A well-known example of an allegorical text is George Orwell’s Animal Farm. If you are analysing this text, you should read extracts as examples of allegories. For example, Napoleon is an allegorical counterpart of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
For example, in T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men,’ there is an allusion to a celestial rose described by Dante in his Paradiso. At one point in Eliot’s poem the reader encounters the phrase ‘multifoliate rose,’ but Eliot does not mention Dante or the Paradiso by name. This is an allusion. Had Eliot quoted Dante’s Paradiso, then we would refer to this as a quotation (see below).
The opening line of William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’ provides an example of alliteration: ‘Tyger, tyger, burning bright,’ and this technique is used throughout the poem.
- Syntactic ambiguity – Ambiguous statements that may have multiple meanings due to the punctuation of the sentence
- Semantic ambiguity – Ambiguous statements that could have multiple meanings because of the choice of words
- Narrative ambiguity – Ambiguity surrounding the plot or characters and their motives
- Conceptual ambiguity – Ambiguity about the concepts, themes, or ideas in the text.
Ambiguity is a higher order technique that can develop tension and uncertainty throughout. It is a technique you must know. You can learn more about it, here!
For example, In 2016 a Fox News article repeated a clichéd analogy in a headline: ‘Is America collapsing like the Roman Empire?’ The journalist is suggesting that we can understand aspects of the United States today by appreciating their similarity with aspects of the Roman Empire.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Professor Dumbledore offers the following anecdote about his brother:
“My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practising inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual! Of course, I’m not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery….” (Goblet of Fire, P. 454)
This anecdote is a clue to eagle-eyed readers that Aberforth, Dumbledore’s brother, is the barman of the Hog’s Head Tavern and the reason why Dumbledore knows so much about what happens there.
Napoleon the pig in Animal Farm has been anthropomorphised – he speaks and acts like a person – and this allows Orwell to use him in an allegorical way.
In ‘The Sunne Rising” by John Donne, the speaker refers to,
“Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on
us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch …”
Here, the speaker takes a casual (colloquial) register and mocking tone to chide the sun for interrupting him and his lover in bed.
Homer’s Penelope from The Illiad and The Odysseyis considered the archetype of the faithful wife. While now understood as sexist and misogynistic, for many centuries Penelope was held up as an example of the perfect wife and used to restrict women’s behaviour and freedom.
An example of assonance is ‘she sells sea shells by sea shore.’Like alliteration, assonance can contribute particular meanings or effects, but is often simply an organising feature.
Again, use with caution!
Alain De Botton’s Art of Travel can be broadly considered a bricolage text. This pluralistic method of representation, which reflects de Botton’s postmodernist context, suggests that there are multiple, equally valuable versions of reality – those found in art and those that we experience individually.
For example, the statements “brave as a lion” or “opposites attract” are clichés that define personal traits and relationships, respectively.
For example, John Keat’s “Ode to a Nightingale” employs half-rhyming consonance in the first stanza. We can see this in the first two lines:
“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,”
There is consonance in the “n” sounds in the first line and the “k” sounds in the second.
Paradox, antithesis, oxymoron, juxtaposition, contrast in description are all techniques that employ contrast.
For example, In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Pt 1, there is a consistent contrasting occurring between Henry, the title character, who is old and stern; his young son, Hal, or is wild, unpredictable and intelligent; and, the quick-tempered and stubborn Hotspur, Hal’s rival for the throne. Shakespeare contrasts these figures to discuss the ideal qualities of a king.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell includes dialogue from a woman speaking in co*ckney English, a dialect historically associated with East London and the working class. From this, the reader can infer that the Proles in Orwell’s novel are descendants of co*ckney speakers, an inference even the novel’s protagonist would not be able to make.
In the ‘Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock’, T.S Eliot utilises diction to convey the decay of humanity. His careful choice of language, particularly in “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;/I know the voices dying with a dying fall.” Through comparing the quantity of life he has remaining to coffee spoons, Eliot is able to emphasise the degradation and fragility of human life.
For example, Jane Austen’s Emma is considered by some to be a didactic text because it presents examples of how a young woman should and shouldn’t behave.
For example, in the sentence, “I talk about writing from here.” You, the reader, will assume that “I” am a teacher at Matrix and that by “here” I mean that I am writing from or at one of the Matrix campuses.
Composers can manipulate and disorientate their readers by disrupting deixis in their texts.
TS Eliot utilises deixis extensively in ‘The Hollow Men.’ He refers to an unknown “I” and “we” and numerous places connoted as “here” to disorientate the reader.
Jane Austen beginsPride and Prejudice with a disjunct: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The initial clause about acknowledged truth is modified by “universally” to make it hyperbolic and satirise the regency conventions of marriage.
For example, in the Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald Nick Carraway observes that: “Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on.” Inthis quotation, ‘but’ is used to dramatically dismiss the religious allusion in the previous clause.
In literature, Ellipsis can be employed in a variety of different ways. Most commonly, a dramatic pause is signalled by (…) creates tension or suggests words can’t be spoken. For example, if a character were to suggest doubt about what another has just said they might respond with, “…Sure…,” where the pauses convey the speaker’s scepticism. InTo The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf employs ellipsis to convey the unease at the Ramsay dinner table: “Why don’t some of you take up botany?.. With all those legs and arms why doesn’t one of you . . .?” So they would talk as usual, laughing, among the children. ”
In addition, Woolf uses a different form of ellipsis in the second chapter of the novel, “Time Passes”. Here, she uses parenthetical insertions [in square parenthesis] to denote a passing of time – 10 years – and significant events and interrupt the narrative in each section. For example, in section 6 Woolf represents both Prue Ramsay’s marriage and subsequent death in two parenthetical remarks that bookend a description of summer: “[Prue Ramsay, leaning on her father’s arm, was given in marriage. What, people said, could have been more fitting? And, they added, how beautiful she looked!]” and then, “[Prue Ramsay died that summer in some illness connected with childbirth, which was indeed a tragedy, people said, everything, they said, had promised so well.]”
For example, Prince Hamlet’s self-indulgent rant in Scene to of Shakespeare’s Hamlet uses emotive language to describe how depressed he is:
“O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!”
In The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot, the persona states:
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;”
This use of enjambment conveys a romantic image of a night sky only to contrast it with the macabre image of an unconscious patient about to undergo surgery. This is jarring contrast further emphasized by the rejet.
For example, an embarrassed student might tell their parent that they had a “working lunch” rather than admitting to having been given a lunchtime detention for poor behaviour.
In Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ the persona’s insecurities about their appearance are conveyed with the exclamation: “(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)”
You will find specific examples ofthe above techniques throughout this toolkit.
A significant flashback occurs in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, in Part Two, Chapter 7. In this scene, a traumatic dream causes a flashback in the protagonist Winston Smith. The flashback concerns painful memories involving his family. The spontaneous nature of this flashback suggests that Winston has gone to lengths to repress the traumatic memory involving his family. It is also a narrative device. By revealing new details about Winston’s past, Orwell keeps the reader engaged and interested.
T.S. Eliot used fragmentation in tandem with symbolism to explore non-mimetic forms of expression, for example in ‘The Hollow Men’. Fragmentation will usually convey notions of destruction and decay, so when interpreting instances of it think about what sorts of themes your author is exploring.
In Emma, Jane Austen uses hyperbole in Elton’s comment that, “I have no hesitation in saying — at least if my friend feels at all as I do — I have not the smallest doubt that, could he see his little effusion honoured as I see it, (looking at the book again, and replacing it on the table), he would consider it as the proudest moment of his life,” to convey the growing misunderstanding between Elton, Harriet, and Emma about who fanices whom.
Imagery is language that evokes one of the five senses, and you must always refer to the specific kind. In other words, never use simply ‘imagery,’ but always ‘olfactory imagery,’ ‘tactile imagery,’ ‘visual imagery,’ ‘auditory imagery’ or ‘gustatory imagery.’ Occasionally, students, noticing that ‘visual imagery’ is something of a tautology, omit the adjective ‘visual’ when referring to this category. They shouldn’t, though. Always be specific.
Before the third section of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston and Julia are caught. A man named Mr. Charrington, whom Winston had believed was a gentle shopkeeper, turns out to be a member of the secret police. Mr. Charrington’s authority in the secret police is indicated by his use of the imperative to command another officer when he first enters the room.
The song of the Weird Sisters, or Three Witches, in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) is a good example of an incantation:
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good. (4.1.36-40)
For example, much of the meaning in Margaret Edson’s play W;tis developed through constant intertextual references to the poetry of John Donne.
Homer’s Iliad, the first text of western literature, begins in medias res. The Tempest begins in medias res, many years after Prospero and his daughter, Miranda, have been stranded on Caliban’s Isle after Antonio’s treachery.
For example In Fitzgerald’sThe Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway’s assertion that, “I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores,” is ironic because he is not, in fact, reserving judgement on those he calls “veteran bores.”
In Act 3, Scene 4 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the eponymous Prince holds up images of his father and uncle to illustrate Hamlet’s feelings about their differences through juxtaposition:
“Look here upon this picture and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow?
…Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear
Blasting his wholesome brother.”(3.4.54-67
- Slang: Hey, how youse goin, cuz’?
- Colloquial: G’day, how ya going, mate?
- Informal: How’re you doing?
- Formal: Hello, how are you today, Ms?
In a linear narrative, authors simply tell the reader what happens in their story chronologically.
The linear narrative of a bank robbery might begin with the bandits approaching in their car and move through all the noteworthy incidents until their inevitable capture and arrest.
While it begins in media res, Shakespeare’sThe Tempest is a linear narrative.
The non-linear version might begin in media res during a shootout, and move backwards to explain how the robbers arrived in their predicament, before moving forwardto the resolution of the story. Margaret Atwood’sHagseed is a non-linear text.
Metaphor is one of the most fundamental figures of speech, and indeed aspects of language itself. Literary texts are typically dense in metaphor. In the cases of writers such as Shakespeare, it is impossible to understand the text without constantly unpacking metaphors.
In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Pt 1, Sir John Fallstaffpuns on the hom*onyms “son” and “sun” to develop the metaphor of Prince Hal as the Sun, the ruler of the heavens:
“If then thou be son to me, here lies the point: why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? . . . Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses?” (2.4.359-67)
The Kremlin, for example, has long been conventionally used as a metonym for the Russian government.
A student might say, “I’m going to Matrix.” But they really mean that they are going to the Matrix Hurstville Campus. In this usage, the proper noun, “Matrix,” is metonymic with all of the Matrix campuses.
- High modality = Certainty. “It will hail today.”
- Medial modality (also called Semi-modality)= doubt that something that should occur will occur. “It ought to rain today.”
- Low modality = Uncertainty. “It may rain today.”
In Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald utilises the recurring motif of weather to reflect the emotions experienced by the characters. When Daisy and Gatsy reunite it is pouring however when there love reignites the sun is just coming out.
Sometimes this can be overt, as in “the drip-dripping and plip-plopping of a tap.”
Other times, this can be more subtle, such as in “The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eve” from John Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale.” This example is specifically known as mechanical onomatopoeia because the sound of the word imitates the same sound being referenced – “murmurous” sounds like the low buzz of a swarm of flies.
In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Party’s slogan “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength,” is a clear example of a paradox whereby each idea contradicts the other. Thus, Orwell clearly utilises contradictory statements throughout his novel to place emphasis on a society controlled by a totalitarian government.
InGeorge Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four Winston reads a heretical political tract called ‘The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism’. This tract is clearly a parody of political writing and in particular the theoretical writing of communist revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin. Orwell’s aim is to subvert the self-important, vague, and even contradictory style found in these texts.
In Dickens’Great Expectations, Pip’s misery is reflected in the weather which surrounds him:
“It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all.”
- First person refers to the speaker himself or a group that includes the speaker (i.e., I, me, we and us). T.S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’ is afirst person narrative.
- Second person refers to the speaker’s audience (i.e., you). Italo Calvino’sIf On A Winter’s Night A Travelleris a narrative in the second person.
- Third person refers to everybody else (e.g., he, him, she, her, it, they, them), including all other nouns (e.g. James, Swedish, fish, mice). Jane Austen’s Emma is written in the third person.
Some texts might shift between different perspectives throughout. T.S. Eliot’s ‘Preludes’ is relatively unusual in that it switches between first, second, and third person throughout.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius often speaks periphrastically, from which the reader can infer much about his character.
Personification is usually well-understood by students. It is a specific kind of metaphor in which human attributes are applied to nonhumans. Note that unlike pathetic fallacy, personification involves theapplication of any form of anattribute, not just emotions. Like other forms of metaphor, it is widely used in literature, as well as daily life.
In John Donne’s ‘Death,be Not Proud,’ Donne personifies Death.
Richard’s famous soliloquy at the start of Mod A text Richard III includes a pun. Speaking at the end of a battle, Richard declares that ‘Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York.’ The sun of York brings this summer, and ‘sun’ is, of course, a pun on ‘son’ as Edward is the first son of the York family – and thus the rightful heir to the throne (according to the Yorks).
‘No! I am not Prince Hamlet’ is a reference to Shakespeare’sHamlet in his T.S. Eliot’s poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’
A famous example of repetition comes at the end of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Declaring that this repetition ‘highlights’ or ‘emphasises’ Eliot’s idea tells the reader nothing. To begin with, what is the idea? Repetition here has to be interpreted in the context of the central themes of the poem. You could begin by thinking about how this repetition relates to the cycles of revolution alluded to elsewhere in the poem, or to the scientific theories, including the theory of entropy, Eliot appears to explore. You can read more about how repetition works here.
Satire is often a part of Shakespeare’s plays, such as in the historical play, Henry IV, Part 1. Many critics argue that the character of Falstaff is a satirical representation of Sir John Oldcastle, a Lollard (the pre-cursor to protestants) who was executed for treason and heresy. Falstaff’s character was originally called, John Oldcastle, but complaints by a prominent Lord, William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, forced Shakespeare to rename him.
For example, in John Keats’ ‘Hyperion’ he develops a sinister mood through sibilance in the description, “Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge Stubborn’d with iron.”
King Hamlet uses simile to emphasise his sufferings in hell, declaring to Hamlet that the details of his tortures would:
“Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.”
Although all language is symbolic, literary symbolism usually refers more specifically to the use of objects to represent ideas and emotions. The Eliot poems set for study in Module B are all heavily symbolic. Consider the following example, from the opening of Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’:
’We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.”
A first step in interpreting the symbolism is to think about the ideas the objects conventionally imply. ‘Hollow’ and ‘dried’ and ‘dry’ all evoke aridity. This suggests the poem might be concerned with decline and decay. Eliot was influenced by Frazer’s Golden Bough, which he cited in the notes to his most famous poem, The Waste Land. (A reader wanting to push her analysis further would look into how the symbols evoking aridity reflect Frazer’s theory that a number of important religions, including Christianity, had their origins in prehistoric fertility cults.)
For example, in the English sentence ‘John thanked the president,’ we know that John is the one doing the thanking since English syntax usually follows a subject, verb, object order. ‘John’ is the subject, ‘thanked’ is the verb, and ‘the president’ is the object.
If I swap the roles, the nouns of English syntax change the meaning of the sentence: ‘The president thanked John.’Therefore, when referring to syntax as a technique, you need to provide further analysis. Some strategies you can take to assess this are:
- Complex syntax is a marker of a high education. This could imply a narrative voice that is well-educated.
- Simple syntax might be a marker of poor education, as might fragmented or incomplete syntax.
T.S Eliot’s ‘Preludes’ is written in the present continuous tense in sections I and II but then is written in the past tense in sections III and IV.
For example, in Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago’s bestial and demonic diction is adopted by Othello as the play progresses, symbolising the loss of Othello’s nobility.
It is used, for example, in Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’:
“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.”
The fog appears to be compared with a dog, which is suggested by the actions of the fog and the diction throughout, such as the word ‘muzzle.’ This somewhat uncanny image is difficult to interpret, but at the least relates to the disorientation caused to the speaker by the urban environment.