological
- symbols
- flashback and forward
- stream of consciousness
- is dialogue used? To what effect?
- build up of tension / suspense to climax /
anti-climax (bathos)
How do you respond to the extract?
What is your relationship to it – close / distant? Why?