unit 9
Literary
Analysis
Workshop
History, Culture, and the Author
You are a product of your time. In other words, who you are depends on the year
you were born, the places you’ve lived, and the people—both family and friends—
who surround you. Similarly, writers are influenced not only by the literary works
they read, but by the experiences and events they themselves live through. By
examining clues within the literature you read, you can learn about a culture or
time period, or about how both may have affected the writer. Armed with more
knowledge, such as information about the events that inspired a story, you can
often see literature in a new light.
Part 1: Context Within the Literature
Included in this workshop:
READING 2B Analyze the influence
of mythic, classical and traditional
literature on 20th and 21st century
literature.
2C Relate the figurative language
of a literary work to its historical
and cultural setting.
6 Analyze how literary essays
interweave personal examples and
ideas with factual information to
explain or describe a situation or
event.
8 Analyze, make inferences
and draw conclusions about
the author’s purpose in cultural,
historical, and contemporary
contexts. Explain the specific
purpose of an expository text and
distinguish the most important
from the less important details
that support the author’s purpose.
Think about stories that have introduced you to other times and places, such as
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, set in the South in the 1930s. Unless you had
researched small Southern towns in the early 20th century, you probably would
have little understanding of that time and place. Yet by analyzing details in the
novel, you can learn about the world the writer created.
In nonfiction, writers often provide these details directly. Fiction writers,
however, use details of setting and plot and vivid, often figurative language to
acquaint you with the times and places they describe. Notice how Bret Harte
brings the Old West to life in his short story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.”
“ the outcasts of poker flat ”
From this single sentence, you begin to get a sense of a small Western town
in the 1850s and can start to question the values of the time. (Is gambling a
common pastime?)
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat
on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious
of a change in its moral atmosphere. . . .
The dialect lets you hear how people in Poker Flat sounded.
“It’s agin justice,” said Jim Wheeler, “to let this yer young man from
Roaring Camp—an entire stranger—carry away our money.”
Imagery helps you imagine what the Old West was like at this time.
The road . . . lay over a steep mountain range. It was distant a day’s
severe travel. In that advanced season, the party soon passed out of the
moist, temperate regions of the foot-hills into the dry, cold, bracing air of
the Sierras.
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unit 9: history culture, and the author
model 1: reading nonfiction
As you read this excerpt, notice the writer’s descriptions of people and
places, as well as details about historical events and cultural traditions.
from
THE NAMES
of Women
Biographical essay by Louise Erdrich
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Ikwe is the word for woman in the language of the Anishinabe, my mother’s
people, whose descendants, mixed with and married to French trappers and
farmers, are the Michifs of the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota.
Every Anishinabe Ikwe, every mixed-blood descendant like me, who can trace
her way back a generation or two, is the daughter of a mystery. The history
of the woodland Anishinabe—decimated by disease, fighting Plains Indian
tribes to the west and squeezed by European settlers to the east—is much like
most other Native American stories, a confusion of loss, a tale of absences, of a
culture that was blown apart and changed so radically in such a short time that
only the names survive.
Close Read
1. Review the boxed text.
What does this historical
information tell you
about what life was
like for the Anishinabe
people?
2. What does the writer’s
choice of words (such
as decimated and loss)
reveal about her personal
feelings toward her
subject?
model 2: reading fiction
As you read this excerpt, ask yourself: What do the details tell me about
the time and place? What can I infer about the characters’ values?
Close Read
from
The Son from america
Short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
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The village of Lentshin was tiny—a sandy marketplace where the peasants of
the area met once a week. It was surrounded by little huts with thatched roofs
or shingles green with moss. The chimneys looked like pots. Between the huts
there were fields, where the owners planted vegetables or pastured their goats.
In the smallest of these huts lived old Berl, a man in his eighties, and his
wife, who was called Berlcha (wife of Berl). Old Berl was one of the Jews who
had been driven from their villages in Russia and had settled in Poland. In
Lentshin, they mocked the mistakes he made while praying aloud. He spoke
with a sharp “r.” He was short, broad-shouldered, and had a small white beard,
and summer and winter he wore a sheepskin hat, a padded cotton jacket, and
stout boots. He walked slowly, shuffling his feet. He had a half acre of field, a
cow, a goat, and chickens.
The couple had a son, Samuel, who had gone to America forty years ago.
1. What does the simile
“The chimneys looked
like pots,” along with
the other details about
Lentshin, suggest about
this story’s time period?
Explain.
2. What does the description
of old Berl tell you about
the people of Lentshin
and their culture?
3. The boxed text is a clue
to the historical period.
Many Jews left Russia
following persecution in
the 1880s. Find another
clue that helps identify
the time.
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Part 2: Context Outside the Literature
Writers are often influenced by the literature of earlier times, by classic works
that include recurring themes or enduring characters. Even more so, however,
writers are products of their own time and place. With a little background on
the writer’s environment, you can uncover new levels of meaning in a text.
historical and cultural influences
Writers respond to the world around them: events, such as the first moon
landing; places, such as the battlefield at Gettysburg; and social conditions, such
as racial discrimination. For this reason, it can be helpful to think about a work’s
historical and cultural contexts—that is, the social and cultural conditions that
may have influenced the work. For instance, consider Dr. Martin Luther King’s
“I have a dream” speech, which he delivered to a crowd of around 250,000 at
the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. King’s purpose—to deliver a
message of peace and hope—becomes more impressive when you discover that
he spoke just months after the assassination of another civil rights leader.
context
literature
literature
Two months before the March on
Washington, the civil rights leader
Medgar Evers was assassinated.
Concerned about violence, President
John F. Kennedy considered canceling
the march.
Two months before the March on
Washington, the civil rights leader Medgar
Evers was assassinated. Concerned about
violence, President
John F. Kennedy considered canceling
“We
must forever conduct our struggle
the
march.
on the high plain of dignity. . . .”
As you read any text, ask
• What significant events were taking place at the time this text was written?
• What were the predominant values in the society of the time?
the writer’s background
Personal factors can also affect a writer’s work. A writer who grew up poor in
the rural South will have been influenced by his or her experiences, as will a
writer who spent years working on a nature preserve in Africa. Gender, ethnicity,
national identity, family—all these factors help shape a writer’s view of the world.
considering a writer’s background
First analyze the clues within the text. Ask
• What values are conveyed? (Look for
direct commentary as well as characters’
actions.)
• What is the tone? (Notice characters and
ideas that are respected or criticized.)
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unit 9: history, culture, and the author
Then consider how a writer’s background
may be mirrored in his or her work. Ask
• What do I know about the writer’s
personal history?
• How does this information shed
light on my reading?
Literary Analysis Workshop
model 1: interpreting poetry
As you read this poem, look at details such as setting, imagery, and
figurative language to help you interpret its meaning.
The
Butterfly
Poem by Pavel Friedmann
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing
against a white stone . . .
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Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ’way up high.
It went away I’m sure because it wished to
kiss the world goodbye.
Close Read
For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto
But I have found my people here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut candles in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
1. Look at the boxed text.
How does it help you
understand the speaker’s
description of the
butterfly in lines 1–8?
2. What might the butterfly
symbolize in the poem?
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here,
In the ghetto.
model 2: understanding the context
Now read this background information about the era in which
“The Butterfly” was written.
Beginning in 1941 when the Holocaust was sweeping across
Europe, Adolf Hitler rounded up Jews from Czechoslovakia and many other
countries and moved them to the small Czech town of Terezin—the “ghetto”
Pavel Friedmann describes in his poem. Originally home to about 7,000
people, Terezin eventually held more than 550,000 Jews at one time. Under
such conditions, thousands died from starvation and disease. Thousands more
were shipped to the Auschwitz death camp. Friedmann was 21 years old when
he arrived in the town of Terezin. He died two years later at Auschwitz.
BACKGROUND
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Close Read
1. How does this
information change
your interpretation of
the poem?
2. What is the theme of
the poem? Support your
answer with information
from the background
as well as details from
the poem.
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Part 3: Analyze the Literature
From the title of this poem, you know it is about the “Vietnam Wall.” Think
about what you may already know about the wall and read through the poem
a first time. Then read the background information on the next page. How
does the background information change or enhance your understanding of the
poem? Read the poem again before answering the Close Read questions.
Poem by Alberto Ríos
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I
Have seen it
And I like it: The magic,
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The way like cutting onions
It brings water out of nowhere.
Invisible from one side, a scar
Into the skin of the ground
From the other, a black winding
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Appendix line.
A dig.
An archaeologist can explain.
The walk is slow at first
Easy, a little black marble wall
Of a dollhouse,
A smoothness, a shine
The boys in the street want to give.
One name. And then more
Names, long lines, lines of names until
They are the shape of the U.N. building
Taller than I am: I have walked
Into a grave.
And everything I expect has been taken away, like that, quick:
The names are not alphabetized.
They are in the order of dying,
An alphabet of—somewhere—screaming.
I start to walk out. I almost leave
But stop to look up names of friends,
My own name. There is somebody
Severiano Ríos.
Little kids do not make the same noise
Here, junior high school boys don’t run
Or hold each other in headlocks.
unit 9: history, culture, and the author
No rules, something just persists
Like pinching on St. Patrick’s Day
Every year for no green.
No one knows why.
Flowers are forced
Into the cracks
Between sections.
Men have cried
At this wall.
I have
Seen them.
Literary Analysis Workshop
background
Vietnam: the war and the wall
Close Read
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The Vietnam War was one of the
most controversial and divisive wars
in U.S. history. During the major
years of combat, 1964–1972, more
than 58,000 Americans were killed
or missing in action. The United
States spent about $200 billion
to support the South Vietnamese
government against soldiers from
both North and South Vietnam
fighting to unite the country under
Communist rule. Two years after the
withdrawal of U.S. troops, North
Vietnamese forces overran the south
and united the country. Many in the
United States questioned the worth
of our involvement in the war.
In 1979, a group was organized
to create the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial to honor the U.S. soldiers
who died in the war. Some hoped
that the construction of a memorial
would help to heal the wounds at
home caused by the war.
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A young Yale University student
named Maya Ying Lin won a
nationwide competition to design
the memorial. Lin’s abstract design
consisted of two walls of polished
black granite plunging on a slant
into the ground to meet at a 125°
angle. The names of the soldiers
were carved into the granite in the
order that they died, highlighting
the individual sacrifices that made
up the war. A walkway running
the length of each 246-foot wall
allows visitors not only to read the
names but to touch them and leave
messages and other mementos.
When U.S. involvement in the
Vietnam War ended in 1973, the
poet Alberto Ríos was 21 years old—
the same age as the young Severiano
Ríos whose name the speaker notices
on the wall. Corporal Ríos died from
small-arms fire on April 2, 1970, in
Tay Ninh, South Vietnam.
1. Reread the boxed lines
of the poem. What
information in the
background helped you to
understand the imagery
and figurative language
in these lines?
2. According to the
background, why were
soldiers’ names placed
in their particular order
on the wall? Explain the
effect their arrangement
has on the speaker of
the poem.
3. Why might the speaker
of the poem be moved
by the sight of the name
Severiano Ríos on the
wall?
4. According to the
background, what
was the purpose of
the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial? After reading
Ríos’s poem, do you think
the wall accomplishes
that purpose? Support
your answer.
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