2.13 ANALYZING STYLE AND THEME

While sometimes the goal of analyzing style is to pick up on the speaker’s or narrator’s tone and figure out how that tone is created, other times we want to look at how these stylistic moves help create the meaning of the work as a whole: the theme. You can use the analysis process to guide your close reading:

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  1. Make observations

    • Diction (pp. 45–46)

    • Syntax (pp. 46–47)

    • Figurative Language (p. 47)

    • Imagery (pp. 47–48)

  2. Identify patterns

    • Curiosities. Places where the author uses an interesting word or phrase, or uses words in an unusual or unexpected way

    • Repetitions. Places where the same words or phrases are used several times, or an image is repeated often throughout the work

    • Opposites. Places in a work where the words or phrases intentionally contrast with each other; perhaps the syntax puts sentences in conflict with each other

    • Links. Connections in the text to something else outside of the text

  3. Draw conclusions about the work as a whole

    • Theme (pp. 29–34)