How To Analyse A Text

HOW TO ANALYSE A TEXT:
1. Contextualization: Period (+ context) Which period does the author and text belong
to?
2. Genre: Recognise the genres/ subgenres used by a particular author, get to know
the techniques which are specific to it.
3. Themes: Which universal themes are used? How are the themes dealt with by the
author?
4. Mode of discourse: type of narrator and point of view: (first-person narrator,

third-person narrator, omniscient narrator.
5. Literary and stylistic techniques: style: Style in literature is the literary element
that describes the ways that the author uses words — the author's word choice,
sentence structure, figurative language, and sentence arrangement all work together to
establish mood, images, and meaning in the text. Style describes how the author
describes events, objects, and ideas.
This is a checklist one has to take into account when doing a stylistic analysis of
prose:
● -Does the text appear to be “readerly” or ‘writerly’? What sort of demands does
it make on the reader? For example, what effort does it take to read A Portrait of
the Artist? News from Nowhere? The Stolen Bacillus?
● -What kinds of narrative voice, or voices, are there in the text? Is it first person
or third person?
● - Is there any “foregrounding” of specific linguistic form or does the writer draw
attention to the language of the text, for example, through changes in register, or the
use of structural or lexical patterning?
● -What is the structure of the plot, and narrative development? For example, is
there a resolution, or ending, or no narrative closure?
● - Is the story linear, or does the writer represent events in a non- linear way?
OTHER ELEMENTS OF LITERARY STYLE: (Figures of speech)
Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of

words that are close together. It is used to create a pleasant, rhythmic effect. Let us see
Example: Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full- dazzling!
Metaphor: it is used to see similarity in things dissimilar. It establishes a kinship

between objects wholly unlike each other.
Example: I’m sorry that planet is out of service
Simile: It expresses a comparison between two unlike things with the use of “as” or
“like.” The things compared are shown to be similar in some respect but are usually
different by their nature in general.
Example: Henry’s tongue is as sharp as a blade
Personification: This is a form of comparison which attributes human characteristics

to abstractions or things which are not human.
Example: “A narrow wind complains all day”
Irony: This is a literary device that shows humour or sarcasm within a speech, in which
words are used to convey a meaning contrary to their literal sense. Irony is an
expression of double meaning, and a statement in which the words suggest the
opposite of their literal sense.
Hyperbole: This is an exaggeration employed to give force or intensity to a statement.

Example:Be careful, it's a jungle out there.
ELEMENTS IN PROSE FICTION
1) Characters and Characterisation
Characters are the agents of actions while characterisation refers to the method of
projecting the characters. There are two broad types of characters in a narrative fiction:
A) A flat character which is created around a single idea or quality. This type of
character is very easy to describe, and does not change along the story; and B)A round
character which is complex in thoughts and actions and so cannot be described as easily
as the flat character. Readers cannot foresee or predict his thoughts or actions with a
high degree of accuracy.
2) Plot
This is the ordering of the events in a novel towards the achievement of a particular
effect. The plot means more than the story. It is also the way the story is ordered and
rendered. The plot of a story may be chronological. At times, a story may be dislocated
in time order. The technique of flashback dislocates events in terms of time.
3) Setting
This refers to where and when the activities in the story take place. It is not limited to
the physical environment only; it includes the social circumstances i.e. the atmosphere
and the time the action occurs.
4) Theme
The theme of a work is the philosophical underpinning of the work and it is deduced
from the subject matter.
5) Tone: The author's attitude to the subject as revealed in the style and the manner
of the writing. This might be for instance serious, comic, or ironic.
6) Imagery and setting: Images and use of setting can tell you a great deal about a
character, a narrator, a fictional work:
• Imagery as figurative language: what sort of metaphors, similes and analogies does the
speaker use, and what does that tell you about their outlook and sensibility?
• Images as motifs: are their recurring images? What ideas or feelings are aroused by
them, what people or events are brought to mind by them?
• Imagery as setting: How is the setting used? To create a sense of realism? To create
mood? To represent or create a sense of states of mind or feelings? To stand for other
things (i.e. symbolic or allegorical?)
Discourse features
• How long does the person speak? Are the sentences logically joined or disjointed,
rational or otherwise ordered, or disorderly? What tone or attitude does the talk seem to
have? Does the speaker avoid saying things, deliberately or unconsciously withholding
information, and communicate by indirection? To what extent does the narrator use
rhetorical devices such as irony?

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HOW TO ANALYSE A TEXT:

4. Mode of discourse: type of narrator and point of view: (first-person narrator,

OTHER ELEMENTS OF LITERARY STYLE: (Figures of speech)

Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of

Metaphor: it is used to see similarity in things dissimilar. It establishes a kinship

Personification: This is a form of comparison which attributes human characteristics

Hyperbole: This is an exaggeration employed to give force or intensity to a statement.

ELEMENTS IN PROSE FICTION

1) Characters and Characterisation

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