WRITING TO

ANALYZE
ANALYTICAL WRITING
SOURCE: HTTPS://WWW.SLIDESERVE.COM/KARLYN/ANALYTICAL-WRITING

Writing that asks the questions “Why” and “How”

Writing that challenges both its writer and its readers to look
beyond surface presentations, and disassemble “complete things” to
examine their parts.
 Writing that proposes and expresses an informed and supported
point of view
 LITERARY
PERSPECTIVES
• Helps to explain why people interpret the same story in different
ways
• Perspective is likened to a lens to which one can look to examine a
text
• Using different perspectives/lenses in reading a literary text often
helps one to discover something new, intriguing, or unexpected
DIFFERENT
LITERARY
PERSPECTIVES/
LENSES
READER-RESPONSE
asserts that a great deal of meaning in a text lies with how the reader responds
to it.
 Focuses on the act of reading and how it affects our perception of meaning
in a text (how we feel at the beginning vs. the end)
 Deals more with the process of creating meaning and experiencing a text as
we read. A text is an experience, not an object.
 The text is a living thing that lives in the reader’s imagination.

READER + READING SITUATION + TEXT = MEANING

2 IMPORTANT IDEAS IN READER-
RESPONSE
1. An individual reader’s interpretation usually changes
over time.
2. Readers from different generations and different time
periods interpret texts differently.
GUIDE QUESTIONS

What does the text have to do with you, personally?

How much does the text agree with your view of the
world?
What is your over-all reaction of the text?
FORMALIST
emphasizes the form of a literary work to determine its meaning,
focusing on literary elements and how they work to create meaning.
– Examines a text as independent from its time period, social
setting, and author’s background. A text is an independent entity.
– Focuses on close readings of texts and analysis of the effects of
literary elements and techniques on the text.
TWO MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF
FORMALISM
1. A literary text exists independent of any particular reader
and, in a sense, has a fixed meaning.
2. The greatest literary texts are “timeless” and “universal.”
GUIDE QUESTIONS

How do various elements of the work reinforce its

meaning?
What recurring patterns (repeated or related words,
images and others) can you find?
What figures of speech are used?
PSYCHOLOGICAL/PSYCHOANALYTICA
L
views a text as a revelation of its author’s mind and
personality. It is based on the work of Sigmund Freud .
– Also focuses on the hidden motivations of literary
characters
– Looks at literary characters as a reflection of the writer
GUIDE QUESTIONS

What forces are motivating the character?

What conscious or unconscious conflicts exist between the
characters?
Are the theories of Freud or other psychologists applicable to this
work? To what degree?
What do the characters’ emotions and behaviors reveal about their
psychological states?
MARXIST

emphasizes economic and social conditions. It is

based on the political theory of Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels.
 Concerned with understanding the role of power,
politics, and money in literary texts
GUIDE QUESTIONS

What does the work say about economic or social power?

Does the story address issues of economic exploitation?
Does the work challenge or affirm the social order it depicts?
Can the protagonist’s struggle be seen as symbolic of a larger class
struggle?
FEMINIST

is concerned with the role, position, and influence of

women in a literary text.
 Asserts that most “literature” throughout time has been
written by men, for men.
 Examines the way that the female consciousness is
depicted by both male and female writers.
TAKE THIS RIDDLE…

• A father and his son are in a car accident. The father

dies at the scene and the son is rushed to the hospital.
At the hospital the surgeon looks at the boy and says
"I can't operate on this boy, he is my son" .... How
can this be?
THE SURGEON IS THE CHILD’S
MOTHER
• What does this simple riddle reveal about our assumptions
regarding gender?
GUIDE QUESTIONS
How are women’s lives portrayed in the work?
Is the form and content of the work influenced by the
writer’s gender?
How do the male and female characters relate to one
another?
Does the work challenge or affirm traditional views of
women?
HISTORICAL

 A branch of history which looked at literature of evidence about

economic and political events going on at the time at which the
works were produced, and that also looked at historical events to
explain the content of literary works.
insisted that to understand a literary piece, we need to understand
the author’s biography and social background, ideas circulating at
the time, and the cultural milieu
GUIDE QUESTIONS

What literary or historical influences helped to shape the

form and content of the work?
How does the story reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the
time in which it was written or set?
What historical events or movements might have
influenced this writer?
ARCHETYPAL/MYTH

• assumes that there is a collection of symbols, images, characters,

and motifs (i.e. archetypes) that evokes basically the same response
in all people
• identifies these patterns and discusses how they function in the
works
• asserts that these archetypes are the source of much of literature's
power.
SOME ARCHETYPES
 archetypal women - the Good Wife/Mother, the Terrible Mother, the Virgin (often a Damsel in
Distress), and the Fallen Woman.
 water - creation, birth-death-resurrection, purification, redemption, fertility, growth
 garden - paradise (Eden), innocence, fertility
 desert - spiritual emptiness, death, hopelessness
 red - blood, sacrifice, passion, disorder
 green - growth, fertility
 black - chaos, death, evil
 serpent - evil, sensuality, mystery, wisdom, destruction
 seven - perfection
 hero archetype -  The hero is involved in a quest (in which he overcomes obstacles). He
experiences initiation (involving a separation, transformation, and return), and finally he
serves as a scapegoat, that is, he dies to atone.
GUIDE QUESTIONS

• How does this story resemble other stories in plot,

character, setting, or symbolism?
• What universal experiences are depicted?
• How and why are these archetypes embodied in the works?
SOURCES

• Lim, Hamada, Alata , (2019). A Course Module for Purposive CommunicationLiterary

Theories www.wsfcs.k12.nc.us 
• Critical Approaches to Literature, dinus.ac.id 
THANK YOU