Lesson №4 Theme №4

Context and Literary Analysis
Publication opens a work up to criticism, including literary analysis, which dissects and evaluates literature to make connections that general audiences may have missed. Literary analysis hinges on context. Scholars and critics engage in close reading to discover deeper meaning, identify narrative patterns or themes, and detect influences, then analyze and synthesize their findings. They bring these disparate details together like puzzle pieces to explain why and how a text is significant and how it fits into culture and literature in general.


Writers’ Vernacular and Context Clues
When a reader encounters an unfamiliar word, they study the surrounding text to discern its meaning. This process of gleaning connotation is called using context clues. These are details that directly or indirectly suggest information about a word, phrase, or situation.
There are several types of context clues, the following five being the most common.
• Definition and explanation: There’s nothing subtle about these context clues, as the author clarifies the word’s intended meaning directly in the text.
• Inferences: When a word or idea is not explained within the same sentence, readers must decipher the writer’s implied or indirect meaning from the surrounding text.
• Synonyms and comparison: Synonyms draw comparisons that clarify, refine, or emphasize a writer’s meaning.
• Antonyms and contrast: Antonyms convey an opposite meaning to underscore contrast or disparity.
• Punctuation: Writers can use punctuation to several effects, such as conveying emotion (e.g., using exclamation points to express anger) or implying meaning (e.g., using parenthetical asides to suggest confidentiality).


Cultural Context
The cultural context of a text helps the reader understand what is happening and why. It is made of up several factors including setting/location, background, cultures, beliefs, and community. Each of these items affects how a reader looks at and understands what is happening in that text.
For example, to understand the plot of the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the reader must think about where the story is taking place (setting/location), when the story is taking place (year/time), who is involved (the characters), and what values and beliefs those characters have. The setting of the book is in the racially divided Deep South of the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930's. The main character, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer who is also a widowed father of two children. Mr. Finch is called upon to defend an African-American man who is accused of raping a white woman. Knowing the cultural context of the book makes the plot and what Mr. Finch is doing all the more significant, given how African-Americans were viewed and treated at that time and place. In this way, cultural context becomes just as important to understanding the plot of the novel as is knowing about the characters and from what point of view the story is being told.