Analysing texts, Year 9: form, tension and symbols

A ballad

HintFolk singers carried these tales from village to village long before they were printed.

The whyThe typical stanza has four lines, with the second and fourth rhyming, and a steady beat that makes it easy to sing and to remember. Choosing this form tells the reader to expect a tale, usually a dramatic one, told plainly.

free

HintThe poet has been let off the usual rules of pattern.

The whyWithout a set pattern, the poet decides where every line ends, so the line breaks do the work that rhyme and metre do elsewhere. The form often suits a speaking voice or a mind thinking aloud.

Galloping horses

HintTap the beat on a table: DUM-da-da, DUM-da-da.

The whyThe poem describes a cavalry charge of 1854, and its rhythm drives forward like hooves, so the reader feels the speed before a single animal is mentioned. The form is doing the work of the meaning: change the beat and the charge would slow to a walk.

That something is missing or unfinished

HintThe ear waits for a partner sound, and none arrives.

The whyOnce a poem has set up a pattern, the reader expects it to continue. Breaking it at one point makes that point stand out, and here the unanswered sound matches the friend who is not there. When a poem breaks its own rule, ask why it does so at that moment.

quatrains; couplet

HintOne is a group of four lines; the other is a pair.

The whyThree four-line units and one two-line unit make fourteen lines. The three units usually develop an idea step by step, and the final pair delivers a twist or a summing-up. The point where the argument turns is called the volta.

They speed it up

HintNotice how quickly your eye reaches each full stop.

The whyEach full stop arrives almost at once, so events seem to pile on top of one another and the reader has no time to settle. Writers save this for moments of panic or action, where it works best after longer, calmer sentences.

Making the reader wait builds tension

HintThink how a drum roll works before the winner is announced.

The whyThe reader already knows something is coming, so every extra detail stretches the moment before it arrives. Delay only works when a threat has been set up first; description with nothing at stake is just description.

A cliffhanger

HintPicture the hero left dangling by the fingertips over a long drop.

The whyIt withholds the one thing the reader most wants to know and puts a gap, such as the end of a chapter, in the way. Novelists such as Dickens, who published in instalments, relied on it to bring readers back.

Climax

HintOn a story mountain it is the peak.

The whyEverything before it builds towards this moment and everything after it winds down. Finding it is the first step in charting tension: you can then ask how the writer raised the pressure on the way up.

pace

HintRunners and walkers set one too.

The whyWriters control it with sentence length, the amount of description and how much time each scene covers. A chase told in three lines is fast; one evening told across a chapter is slow.

A motif

HintComposers use the same word for a short tune that keeps coming back.

The whyA symbol can appear once; this is defined by repetition. Each return invites the reader to compare it with the last, which is how a writer can show change without stating it.

The girl's lack of freedom

HintAsk what the creature behind the bars and its owner have in common.

The whyThe evidence is the parallel: both are shut in, and the writer keeps drawing attention to the cage. A symbol reading needs that kind of support from the text; here the repetition and the matching situations supply it.

Her changing state of mind

HintThe flower beds rise and fall in step with something inside her.

The whyThe image returns three times and means something different each time: contentment, then neglect and grief, then hope. Tracking a repeated image is a matter of asking what has changed since it last appeared.

Nothing in the text supports it

HintAsk what proof the pupil could put a finger on in the story.

The whyA detail becomes a symbol when the writer gives you a reason to read it that way: repetition, emphasis or a clear link to a character. Without that, the curtains are just curtains.