Name:_________________ Class:____________________ Date:_______________

Guided Notes for Analyzing a Text Using Symbolism and Tone.

1. Symbols have been used since the beginning of time. An example of such would be
_______________________ and today’s ______________.

2. Symbolism is a Universal _______________.

3. Symbolism can serve as ____________, which is clearly described, or _____________,

where the reader must read between the lines.

4. What is your favorite movie?

5. Find an example in this movie where one object represents something else?

6. Symbolism is just one way into literary analysis. Literary analysis can be defined as:

7. Separate parts of literary analysis can be

Literary Elements Definition

Theme The main idea of a text the author is
attempting to communicate to the reader.
Imagery

Characters

Setting

Tone

Mood

Symbolism
Name:_________________ Class:____________________ Date:_______________

8. Symbolism can serve as either a ______________ or ________________.

A _______________ is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an

object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

9. Which of these are a metaphor?

A. America is a melting pot.
B. Cinderella is a lovely princess.
C. She danced like a snowflake in the Nutcracker.

10. ________________ is is a comparison to something else using the words "like" or as. It
is also not meant to be taken as literal.

11. Which of these are a simile?

A. She sang like a canary
B. Polly is a pie.
C. He was right as rain.

12. Now you try!

Give an example of metaphor. __________________________________

Give an example of a simile. _____________________________________

13. Tone is

14. Give an example of tone.

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

15. What is annotation?

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Name:_________________ Class:____________________ Date:_______________

Annotation exercise: For this assignment, you will be required to read the text twice. During
your first read through, I want you to highlight YELLOW any material that seems significant
to you and ask questions in the sidelines. Each highlighted section should has a note or
question accompanying it. For the second read through, I want you take a PINK highlighter
and remark anything else that stands out to you the second time. As you are going through
your second read through, use a GREEN highlighter to mark metaphors, potential
symbolism, or simile. This time, try and answer the questions you initially put forth and
decide whether there is a connection between the metaphor, simile, tone, and mood.
About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad
and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of
land. This is a valley of ashes — a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges
and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and
rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already
crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible
track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm
up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure
operations from your sight. But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift
endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes
of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look
out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a
nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice
in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them
and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain,
brood on over the solemn dumping ground.

The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is
up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as
long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute, and it was because of
this that I first met Tom Buchanan’s mistress.

We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of
July, and a gray, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track.

“Terrible place, isn’t it,” said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg.