The repeated uses of the color words white, black, dark , and light in Othello symbolize the conflicts not only between good and evil but between the unknown Moorish culture and the white Venetian society into which Othello is assimilated. Finding a pattern of symbols in a work allows you to look at how the author reinforces her or his meaning and intentions by carefully choosing and placing these words and images in key places in the text. While tone is hard to define, close reading almost always reveals it to us we say the author is ironic or satiric or sentimental or hard-boiled because of the way her or his tone affects us. Many elements contribute to tone, including the narrator s point of view, the style of description used, the reactions of other characters in the work, the types of sentences and vocabulary the author uses, even things like the names of chapters. Thinking about tone requires you to look closely at how an author orchestrates a variety of effects to achieve a result, and therefore often leads to very valuable insights about a work.
Writers are part of their times and part of literary history.
When they create a work of literature, they draw on what they know of their own and past times, as well as the many things they have read. Examining the context of a work is an excellent way to make connections and enter the literary conversation. The writer s life can play an important part in your understanding of a work. Political and Philosophical Movements Writers respond to what goes on the world around them as well as the events in their personal lives. Just as Franklin and Paine responded to revolutions in France and the United States, so writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Chinua Achebe respond to political upheavals in South America and Africa.