It differs from exegesis also in that it is concerned with the whole work rather than isolated details. The explicator usually proceeds chronologically in his discussion of the literary work most conveniently used in the study of shorter works, such as poems, stories, or single chapters, rather than entire plays or novels. In unskilled hands explication can easily slip into mere paraphrase or synopsis. As critical method, analysis differs from exegesis and explication, both of which are usually chronological in organization, in that it divides a work or subject into its component aspects and treats these aspects in turn. Thus the analysis of a short story, for example, may cover plot, characters, theme, imagery, symbolism, and point of view.
Analysis is probably the type of critical approach most frequently used today.
Interpretation differs from exegesis, explication, and analysis, all of which are assumed to be more or less objective in approach, in that it applies to literature something from outside the work. Sometimes the interpreter may try to be inductive in his approach by attempting to derive the meaning of the work from internal evidence alone. That no two witnesses see things in exactly the same way is commonplace. Most criticism is interpretative in a sense, but the main weaknesses of interpretation as a basic critical approach are that it tends to accommodate literary meaning to some other kind of meaning and that it is particularly subject to the selective fallacy. Whatever we are comparing must be similar enough to justify the comparison, yet different enough to yield clear distinctions of one thing from another, for comparison is useful particularly when we want to define the uniqueness of something.