The Purpose of All Complex Texts

Introduction / This is a framework which I would like you to apply to any kind of text that you come across, in whatever medium that you find it.
Emotion / The purpose of all complex texts is to create emotion within you. When you read something, it should arouse some sort of emotion, whether it be anger, love, pity, humour or a mix of the above. The trickiest texts (novels, films, plays, paintings, advertisements) are the ones that mix all of them.
Argument / An essay that is trying to convince you of something (like “global warming is bad”) may try and use the most cut and dried arguments, but, when you start peeling your way through the sentences, you can see the same techniques in use.
Oliver Twist Exercise / Read Chapters 1 and 2 of the work.
• How are you supposed to feel about Oliver?
• What are the difficulties Oliver experienced in coming to life?
• What happens to Oliver’s mother?
• Explain the last line of Chapter 1?
• What is the workhouse like?
• Who is Mr. Bumble?
Why is he named that way?
How are we supposed to feel about him?
• What is cruel and violent about Oliver’s life so far?
• What is the prediction for Oliver?

Reading for Content

Introduction / Content is the literal meaning of the words or what the story is about. Oliver Twist, for example, is about orphans in England. While Content is a fairly simple concept, it gets played out in many, many different ways.
What to look for? / When you read for content you are interested in the actual material that the writer is using. It is like reading a textbook. You just want the facts and the experience. How the writer presents it is secondary to this sort of reading.
You are looking for four types of information.
§  Social commentary
§  Philosophy
§  Auto-biography
§  Information
Social Commentary / Social Commentary is political opinion, either expressed or implied in the text. The author wants you to think a certain way and may want you to change your actions.
Questions / Re-read Chapter 2 of Oliver Twist answer the questions fully.
• How did the members of the parish board reform the workhouse?
• What does it work on providing the poor?
• How does Dickens want you to feel about this system?
• What does he want you to think about this type of welfare?
Philosophy / In this case, you are looking for an overall life philosophy that the author believes in.
For example, some modern authors believe that there is no God. They are at pains to show this in their writing
Questions / The following questions correspond to Chapter 2 in Oliver Twist. Answer the questions fully GIVING REASONS that include quotations from the chapter.
• Which characters does Dickens want you to like more: the philosophical men of the parish board or Oliver?
• What do you suppose Dicken’s philosophy of welfare would be?
Auto-Biography / The act of writing reveals a great deal about the writer's life. What he values in his writing is probably what he values in real life. Don't take this sort of analysis to seriously, however.
Shakespeare and others thought writing was an imperfect mirror, that showed the author as much as it shows life.
For example, Dickens used to walk 5-15 miles at a time, sometimes more. Therefore, in his novels, we often see characters walk long distances
Questions / The following questions correspond to Chapter 2 in Oliver Twist. Answer the questions fully GIVING REASONS that include quotations from the chapter.
• Does Dickens like kids over adults? Explain.
• Would Dickens believe in providing entertainment for the poor?
Information / Last but not least, when you look at content, you are often looking at new Information. If you read Tom Clancy’s novel The Hunt for Red October, for example, you will learn a great deal about submarines.
Questions / The following questions correspond to Chapter 2 in Oliver Twist. Answer the questions fully.
• What did it mean to ‘farm’ a baby orphan?
• How were workhouses managed?

Literary Terms for Content Reading

Introduction / The following literary terms are useful in analyzing the content of a passage.
Tone / Tone is the tone of voice that the author seems to be using.
Tone is usually described using words like:
• Humorous
• Ironic
• Sarcastic
• Hopeful
• Nostalgic
• Angry
• Mollifying
• Instructive
• Deadpan (or Flat)
• Elevated
Irony / A passage is ironic if its intended meaning is opposite its expressed meaning.
For example: “My favorite pastime is cleaning the toilet with my toothbrush.”
Paraphrase / Paraphrasing is a technique where you take a complicated passage and put it into your own words.
Audience / Any writer is making a story that is aimed at a particular audience. The writer makes some assumptions about his audience.
For example, Dickens assumed that his novel would not be read all in one gulp, but in short installations.
Persona / A Persona is the person who is telling the story. It is generally thought to be the “author’s voice” but that is misleading. Very often the persona and the author have very different sets of beliefs.
Dickens, for example, uses a very flat tone in some of his most rancorous passages. Dickens obviously feels differently, but he makes his persona speak in a different way.
Theme / The theme of a work is usually a general topic that runs throughout a work or even a body of work.
For example, Dickens often uses the theme of children beset by evil.
Jargon / Jargon is technical words, that might fit in one certain sort of paper, but generally should be avoided”
For example; Bus ports, ASCII text, C prompts, F-keys, and GUI’s are common terms among the computer geeks, but not with most people.
Cliché / A cliché is an overused, tired expression.
For example; “Fresh as a daisy”, “Old as the hills”, “Fat as a Whale”
Idiom / Idiom is the local talk of an area. It is a set of words that have a specific meaning in one section of a country.
For example: The word “Schooner” is only used in South Australia to refer to a 250ml sized glass of beer.
Oliver Twist / Re-read Chapters I & II of Oliver Twist and answer the following questions fully.
• What is the tone of Mrs Mann’s speech?
• How does Dickens use Irony?
• Paraphrase Mrs Mann’s method of childrearing.
• What Information do you learn about the care of orphans in these chapters?
• What clichés does Mrs Mann employ?

How to Read Prose Literature Closely

Reading for Symbolism

Introduction / Symbolism is a huge word that covers a wide variety of territories. For the purposes of reading prose literature closely, we can think of Symbols as concrete things that are used to represent an idea.
How to Read for Symbolism / Reading for Symbols, particularly in prose writing, is like gleaning a rubbish tip. After you have read a section for Content, go back through looking for examples of symbolism. After you have gone through the litter, you can find the one or two valuable bits in there.

Literary Terms for Symbolism

Introduction / There are many, many types of symbolism. This unit will introduce you to the major groups.
Similes / Similes are a comparison of two unlike things using like or as.
For example: “Sally’s smile was as wide as a sunflower.”
Similes work on two levels.
§  Literal: The object literally looks like this. In the example, Sally’s smiling mouth has a curved shape, like a flower’s ring of petals.
§  Figurative: The object has other characteristics in common. In the example, Sally’s bright mood attracts people as a flower’s pollen attracts bees. It also ‘opens up’ to people or emotions like flowers do to the sun.
Metaphor / Metaphors are comparisons between two unlike things without using like or as.
Like the simile, the metaphor also works on two levels.
For example: The sun is a giant lollipop.
Allegory / Allegory is an extended metaphor that stretches through the entire work.
For example; Many people think that The Lord of the Rings is an allegory for the coming of Nazism.
Personification / Personification happens when you give a non-living object those characteristics of a living one.
For example: The sea breathed a sigh of relief as its waves ran back over the sand.
Synecdoche / Synecdoche is weird word, but a common item. It happens when you use one small part to stand for a much larger part.
For example: Jack tried to count the cattle in the yards and decided there must be fifty head at least.
Hyperbole / Hyperbole is another weird word, but common item. It happens when you deliberately exaggerate something for effect.
For example: "If I don't eat soon, I'll die of starvation."
Under-statement / Understatement is the exact opposite of Hyperbole. In this, you deliberately lessen something for effect.
For example: "I was a bit put off when his gun went off."
Allusion / An allusion is a reference to another work. It is usually meant to convey emotion and not as a footnote.
For example: "You shall not nail the working man to a cross of Gold."
Oxymoron / Oxymoron is weird word and a weirder idea. It happens when you have two words next to each other than seem to contradict each other, but will produce a new idea.
For example: "She is a hideous beauty."
"Fiend Angelical"
Exercise:
Hard Times / Read Chapter 1 on the next page and answer the following questions fully.
• This chapter contains several similes. Find them, write them out and explain how they work on two levels.
• Dickens uses a great deal of Hyperbole and Understatement here. Where?
• The word “Facts” is used as synecdoche. How?
• Much of the power of this passage comes from the final metaphor. What is it?
• What is the tone of this passage?

How to Read Prose Literature Closely

Hard Times

BOOK THE FIRST – SOWING

CHAPTER 1 – THE ONE THING NEEDFUL

‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, - nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, - all helped the emphasis.

‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

The illustration is a title page vignette [Thomas Gradgrind Apprehends His Children Louisa and Tom at the Circus] by Harry French (wood engraving) for Dickens’s Hard Times for These Times in the British Household Edition, London: Chapman and Hall 1875; p. 1. Scan and text by Philip V. Allingham http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/french/11.html