Choose a character or narrator from one of our stories find 2-3 key passages about that character

On Angela Carter’s Tiger’s Bride

Lately we’ve been talking about characters. We analyze their appearances, gestures, dialogue, thoughts, feelings, actions—all to understand their abilities and limitations, inhibitions and motives, fears and desires. Since they consist literally of text, to understand the factors that shape their inner lives and influence their decisions, we have to perform close readings.

Close reading is about showing how form (language) shapes content (character). This requires thinking small: zooming in, interpreting as much meaning as possible from minute details, then using these minor assertions as bits of evidence in a larger argument about a human concern—in this case, the quality of a character.

Choose a character or narrator from one of our stories, find 2-3 key passages about that character, and perform a close reading on any specific feature of the text. You can investigate one feature in isolation or explore how 2 features (like diction/syntax or diction/image) work together create a single effect.

If you’re unsure what feature to focus on, just start writing about what most captures your attention, pour out your thoughts, see how far you get, then revise. Most writers write in a recursive rather than a linear manner: they write, think it over, and rewrite, again and again. They use writing as a tool to develop their ideas.

After you analyze your passages, find what overarching conclusion you can draw from all of them. Write that conclusion in a sentence. This is your thesis. Building from the bottom-up—form detail to argument—is how new, exciting arguments are discovered.

The character can come from anything we’ve read on or after February 6

The character must be chosen from a story you haven’t already written about.

You’re welcome to use a reading prompt response as a starting point.

Close reading:

Notice (The specific feature of the text)

Interpret (How it works, what it means)

Explain significance (Why it matters, why we should care)

Features you could analyze:

Diction (word choice, types of vocabularies, types of verbs, nouns)

Parts of Speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Types of words (germanic, latinate)

Vocabulary categories (i.e. medical terms, filmmaking terms, science, nautical language, religious terms, slang, etc)

Syntax (sentence structure, length, cadence, punctuation)

Tone (impassioned, dry, earnest, ironic)

Imagery (concrete, figurative)

Motifs (recurring images, phrases, words)

Rhetorical devicesLinks to an external site. (litotes, pleonasm, euphemism, irony, wit, humor, etc)

Figures of speech Links to an external site.(anaphora, polysyndeton, aposiopesis, etc.)

Repetition (of words, phrases, images)

Sound (consonance, assonance, alliteration, rhyme, types of consonants and vowels)

Learning goals:

Hone your close reading skills and understanding of literary character

Write with specificity to achieve compression and nuance

Grading criteria:

Specificity and sophistication of your close reading

Organization and clarity of your close reading