Undergraduate Writing Center University of Texas at Austin Some Basic Guidelines for Reading Literature 1) I know this sounds elementary, but it is very important: try to read during that time of the day when you are more alert. Poor performance on quizzes or in class discussion may simply be because you are not reading at an optimum time for your comprehension. 2) Buy a good collegiate dictionary and use it when you come across unfamiliar words. Sometimes a word's meaning can be determined from the context, but be careful about letting too many unknown words go by you. One word can sometimes seriously shift the context of what you are reading. You may even want to write the definition in your margin. 3) As you read, if something in the plot or characterization confuses you or strikes you as odd, make a note of it. Authors sometimes use strange methods of bringing our attention to things they want to emphasize, so don't just ignore something that you don't immediately understand. Those things often can be keys to reading the text, so try to figure them out. Always ask, "Why did the author do this in this way? What purpose might this serve?" 4) Pay attention when ideas are repeated, or when words are repeated, for these may be clues for understanding the character or the plot, or an underlying point of the author, etc. If a character is consistently described with some quirk, for example, take note of it--it may be significant. Ask yourself why the author would want to repeat such a description. 5) Underline passages that you think might be important, and take notes as you read. 6) Determine, if possible, the time period during which the work takes place, the location in which it is set, and when it was written. Read the author's biographical headnote, if the text provides one, because often an author writes about a different time period (for example, Hawthorne often places the setting of his works in time periods other than his own). A historical understanding of the time period can often give insight into a work. 7) Pay close attention to beginnings and endings--these often can help you to understand what the story might mean. Authors many times will put key encounters between characters or significant dialogue or crucial moments of perception at the beginning or ending of their work because they know beginnings and endings are so effective at emphasizing points. Avoid the tendency to rush through the ending (as we so often do if we are tired) because you might miss some valuable information or insight. 8) Play the identifying audience: ask yourself questions like, "Which character or characters do I identify with here?" (sometimes this is the protagonist, but not always) and "What points about this character do I find agreeable? What points seem disagreeable?" Then, figure out which characters you definitely do not identify with in any way, or which characters seem to carry a negative weight in the text. Exactly what is it that is negative about these characters? Do these characters have any redeeming value at all? Why are they in the story? 9) Many times in conventional prose fiction, a narrative begins and continues for a while with "rising action" that finally culminates in a major change (usually a change in the values or attitudes of one or more of the central characters). Sometimes a story ends with the climax, and sometimes there is a "denouement" or falling action that wraps up the story to some degree. The "climax" or point-of- change is often key in understanding a work, so practice locating the climax and then think about what the climax may mean in the story. Please realize, not all prose fiction follows this very traditional "rising action--climax--denouement" structure. Some things are more experimental in structure, but you can still look for change in the main character(s) when you are trying to understand the point of those more experimental stories as well. 10) This is one of the most important: Remember that an author does not always really admire his/her protagonist; sometimes the leading character in a story is there for the author to show us some key flaw in that character's personality. So never, ever, simply assume that the author agrees totally with the ideology or mindset of his/her protagonist. Think of the characters in a story as enacting some point or problem that the author means to convey. Be very careful not to assume that Hawthorne "is" Young Goodman Brown, for example. Sometimes authors may closely identify with their lead characters, but often this is not the case, so to be safe always keep the author separate from the characters when you think and write about them. By the same token, you will find that sometimes a first person narrator is guiding you through a story--be wary of assuming that this voice is the author's voice as well. For example, Edgar Allen Poe often uses the first person to narrate his stories, but please realize that Poe himself is not actually performing the acts of his first person narrator; he may be using first person to coax you to identify with a character who will turn out to be flawed. You should refer to "the narrator" as separate from the "author" in writing about fictional prose and in poetry. Of course, the author is usually the same as the narrator in nonfiction journals. 11) If you don't understand a work at all, review the above reading hints and then read the work again keeping these tips in mind. Hints for Writing a Literary Analysis 1) If the instructor has given a very general assignment that simply asks you to do a literary analysis of a text, first do all of the above suggestions for reading the assigned text. As you read and reread the text, locate areas that you find confusing or ambiguous; these might be character action or character interaction, or strange plot twists. Any areas that are surprising or troubling are potential topics for analysis. Think about themes, characters, symbols, and historical events that may influence one's reading of the text. Look for patterns or repetitions that seem key to understanding a theme or character. If you've never done a paper like this, you may want to buy (or check out from the library) a copy of Edgar V. Roberts' Writing Themes About Literature; this book can offer more specific instructions for different kinds of literary papers, and it offers tips for developing an argument through those different modes as well. 2) If the instructor has assigned a fairly specific question on a literary work, start your freewriting with an attempt to formulate your direct answer to the question. 3) Once you have an idea to write about, make sure that you are actually making an argument about the literary text. Avoid merely summarizing the text; of course, you may need to summarize occasionally within your analysis as you refer to particular examples in the text, but be sure you do not simply regurgitate the work. Rather, you should be analyzing particular aspects of the work to produce an original perspective. "Better" papers often are riskier papers; they present a perspective that would not be immediately apparent to other readers, then they produce evidence and analysis that convince the reader, to some degree, that the perspective is valid. 4) Be sure you answer the whole question that is posed in the assignment. Sometimes the question is more complicated than you think, so read it carefully, and reread it periodically as you work on your paper. 5) Buy or check out a copy of John Trimble's Writing with Style, and read especially the "Openers," "Middles," and "Closers" sections. 6) If your instructor has posed a specific assignment question for you to analyze, your condensed, focused, and complex answer to the question is your "argument" or "claim" or "thesis" or whatever you want to call it--it drives your paper. The paper should attempt to support your argument by giving direct, concrete examples from the text, along with your interpretation or analysis of those examples. Use quotes or parts of quotes from the text, or summarize ideas that support your argument. ***If you use a quote, be sure to comment on the quote to make it clear that you understand the quote--and to clarify for your reader why the quote is in your paper. How is the quote connected to/ and supporting your argument? 7) Introductions: Avoid clunky, wheel-spinning introductions (and conclusions) that only vaguely state what you're up to. Especially avoid an opening sentence that begins with the ubiquitous freshman phrase, "In today's society. . ." This phrase is so overused that it may earmark your paper as mundane. If you're "having trouble getting started," don't sweat over your first line. Sometimes a good strategy is to leave the details of your introduction as one of the last things that you do in a paper; just come up with a "working thesis" and get into the body of your analysis. 8) The body of the paper: Please use paragraphs. Avoid writing one long paragraph for your answer to the assignment; and also avoid several very short (2 sentence!) paragraphs. A healthy, well-developed paragraph is ordinarily at least five sentences long, but this also depends upon how complicated your sentence structure is; if your sentence is as compounded as the one you are reading right now, you probably do not need as many sentences to have a healthy paragraph. Try to remember what you learned (I assume) in composition class: a paragraph supports and develops one complex idea, and that idea is itself linked to and supporting the main argument or thesis, etc. If you find yourself with a paragraph that goes over a page and a half, read carefully through the paragraph and make sure it is all developing the same topic idea. If there is a noticeable shift, you may need to rearrange your paragraph to make two paragraphs. Please be aware of this, because ignoring paragraphing can lead to low marks for organization. For more detailed instructions, please see the UWC handout on paragraphing. 9) In gathering support for your argument about the text: beware of tempting but bogus evidence. I realize how hard it is to distinguish between kinds of evidence that are credible versus kinds of evidence that seem bogus; you may want to bounce your ideas off your peers if you are worried about the credibility factor. An example of what I consider bogus evidence? (I'm not making this up): "In Poe's story, even the descriptions of the House of Usher itself foreshadow the devastating mental problems to come. For example, Poe notices the "sedges" growing outside the house, and that word sounds just like "sieges," which indicates the conflicts that will happen inside the house, between Roderick and his sister Madeleine, and in Roderick's mind." 10) Ideas for your conclusion: avoid the temptation to write a concluding paragraph that merely restates the points you have made in your paper. While some kind of re-cap is often helpful, go beyond that by indicating a possible further direction your whole analysis might take. Also, avoid turning your conclusion into nothing more than a personal value judgment of the text, as if the main point of your analysis has been to prove that you "really liked the story, and others should too." Instead, ask yourself the "So what?" question; that is, ask yourself what you've learned in examining the story in the way that you have, and then ask yourself what you think your reader may learn from reading your analysis. Focus on what the work seems to be trying to accomplish, whether you like the work or not. If you don't like the work, examine that response--is it because you think it is badly written? Or is it because you don't like what you perceive to be "the message"? Is it because you could not identify with any of the characters, and if so, why not? Could it be that the point of the work is not to have you identify with the characters, but actually to have you react negatively? Remember that works sometimes deliberately evoke negative responses in the reader--works that are essentially social critiques might do this. 11) Finally, edit your paper as closely as possible for grammar and mechanical problems as well as typos. by Laura Grossenbacher .