Ryan McConnell
8 Jan 2026
Analysing Texts in English
The act of critical thinking is becoming a lost art. Every day, we are all bombarded with blatant and loud messaging from social media, news outlets, and even advertisements and, often, our minds are too fatigued, bored or lazy to really analyse what we are seeing and hearing.
Within every tiny minor thing, to the largest and loudest things, there lies a subtext. Something that the words ultimately mean, which most times we ignore, or at least I find myself ignoring. I'm not going to bully and harangue you for not thinking about the smallest text and about how ultimately awesome it is. This is to inform you that everything you see isn't what it is, and if it's important enough to you, look deeper and see its true face - whether disgusting or beautiful.
The act of critical thinking is achieved through 'active reading', but now I'm saying more buzzwords that don't matter. When you read something, you need to think about it. That's the first step, yet it’s easier said than done. How DO you think about text? The first step to the first step, in my opinion, is what I think the author is trying to actively trying to tell me.
Why, yes! I've read Frankenstein, and it told me not to make a monster out of several pieces of people I found in a graveyard.
Awesome, but there's more, there always is, even when the author says there isn't, so long as you can see it, it exists, or at least its meaning. Why DID Mary Shelley have a dedicated student steal corpses, animate them, then absolutely lose the plot when his creation was... created?
How he never bothered to raise and teach it, how he never loved it and, in fact, was repulsed by it, his own creation. "What could this mean?" I hear you demand, or "Shut it old-timer, we already know Shelley was enforcing the beliefs of her time through the themes of playing god, the corruption of nature, and the nature of humanity".
Well, first off, be nice to me, maybe. Secondly, that's exactly it - the story's themes - but I lied, that's not exactly it. It's ALL the devices used by the author that ultimately creates the art piece we call meaning. Through the use of metaphors, symbolism, juxtaposition, imagery, personification and this one and that one (c’mon there’s thousands of them, I can't list them all), they artfully sculpt not only a wonderful story to be loved, but to have a meaning more than the words.
By looking at them and the major plot points, then thinking about them, why did they happen? Why did the author make them happen? What. Are. They. Saying.
Frankenstein is about (spoilers for a 200+ year-old book) a creator, setting out to see if he could, never asking if he should. Finding out why he shouldn't, abandoning his creation, and denying all affection and love, forcing it to find it elsewhere, having it learn that despite it all, it should be loved and cherished like every other person, demanding the love from its creator and if not that, demand a friend for it is the loneliest creature on the planet - so on and so forth.
Why would Shelley write such a sad story? Is there something she wants to say? YES, I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU!!!! YES! But not to us...
Who did Shelley write her story of ultimate loneliness for? For us? For those who relate? Yeah maybe. Or maybe her father.
She dedicated the book to her father. She, in a sense, is describing her relationship with her father. She's the monster of her own story. Does your heart simply not break?
It’s not just books; it's everything. While the text hits your eyes, it's the subtext that slams your brain. Everywhere you are seeing that you aren't good enough and that you never will be UNLESS you buy a product, or that you are unsafe unless you keep listening and paying us, or that the person next to you could be dangerous. But are they? Are you? Is anything, anything? That's the whole point. You must see the subtext before you accidentally swallow their pill and believe whatever they tell you.
In the time of lies, insight and thought are our sword and shield. When you see something, think why are you seeing it, what does it mean and what does the author want me to do about it?