Analyze Yourself

Have you ever analyzed something that you’ve written?

It’s sort of a weird concept. I think part of the point of analyzing is finding the author’s intent: intended symbolism, themes, etc. So if you’re the author, you should already know all that. But what if you don’t? I think you might be able to discover a lot about yourself, by finding symbols or themes that you didn’t even realize were there.  

So, in the spirit of fiction week, I took a piece of fiction that I wrote and decided to analyze it. I’m no pro at analyzing so feel free to offer your opinions and suggestions that I may of missed. I spent about an hour reading through our English textbook to try and find some guidance in analyzing fiction. I also found this helpful site of literary devices specifically for fiction. Then I spent 90 minutes attempting to analyze my own story. It was not easy. You can read the story I chose, here .

I'm going to try and analyze this as a third party. Bear with me here, this is a rough analysis.

The author in Meeting Mrs. Langford used imagery and characterization to offer a theme of hope.

By the end of the story, you realize that the two main characters are actually the same person. The juxtaposition in their descriptions shows the harrowing journey from self conscious girl to happy, confident woman. Once the narrator realizes this, she can have hope and faith in the future, despite how she feels now.

The narrator describes herself as looking like “a marshmallow.” In contrast, she describes her older counterpart as, “thinner. Much thinner.” 

The description of the older version’s clothing is similarly juxtaposed with the narrator’s, “bright green...summer dress” as opposed to “Hello Kitty pajamas.”

The author characterizes the two in such an opposite way, simply by the description of their looks. The way the narrator describes herself versus her older counterpart shows how much value the narrator sees in a person’s appearance and how little she thinks of herself.

After the narrator has put so much value in the older version of herself and she realizes that it was her, she is left with a feeling of hope in what she will become and knowledge that in the end, everything turns out fine.

The irony is that if something like this ever happened, the younger version might not have the same trials and challenges that shape her into the version she becomes. But the future version, when faced with challenges of her own, can remember this story and know that although she cannot see the future, everything will turn out fine.