Analyzing Literature Chapter Notes | Language Arts for Grade 12 PDF Download

Introduction

If the idea of diving into literary analysis makes you uneasy, you’re not alone. Many teachers oversimplify the process, suggesting every book has just one correct interpretation. That’s far from true! With countless ways to examine literature—through characters, symbols, and themes—there are endless valid perspectives. Join our quick course to learn how to deeply engage with the literature you enjoy.

Methods of Analyzing Literature

Biographical Criticism

• This widely used but often misunderstood approach assumes that knowing an author’s life story is essential for analyzing their work. Many believe that a writer’s stories reflect their personality, emotions, struggles, or doubts. However, it’s a mistake to view every piece of writing as a form of personal confession or self-therapy. Authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, and Paul Auster playfully mocked this idea by crafting dubious protagonists—imagine the chaos if we took those characters literally.
• That said, some biographical context can be useful for understanding the broader circumstances shaping an author’s work, even if it doesn’t directly aid analysis. For instance, Charles Bukowski’s misogynistic themes might not be fully explained by his texts alone but become clearer when you consider the environment he grew up in, which often fostered negative views toward women.
• Historical context tied to an author’s life is also valuable. 
  • For example, understanding Salman Rushdie’s references to Indian independence and its political aftermath enriches the analysis of Saleem Sinai’s role in shaping India’s future in his narrative. Similarly, when Chinua Achebe depicts African characters navigating relationships with “settlers,” knowledge of colonial history in Africa provides crucial context. In short, familiarize yourself with the author’s background, but don’t assume their work is a direct reflection of their life.

Genre and Period Approaches

• Literature spans various eras—such as Romanticism, Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian, American Transcendentalism, or Naturalism—and an even wider array of genres, including realism, fantasy, science fiction, thriller, action, and adventure. 
• Some historical periods align with specific genres; for instance, Romanticism refers both to a distinct time when certain works were written and to the characteristics of those works. 
• Poets like William Wordsworth and John Keats, for example, often emphasized Arcadian freedom, lofty morals, and ideals in response to the Industrial Revolution and urban expansion, unlike a twentieth-century science fiction writer.

New Historicism

• Developed by Stephen Greenblatt, who remains passionate about lecturing on Shakespeare, this critical approach extracts historical insights from literary texts. 
• Greenblatt suggests that the edges of a literary work contain valuable clues about the historical period in which it was written, allowing analysis within that context (e.g., feuding Italian families in Romeo and Juliet). Additionally, textual hints can reveal details about the era, such as the types of social events described in Shakespeare’s time.
• To apply this method, seek out texts that were available to the audience of the work you’re studying (e.g., Macbeth) when it was published. 
• These texts can shed light on the cultural, social, and political dynamics that influenced the work’s creation. New Historicism places particular emphasis on Shakespearean texts and Renaissance theater.

Post-Structuralism

As the name implies, post-structuralism dismisses the idea that literature can be fully understood through rigid structures or rules. Kudos to post-structuralists for their innovative thinking. However, this approach works best with literature from the twentieth century onward, as earlier writers often borrowed recurring leitmotifs from one another.

• A core principle of post-structuralism analysis is that symbols are not universally consistent—what a blue curtain signifies in Tolstoy’s work might differ entirely in Adichie’s. The meaning is shaped by context, not the other way around.
• Additionally, post-structuralism views language as opaque, capable of concealing, deceiving, or misleading. This perspective holds that the author’s intended message is less significant because linguistic filters can alter meaning. Instead, the focus is on what the text communicates to each reader, who brings their own worldview, past readings, and personal biases, resulting in a unique interpretation for each individual.

Feminist and Queer Criticism

• In the twentieth century, literary criticism expanded to address various social, political, and cultural issues. 
• Feminist criticism, along with the queer criticism that emerged from it, centers on women’s writing, the portrayal of women in literature, and the broader dynamics of cultural dominance by (white) male authors, patriarchy, and other oppressive systems. 
• For an accessible entry into feminist criticism, consider reading the novel Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo.

More Practical Tips on Analyzing Literature through a Critical Lens

• Knowing the different schools of criticism is great, but how do you actually apply them? When you tackle a literary work from a deliberately precise critical angle, your interpretation will largely depend on the particular theory you’re using.
• For instance, if you’re analyzing a realist novel by Gogol, you’ll need to understand what realism signifies in literature—what types of characters you’re likely to find, whether they function as archetypes or symbols for values and ideas, or if they simply mirror ordinary people of that period. Likewise, if you want to study Fight Club, you’ll need to grasp what postmodern literature involves: how it handles language, consciousness, and ethics, how it critiques capitalism, and how these elements appear in the novel (and the film adaptation). When Tyler Durden launches into rants about big businesses, it’s just as much an attack on consumer culture as the Narrator’s mindless flipping through catalogs.
• I describe this as “clinical” because the strongest literary analyses also take the cultural context into account. To do this well, it helps to combine a literary approach with a sociocultural one, like feminist theory, queer theory, postmodern thought (especially regarding capitalism and consumerism), or postcolonial theory (which is naturally political). This approach is informally known as distant reading.

Analyzing Literature – Close Reading

To make this discussion more practical, remember there are parts of literature you can study without diving too deep into heavy theory (that’s usually for those majoring in literature). Focusing in on the text’s details is informally called close reading.

Analyzing Characters in Literature

• Characters are central to almost every book (and if they’re not, there’s usually a specific, often experimental, reason). They make choices, stir up trouble—so how should you analyze them?
• Ask yourself these questions when studying characters:
  • What is their personality like?
  • How does the author describe them? What do other characters say about them—and what do these perspectives reveal about both the character and the people describing them?
  • How do their surroundings shape who they are?
  • In what ways are they similar to or different from other characters, and what does that tell us?
  • What are their key traits, and when are these traits most evident?
  • How do their choices influence the plot?
  • How does the character evolve throughout the story?
  • What lessons does the character learn, and what can readers take away from this?
• When you analyze characters, don’t just summarize—interpret! What does it signify if a character is driven by greed? Is it a form of social commentary? Is it tied to a particular historical period? What motivates this trait, and what outcomes does it produce?
• Example: Take Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice. She’s curious, well-read, and has no qualms about speaking her mind. But why? She represents and critiques the society she lives in—one where women are expected to be passive and silent. By speaking up, she alters her world. In contrast, her youngest sisters come off as superficial, not merely to make readers cringe, but because Jane Austen is satirizing society’s expectations for women and showing the fallout of those ideals. (This is a perfect moment to bring in a bit of new historicism!)

Example: Theand Hmaid’s Tale critiques totalitarian systems, which we see through the suffering of the handmaids and the flashbacks that reveal how Gilead came to be. When June (borrowing her name from the TV series) talks about the pictures on shop doors, it underscores that women aren’t allowed to read in Gilead. In Atwood’s dystopian world, controlling knowledge goes hand in hand with stripping away freedoms and human rights, showing how indoctrination works when women can’t access tools to resist oppression. Here too, you can see how feminist theory helps pull the analysis together.

An easterly is the most disagreeable wind in Lyme Bay—Lyme Bay being that largest bite from the underside of England’s outstretched southwestern leg—and a person of curiosity could at once have deduced several strong probabilities about the pair who began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis, the small but ancient eponym of the inbite, one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867.

For example: Huckleberry Finn’s illiteracy is apparent from the outset of his dialogue. Yet, when he rescues a Black man from the brink of slavery and possible death, Huck begins to question the roots of racism and whether it’s justifiable to judge people by their skin color (especially considering he lives in the pro-slavery South). Interestingly, much of the racism directed at Black individuals stems from the flawed belief in their inferiority to whites, despite Huck’s own inability to read or do much else. Nevertheless, his lack of education is overshadowed by his innate sense of spirit and a robust moral compass that drives his actions.

Example: The green light in The Great Gatsby is an unusual fixation for nightly gazing. Its repeated appearance signals its symbolic nature, and after reading the novel, you’ll understand its connection to Gatsby’s longing for something unattainable. Always out of reach yet perpetually shining—much like the saying about the grass being greener on the other side.