When faced with a work of literature (for our purposes, we will define literature as any written work in prose, such as philosophy, narrative, or written history), we may be intimidated simply by its scale. Works of literature can be long, dense, or abstract; they challenge the reader to comprehend what it transmits. In order to decipher and appreciate the meaning of a work of literature, we need to employ a series of techniques.  For our purposes we will break up these techniques into four basic categories: narrative, meaning, imagery, and figures of speech. Each of these categories has various components, some of which are explored briefly below. Let's look at some of these techniques.

Narrative

The first technique involves understanding and decoding the narrative. Although not all literature is narrative (a work that tells a story), even non-narrative works often borrow various elements from narrative. In fact, very often the narrative itself functions as an encoded literary component (like fables or parables). Taking a step back from the story to understand the symbols and types at play reveals embedded meaning that was otherwise invisible. 

Theme

For our purposes, we will group the concepts of theme and topic together. This consists of the message(s) or larger-scale ideas that connect the various components of a story. While a work make have one theme, there may also be a series of themes colliding simultaneously throughout the story, producing a kaleidoscope of interconnected messages. 

Plot 

The plot consists of the sequence of actions taken throughout the story. Like a hero's journey, there are generally several typical components of plot: exposition (the setting up of the story and introduction to the characters), conflict (generally between the main character and an adversarial force), crisis (the moment upon which the rest of the story hinges), climax (the point of greatest tension in the story), and resolution (the resolving of the tension and remaining loose ends in the story). Authors rarely pronounce these various moments to the reader directly; their identification is subjective and disputable. 

Setting

The setting refers to the place where the action of the story occurs. The author may opt for a historical setting, emphasizing the time and place of the story, or for an atmospheric setting, a feeling, mood, or emotion established by descriptive language. 

Character

The characters are the principal actors within the work. There are many types of characters, but we will just look at four. The first is the hero or protagonist. This is the character that faces challenges and grows as a result ultimately to come out victorious in the end. The second is the villain or antagonist. This is the figure that works against the hero. Like the hero, the villain is active like the hero, making choices that affect the plot. Unlike the hero, however, the villain's actions lead to negative outcomes. The third character is the guide or mentor. Frequently a wise and strong character, the guide assists the hero in his or her quest though his or her actions do not affect the story's plot. The guide, in fact, often seems to have a hero's backstory, a tale of overcoming and growth that led to his or her current wisdom. The last character is the victim or the static character. The victim desires to live the life of the hero, often believes that he or she could be a hero, but consistenly resorts to passive behavior. The victim is defined and limited by the action of the story and is unable to alter it.

Meaning

The second technique requires us to take time to understand the language being used. Rather than the abstract sense of meaning transmitted by a work in its entirety, this technique focuses on the local, literal meaning of an author's words. Although there are many things to consider, let's just focus on a few categories.

Definitions

Authors often intentionally use varied and colorful vocabulary. They carefully select words for their nuances in meaning and use. While this is most obvious when we are faced with an unfamiliar or antiquated word, this is also true for words that may seem familiar to us but that have alternate or diverse meanings. Occasionally an author will select a word due to the ambiguity that it creates for the reader, adding meaning to the work without adding any extra text. 

Technical Terms, Dialects, and Idioms

Sometimes authors will adopt the vocabulary of a specific trade or profession, either for literal or figurative purposes. These terms may serve a variety of functions, but for a reader to comprehend these functions we must understand their specific and technical meaning. In addition, authors also work within their social contex, adopting phrases that are common in their cultural community but that may be difficult to understand for people outside of that community. Dialects are colloquial methods of grammar and syntax (the formation of language) and idioms are colloquial phrases, expressions, or sayings (like "I have butterflies in my stomach"). While this is essentially a matter of understanding the basic definition of terms if an author is merely using them as part of his or her regular language, it becomes a different matter when an author is intentionally employing or avoiding certain dialects or idioms (especially those that are foreign to him or her). In this way, authors may communicate via a subtext that may be lost without a reader's careful attention. 

Allusions and Connotations

Allusions and connotations are probably the trickiest categories of this group. An allusion is an intentional but imprecise reference to another work. While a quotation consists of an insertion of someone else's words into another's words, an allusion is the suggestion of another's words. Authors do this in many ways: they can employ a specific word that might recall a well-known passage, they can borrow familiar sentence structure or syntax, or they might employ a collection of words in close proximity to one another but in a different order. A connotation is a collection of non-literal but allied meanings or associated ideas that come to mind in connection with a particular word or phrase. An author may choose a synonym of a word for its distinct connotations even while the literal meaning remains unchanged. In either case, the author relies on the assumed understanding of his or her reader. Allusions and connotations are only effective when detected by the reader.

Imagery

The common adage, "a picture is worth a thousand words," suggests that our human minds process visual information much more quickly than text. Authors employ imagery to take advantage of this reality. They may select certain words for the pictures they produce in our minds or use image-provoking words to convey a scene or an emotion more effectively. Imagery, however, is not wholly confined to images; authors may use their words to duplicate any of our physical senses. 

Figures of Speech

Figures of speech consist of expressions that deviate from more traditional and direct methods of communication. That is to say, they make the meaning of a word, phrase, or idea more precise through less concrete language. These are very common in both formal and colloquial communication. While the category is extraordinarily large, we will explore just two types of figures of speech and leave the rest for future personal investigation.  

Simile and Metaphor

Simile and metaphor are the most commonly used figures of speech. Both of them attempt to clarify a word, phrase, or idea by making a comparison to something else. The difference between the two is merely grammatical: simile includes the word of comparison, while metaphor does not. Thus, the simile, "it is as hot as an oven" can become a metaphor by stating the same thing as an equivalence, "it is an oven." Authors often use similes and metaphors to transmit their meaning more vividly. However, due to the absence of comparison words in metaphors, the reader must be careful not to misunderstand, lest a reader comprehend literally what the author intends to be figurative.  

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Metonymy and synecdoche are also both common figures of speech in both formal and colloquial communication. Both of these terms refer to a similar concept (synecdoche is essentially a broader form of metonymy). In this figure of speech, a borrowed term replaces the intended meaning. For example, we might refer to the British crown when speaking of the British royal family and its political powers. To make such a replacement is to employ metonymy. Synecdoche merely means the use of a smaller or larger component in place of a larger or smaller object, such as "Washington D.C." in place of the "United States government." 

Critical Response

The reader's approach to the work as a whole is also a valuable tool in understanding works of literature. The following are various methods or approaches that may alter how you understand the various elements at play in a work. 

Reader-Response

As the name implies, reader-response criticism focuses on the reader rather than the work itself. This approach to literature describes what goes on in the reader’s mind while reading a text. In a sense, all critical approaches concern themselves with a reader’s response to literature, but there is a stronger emphasis in reader-response criticism on the reader’s active construction of the text. Reader-response critics do not assume that a literary work is a finished product with fixed formal properties, as, for example, formalist critics do. Instead, the literary work is seen as an evolving creation of the reader as he or she processes characters, plots, images, and other elements while reading. There is no definitive reading of a work because the crucial assumption is that readers create rather than discover meanings in texts. Readers who have returned to works they had read earlier in their lives often find that a later reading draws very different responses from them. Reader-response critics are not after the “correct” reading of the text or what the author presumably intended; instead they are interested in the reader’s experience with the text. 

Formalism

A formalist reads literature as an independent work of art rather than as a reflection of the author’s state of mind or as a representation of a moment in history. Historical influences on a work, an author’s intentions, or anything else outside the work are generally not treated by formalists. Instead, formalists offer intense examinations of the relationship between form and meaning within a work, emphasizing the subtle complexity of how a work is arranged. This kind of close reading pays special attention to what are often described as intrinsic matters in a literary work, such as diction, irony, paradox, metaphor, and symbol, as well as larger elements, such as plot, characterization, and narrative technique. 

Formalists examine how these elements work together to give a coherent shape to a work while contributing to its meaning. The answers to the questions formalists raise about how the shape and effect of a work are related come from the work itself. Other kinds of information that go beyond the text—biography, history, politics, economics, and so on—are typically regarded by formalists as extrinsic matters, which are considerably less important than what goes on within the autonomous text. 

Historical and Biographical

A knowledge of an author’s life can give insight into his or her work more fully. Events in a work might follow actual events in a writer’s life just as characters might be based on people known by the author. Formalist critics often argue that interpretation should be based exclusively on internal evidence rather than on any biographical information outside the work. They argue that it is not possible to determine an author’s intention and that the work must stand by itself. Although this is a useful caveat for keeping the work in focus, a reader who finds biography relevant would argue that biography can at the very least serve as a control on interpretation. 

Literary historians move beyond both the facts of an author’s personal life and the text itself to the social and intellectual currents in which the author composed the work. They place the work in the context of its time (as do many critical biographers, who write “life and times” studies), and sometimes they make connections with other literary works that may have influenced the author. The basic strategy of literary historians is to illuminate the historical background to shed light on some aspect of the work itself. 

Mythological or Allegorical

Mythological or allegorical approaches to literature attempt to identify what creates deep universal responses in readers. Mythological critics interpret the hopes, fears, and expectations of entire cultures. In this context, myth is not to be understood simply as referring to stories about imaginary gods who perform astonishing feats in the causes of love, jealousy, or hatred. Myths can be a window onto a culture’s deepest self-reflexive perceptions because myths attempt to explain what otherwise seems unexplainable: a people’s origin, purpose, and destiny.

Mythological critics look for underlying, recurrent patterns in literature that reveal universal meanings and basic human experiences for readers regardless of when or where they live. The characters, images, and themes that symbolically embody these meanings and experiences are called archetypes. Surely one of the most powerfully compelling archetypes is the death and rebirth theme that relates the human life cycle to the seasons. 

Deconstructionism

Deconstructionist critics insist that literary works do not yield fixed, single meanings. They argue that there can be no absolute knowledge about anything because language can never say what we intend it to mean. Anything we write conveys meanings we did not intend, so the deconstructionist argument goes. Language is not a precise instrument but a power whose meanings are caught in an endless web of possibilities that cannot be untangled. Any idea or statement that insists on being understood separately can ultimately be “deconstructed: to reveal its relations and connections to contradictory and opposite meanings.

Deconstructionism seeks to destabilize meanings instead of establishing them. Deconstructionists try to show how a close examination of the language in a text inevitably reveals conflicting, contradictory impulses that “deconstruct” or break down it’s apparent unity. Deconstructionists focus on the gaps and ambiguities that reveal a text’s instability and indeterminacy. They also look at the competing meanings within the text rather than attempting to resolve them into a unified whole. The questions deconstructionists ask aim to discover and describe how the elements of a text generate a variety of possible readings. Deconstructionists look for ways to question and extend the meanings of a text.