Context ITS USE IN LITERARY ANALYSIS

Purpose  To define “context”  To offer examples of its use in analyzing literature  To introduce the idea of research, a concept related to context  To help you with your journal entry for week five

Definition  Context:  The circumstances surrounding a writer, a story, or both.  Circumstances can be historical, biographical, geographical, political, economical, or ideological.  In a nutshell: any or all of the stuff surrounding the story that could conceivably have influenced it (or been influenced by it).

Example One  A simple exercise  Study the photograph on the next slide. Observe its details. Think of it as a “text.” Jot down your ideas about what is happening in the photo, and your feelings about it  Do not move on to the next slide after the photograph slide until you have written down all of your thoughts about the photograph.

Example One

Here is some information about the photo:  Pulitzer-prize winning photograph shot during the Vietnam War by an American army photo-journalist.  The man with his hands tied is Nguyen Van Lem. He was a guerrilla fighter with the Viet Cong – North Vietnamese – fighting against the USA.  The man with the gun is Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a general with the South Vietnamese army, an American ally.  Earlier in the day of the photograph, Lem had rounded up 34 South Vietnamese police officers and civilians, killed them, and left their bodies in a ditch; 6 of the happened to be Loan’s godchildren.  Loan had been given orders to find and execute Lem.  The photograph played a role in turning Americans against the Vietnam war. It haunted Loan for the rest of his life. Exiled from his country, he bounced from country to country, never able to settle down because he was recognized as the “murderer” from the photo.  The photographer, Eddie Adams, regretted taking the photo, despite the awards and fame it brought him, saying, “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.”

Example One Now take another moment to jot down your thoughts about the photo.  What do you think is happening in it?  What is your “experience” viewing it?  Has it at all changed, given its context?  Can it still stand alone and speak for itself, separate from its context? Or is it inseparable from that?  How does context in this example help you to understand the photo and begin to analyze it?

Example Two Mellow Into the laps of black celebrities white girls fall like pale plums from a tree beyond a high tension wall wired for killing which makes it more thrilling

Example Two Observation  Conflict/tension: white and black; race.  “Wired for killing”: doing something forbidden; that is the appeal; when was it forbidden for white girls and black men to be together?  “Pale plums”: not yet mature, ripe.  “Into the laps”: kind of like the phrase, “Fell right into my lap” – chance, luck, happenstance.  “Black celebrities”: there are many black celebrities today; is this a contemporary poem?

Example Two  Without context we can still observe, interpret, and evaluate. In fact, we have some pretty interesting ideas brewing about “Mellow.” Let’s introduce some context and see if that helps us to understand, and therefore interpret, the poem.  Written by Langston Hughes during the “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s and 30s.  How does this information change or enlarge our view of the poem?

Example Two  Now we understand who the black celebrities were. They were the black jazz musicians, poets, and artists swept up in the “Renaissance.”  It was not uncommon for white audiences to visit “black” clubs at this time.  How might the black artists have felt about this? Patronized? Offended? Pleased? Indifferent? What does the tone of the poem suggest?  Why, according to the poem, did the white audiences, females in particular, throw themselves “into the laps” of black celebrities?

Example Two  Contextual matter in this case helps us put the poem in a particular setting, and this setting helps us to understand some of the language and imagery in the poem.  Now we can be more sure of our evaluation of the values the poem embraces, promotes, or disdains; the idea or meaning it tries to convey.

Research Research is related to context  When we look for context, we undertake research.  Research can also be used to supplement or support our views on a piece of literature.  For example, with “Mellow,” knowing what we know now, we might argue that this poem is communicating indifference or disdain for the so-called “Harlem Renaissance,” as a time when whites (former antagonists) patronized blacks (former victims); it perhaps felt like a song and dance routine; no real social change was effected as a result of the “Renaissance.”  We might research what others have to say about this.

Conclusion  Context is the circumstances surrounding a piece of literature, a writer, or both.  It can help us understand a piece of literature more fully.  The search for context is called research. Research can help support our arguments and evaluations about literature.