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Knowing the background of the text and its author can help you understand the influences on the text. To understand the context of the text, answer the following questions:  When was the text written? What is the historical background of the work? What is the author’s background? What genre does the author work in? Who are the author's contemporaries? How does this text fit in with the author's larger body of work? Did the writer provide their inspiration for the text? What type of society does the author come from? How does the text’s time period shape its meaning? The theme encompasses the subject and the writer’s thoughts on that subject. It helps to think of the theme as the message of the book. What is the author trying to say?  A short story might have 1 or 2 themes, while a novel might have several. If the text has several themes, they might be related. For example, the themes of a sci-fi novel might be “technology is dangerous” and “cooperation can overcome tyranny.” The main ideas will likely be related to the theme of the text. Examine the characters, their relationships, and actions, and the issues that arise in the text to identify the main ideas.  Notice the character’s words, actions, and thoughts. Consider what they convey about the character, as well as possible themes. Watch for symbolism, metaphor, and the use of other literary devices. Pull out direct quotes where the author illustrates their points. For a longer text, you will likely find several. It’s a good idea to note as many as you can, especially if you’ve been assigned an essay or will be tested over the material. You can use these quotes to support your own claims about the text if you write an analysis essay. The writer’s style can include their word choice, phrasing, and syntax, which is the arrangement of the words in a sentence. Although style can be strictly an aesthetic quality, it can also contribute to the text’s meaning.  For example, Edgar Allan Poe’s style of writing enhanced the effect of his poems and stories in an intentional way. If you were analyzing one of his texts, you’d want to consider his individual style. As another example, Mark Twain uses dialect in his novel Pudd'nhead Wilson to show the differences between slave owners and slaves in the deep south. Twain uses word choice and syntax to show how language can be used to create a divide in society, as well as control a subsection of the population. The author's tone is their attitude or feeling toward the subject. Through their language choices, sentence structure, and use of literary devices, the author can create different tones that lead you as a reader to feel a certain way about the subject.  Common tones include sad, solemn, suspenseful, humorous, or sarcastic. Tone can be indicative of not only what's happening in the piece, but of larger themes. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz changes tone, for example, when Dorothy leaves Kansas for Oz. This is seen in the film through the change in color, but in the novel, this is established through the shift in tone.
Review the context of the text, such as when it was written. Identify the theme of the text. Determine the main ideas of the text. Identify pieces of text that support the main ideas. Examine the author’s writing style. Consider the author's tone.