Objective one: This is an exercise in “close reading.” writing on a novella, choose a passage no more than one page in
length. For the play, choose one scene. from David Henry Hwang: M. Butterfly
objective two: You will then carefully analyze some of the patterns, use of language, metaphors, or intertextual allusions
(many of which are Greek). Your goal is to show how the passage works at the level of language. Do not worry about
introductions or conclusions. Don’t even worry about producing an overall coherent argument yet. Instead, concentrate on
showing how a text works at the most basic level: individual words and sentences, from which patterns begin to emerge.
If this leads you to make larger points about the text as a whole, feel free to do so. But be careful to avoid
generalizations. It is notoriously difficult to pin down the meaning of an entire text, since it is comprised of so many
different parts, many of which contradict each other. Any larger sense of a text’s significance can only be gained through
analysis of its use of language in particular moments and passages.
Finally: Include a copy of the text you are analyzing and staple it to the back of your paper.
Some aspects of literary language you might find helpful to think about are:
• Word choice (diction): Is the language colloquial or formal, or some combination of the two? Why is one word used and not
another (English is rich in synonyms, so there are many paths a writer, especially a poet, can take). Are these words
“appropriate” for the speaker or narrator? How do characters speak to each other? Do they have different stylistic
tendencies?
• Syntax: Are sentences short and clear, or gnarled and complex, with multiple clauses? What effects to these choices of
syntax have?
• Narrative point-of-view: Whose perspective is presented in the text at different moments? If the perspective changes, how
and when does the switch between points-of-view occur? What does the text leave unsaid by its choice of perspective? How are
readers positioned in relation to the narrative focus: knowing more than the narrator does? Knowing less?
• Tone: is the work comic, serious, wry, ironic, philosophical, light-hearted, etc? How do you know?
