Literature analysis studies the themes, construction, and style of a piece of writing. It can focus on a specific work or a writer’s entire body of work. It examines characters, context, themes, style, and influences to gain a better understanding of literature.
Literature analysis intends to examine a piece of writing in depth. The term also applies to the study of a group of writings, the sum of a writer’s works, a way of writing, and a particular genre of writing. Literature analysis attempts to study the themes, construction, and style of its subject. The overall goal is to gain a better understanding of a piece of literature.
Any written work can be considered a form of literature. This includes personal letters and online electronic messages such as status updates. It is often associated with forms such as poetry and novels. Literature analysis, however, should not be confused with literary theory or literature theory, which is more philosophical and aims to fully define what exactly literature is. Literary theory, however, has influenced how an analyst approaches a book.
Literature analysis studies can have both a narrow focus and a broad focus; they may also examine specific elements of a piece of literature. Studying a novel like Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, for example, can examine its use of style, its themes, its presentation of context, and its characters. A more general examination might study all of Murakami’s works as a whole, comparing “Wild Sheep Chase” with “Kafka on the Shore,” or it might pertain to Japanese literature as a whole.
An analysis of the “Norwegian Wood” character literature will see that Murakami used more character names than usual, especially in naming the main character when he usually refers to him or her as “boku”, which means “I”. Character study allows the analyst to see how characters are presented, whether they are presented realistically or are exaggerated caricatures.
Context in a novel is a matter of realism versus perception. Analysis of the literature focusing on the context or milieu of “Norwegian Wood” would examine how Murakami presents 1960s Japan and whether the depiction of him is accurate. Such an analysis is often important for historical settings to determine a level of accuracy; when they are semi-biographical as in Murakami’s book, it becomes a matter of finding a personal opinion of those times.
A book can represent a single theme. A writer can repeat the same theme in multiple books. Writers are also able to use different themes in a book or series of books. Studying themes intends to find a larger message or idea under discussion.
Style and influences are two different elements of literature analysis. Investigating Style examines how a writer presents the story. Is it first person or third person? Is it written in the active or in the past tense? Influences, meanwhile, come from other writings or the author’s biography. Within the context of “Norwegian Wood,” influences range from Murakami’s love of American literature to his experiences as a child in the 1960s.
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