Instructions: Text Analysis Worksheet

Part One

Instructions: In Part One of the Text Analysis Worksheet, provide a short summary of the text that you’ve read. Your summary should not be overly detailed, but it should contain general information about the major plot points or major events the author relates in the text. Note that although the example below is from an online source, yours should be in your own words (not plagiarized from an online source).

Part One Example:

Summary

The novel opens with Guy Montag, a “fireman” in a futuristic society where he and his coworkers start fires, rather than put them out. Books are banned and burned upon discovery, and Montag has no qualms about his responsibility.

But then he meets Clarisse McClellan, a seventeen-year-old Bohemian girl who happens to be his neighbor. She’s very chatty, and opens his eyes to the world of nature, dew drops, and not being a stooge. After their first meeting, Montag returns home to find his wife overdosed on sleeping pills. He calls for help, but he gets plumbers instead of medics. This sort of thing happens all the time, they say. The next morning, his wife (Mildred) doesn’t remember anything and is happy as a clam.

Montag grows increasingly dissatisfied with his life and work as he talks more with Clarisse. He starts to wonder if perhaps books aren’t so bad, and even steals one from a book burning. Meanwhile Clarisse disappears (probably dead), and his boss, Captain Beatty, is growing suspicious. He lectures Montag on the dangers of books and explains the origin of their profession. Far from rejuvenated, Montag feels more rebellious than ever. He spends the afternoon with his wife reading a secret stash of books he’s been storing and decides he needs a teacher. He takes a Bible and tries to memorize some of it on the way.

He settles on an old ex-professor named Faber, whom he met in the park one day. Faber is reluctant, but finally agrees to work with Montag against the firemen. Faber provides Montag with a two-way radio earpiece and sends him on his way. That evening Montag loses his cool and reads some banned poetry aloud to his wife’s friends. Not such a great decision. That night at the firehouse, Beatty taunts Montag by quoting contradictory passages from the same books. He’s trying to prove that literature is confusing and problematic. Then he takes Guy to a fire alarm – at Guy’s own house, called in by his wife, who flees the scene. Montag torches his own house on command, then turns on Beatty and torches him, along with the very scary Mechanical Hound sent after him.

Now a fugitive, Montag makes his way to Faber’s house, where he watches his own chase scene on TV. The men make plans to meet up later and in a different place, as the city is pretty much off limits for them. Montag flees to the river at the edge of the city and some other random pedestrian is killed in his place (the authorities wanted a happy ending to the televised chase).

Guy gloats in the river and thinks about life for approximately 4 paragraphs before bumping into a series of forest-bound individuals who turn out to be ex-professors and other intellectuals. The head honcho, Granger, explains the situation: since books are now banned, they each have memorized one text. Guy would like to volunteer parts of the Bible he tried to memorize early, but his brain’s a bit foggy right now.

Then the city is bombed by a warring country. Everyone is dead except for Montag and these book people in the woods. They decide to rebuild society, and Montag remembers a very relevant passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes about a time to sew, a time to reap, and the tree of life.

- Summary courtesy of Shmoop.com

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE Part Two

Instructions: For Part Two, fill in each section of the worksheet provided. For the literary term in Column 1 (“Literary Term”), find a definition of the literary term and provide that definition, in your own words, in the space provided. Definitions of literary terms can be found all over the Internet via a Google search for “literary terms,” but the definition you write should be in your own words.

In Column 2 (“Evidence”), cite textual evidence which illustrates this literary term. You should include the author’s last name and page number in parentheses (MLA in-text citation format).

Then, in Column 3 (“Explanation”), explain how the text you’ve selected illustrates the literary term. Your explanations should be a short paragraph, written in complete sentences and using academic language.

Part Two Example:

Literary Term Evidence Explanation

Setting: The time and “He walked out of the fire station and Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an unnamed physical location in which a along the midnight street toward the subway city and in a suburb just outside of the city. story occurs; the “where where the silent air-propelled train slid The “midnight street” and “subway,” imply and when” of the story. soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the a city setting. After leaving the fire station earth and let him out with a great puff of where he works, Montag is taking the warm air onto the cream-tiled escalator subway out of the city to his home rising to the suburb” (Bradbury 4). somewhere in the suburbs. This quote also suggests that the story is set sometime in the future, due to the “air-propelled” train, which runs “soundlessly,” unlike subway trains today. From this, I infer a setting with some advanced technology, but not so advanced to be unrecognizable from today. Metaphor: A direct “With the brass nozzle in his fists, with There are actually two metaphors in this comparison between two this great python spitting its venomous sentence, which compare Montag’s unlike things; saying kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded flamethrower to a large snake, and something “is” something in his head, and his hands were the hands of Montag’s hands with that of the conductor else. some amazing conductor playing all the of an orchestra. The first metaphor implies symphonies of blazing and burning to bring that the flamethrower is dangerous and down the tatters and charcoal ruins of frightening, like a deadly snake, while the history” (Bradbury 3). second metaphor suggests that Montag is skilled at his job of burning things, almost like an artist or a musician. This complex use of metaphor also demonstrates Bradbury’s use of language, which is very beautiful and descriptive. Theme: An author’s “The old man nodded. ‘Those who don’t The message here, conveyed by Professor message about life build must burn. It’s as old as history and Faber to Montag, is that people who do not conveyed in his or her juvenile delinquents’” (Bradbury 89). cannot find constructive purposes in their writing. lives tend toward destruction instead. It’s like how gangs tend to attract people who don’t have much hope for education or success in other areas, so they look to the gangs to provide meaning for them, even if it leads them to violence and crime.

NOTE: Although you may handwrite your responses on the copy of the Text Analysis Worksheet provided, it is preferable to download the file and type your responses directly into it.