Analysing ThemesA theme is an idea or concept, rather than an actual or material thing.
A theme is only a valid theme if you can cite several examples of it in a text.
The value of a theme resides in its ability to join up disparate features of a text.
(The most common themes-
*Themes about the relationship between an individual and the world-such themes may include those that deal with the connections between peoples, such as politics, history and science, and those that treat of the connectins between individuals, such as sex, love and revenge
*Themes about the relationships of individuals with themselves- such themes may include autobiographical subsets, like desire, death and artistic creation, change, how we know what we know.)
When we write about themes you need to trace the connection between a theme and its examples.
Always try to break down a large theme into its subsets in order to demonstrate the nuances of a text and show its subtleties.
Always ask yourself:
- Is the theme I am writing about an idea or merely a thing which is not really a theme?
- ARe there enough examples in the text to prove that the theme I am writing about really is a theme rather than an isolated idea?
- ARe there any subsets of the theme I am writing about?
Analysing LanguageDiction refers to the choice of words or type of vocabulary used in a poem, play or novel
Ask yourself what difference it makes using one particular word rather than anohter, similar one.
A wod's denotation is what the word refers to; a word's connotation is what is implied or associated with that word.
PatternsThe pattern of a text is formed either by the simple repetition of a word or by the interplay between related words
RegisterRegister is a type of language associated with a specific social context or subject matter.
Words do not exist in isolation - your job is to find the connections between them.
Always ask yourself:
- What difference does it make using this particular word or set of words instead of another similar word of set of words
- What are the connotations of a particular word or set of words?
What register, or registers, is the text written in?
Analysing structure
The simpest structure - Conflict -> Resolution
Binary Oppositions - is a pair opposition is a pair of related terms in which one has a positive value and the other a negative value. eg. Man vs Woman; law vs Family; The State vs The Gods & The Living vs The Dead in Creon & Antigone
Triangular Structures are often secret binary structures in which two characters compete against each other to 'win' the third character.
Structure of Repetition
Most texts are built upon a repetition in which a scene or line is repeated but with significant change or development.
Cyclical structures, such as those based on the seasons or the life-cycle, help to convey a sense of inevitability.
All texts are built upon a number of different structures, but the structure you write about should be the one most pertinent to your argument.
Always ask yourself:
- Is there a conflict in this text, and if so, what is it about, who or whta is it between and how is it resolved?
- Is anuything repeated in the text, and if so, how does the first scene or line change in the second scene or line, and to what effect?
- Am I writing about the struture most relevant to my argument?
Most humour is produced by a discrepancy between what we expect to happen and what actually happens.
The novel expects that its reader will have a certain degree of literary competence, which is made up of three main components:
1. The reality, 2.cultural & 3. generic conventions -makes sense of a text in terms of the real world (people do not weep their whole life); of the generally accepted conventions of a culture( patricide serious crime); & of the expectations we have about a genre(We dont expect corpses to dance in a tragedy).
A readerly text is one that conforms to our expectations(comfortable to read, merely affirms all your stereotypes of reality, culture and genre);
a writerly text is one that confronts our expectations. (unsettling to read and may change the way you think about conceptions of reality, culture and genre)-produces a feeling of estrangement.
When you analyse your response to a text, you need to examine the ways in which the text correspnds or not to your expectations about reality culture and genre.
Resolved suspense is how the text keeps itself alive while you are reading it; unresolved suspense is how the text keeps itself alive after you have read it.
The basic rule of writing about your response is to relate it to the text - Explain how how the text attempts to coerce a response from you and explain what factors influence your response.
A good example about how you should write about your response to a text:-
"E.g. The Cherry Orchard is a strange play because it is neither a tragedy or a comedy. It begins with a amarriage that doesn't quite happen and ends with a death that doesn't wuite happen, so in the end nothing really happens. NOr do the characters develop. They just move in and out of the play like the train they arrive and depart on. This is quite frustrating because you want the charaters to stop flitting about and actually do something. I kept waiting for something dramatic but the play ends as unresolved as the fate of Russia precisely because the characters do not do anything. "
because
1. It contextualizes the student's response in terms of her expectations aof the genres of comedy and tragedy.
2.Even though the student's response to the play is not completely postive, the essay locates and erxplains the source of her feelings of 'strnageness' and frustration' in the play.
3. The essay relates the student's response to the themes of the play, in this csse the unresolved fate of Russia.
Always ask yourself:
-Is my response to the text based on the fact that it confirms or confronts my expectations about the reality or genre?
-What features of the text try to coerce a response from me
-How does my response relate to the themes of the text?
Tragedies are basically the stories of the downfall of heroes caused by tragic flaws in their characters.
For Bertolt Brecht a character's tragic flaw is a form of social pride, an over confident belief of his/her own abilities, which means the hero does not know his or her place in life.
Aristotle developed his analysis of tragedy based on the following features: The protagonist, the antagonist, eror or tragic flaw (in-built part of the character's make up), pride (over confidence in own ability) fall (abrupt change, reversal of fortune) recognition (self-awareness when hero realizes that he is in some way doom) & cartharsis, (purge or release or purifying of emotions at the end
