While summarizing a book the goal and intent is to give some details about the basic story line while still not giving it away. The summary should be a brief and vague outline so as to not ruin any surprises for the reader. It should grab the readers attention enough to get them interested in the book but not give too many details as to make them feel like they just read the book.
For example: Here is a summary of the book “Dead of Winter” by P.J. Parrish. In the book “Dead of Winter” there is a police officer named Louis Kincaid. He is moved up to small town after fighting crime in a large city. The book brings many twists as Louis is on a hunt to find a dangerous killer. Through love, anger, heartbreak, and happiness Louis continues on his quest of crime fighting and problem solving with much motivation.
How the summary of this compares to an analysis would be if one said that “Dead of Winter” was a story about how one should never trust a woman. While this is a small theme about the story, in the grand scheme of things it is a point that could be intensely argued. In the analysis one would still give some brief synopsis of the story they would mostly focus in on arguing that the story is mostly about never trusting a woman.
Summary’s and Analysis’ are both very different. While both give a brief explanation of the story, a summary would mostly focus on giving someone a short and vague explanation of the story without going into detail. Where as an analysis would give a lot more details while also making an argument over one specific theme in the story.
Your distinctions between summary and analysis are well written and you clearly possess knowledge on the subject. However, I do not agree that an analysis should only focus on one theme of a piece of writing. Most literature that is celebrated in scholarly circles exhibit multiple themes and ideas, all generally more important than the necessity to be weary of women.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea on what a summary is was spot on and I appreciate that you included that a summary should be vague so as not to ruin the story for others. I do somewhat agree with Rowan though as far as analysis goes. Although you could focus on one theme, in my experience most novels have quite a few motifs and symbols which are stronger together than when they stand alone.
ReplyDeleteI agree with them having more than one theme for analysis. I was simply trying to give ONE theme from that specific novel in an short analysis.
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