Language Development Through Resonance

#4 Significant Details

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Significant Details: Those details in a work that appear to pattern an emotional mood for the work or point toward a particular tone (attitude of the writer).

Identifying significant details is not an easy skill; it takes practice. Most readers and viewers are conditioned to "experience" a story or movie. We accept what the writer gives us and are emotionally blown according to the script. At the end, we either cheer or cry. Noticing the details usually eliminates the emotion; the story no longer "works" for us. Realize that this is a temporary state, though. Once a critic (that’s what you are becoming) is comfortable with enjoying and analyzing, you can choose to do both whenever you like.

Over the centuries of criticism, a whole language has developed on the techniques of Figurative Language, or the use of language to imply and associate. We use the techniques every day, but rarely examine them.

The most common is the use of Metaphor: Words or images that imply or compare dissimilarities.

For example, the first sentence of William Gibson’s "Neuromancer" is "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." In this comparison, the sky is compared to a television visual: dead channel. Implied in the comparison is the "color" of what is called "snow:" the moving black and white dots, television static. There is also the hiss of audio static. In addition, the channel is not just unoccupied, but "dead," which implies lifelessness.

Applying all these qualities to "sky" creates a visual and emotional picture of a static-filled, lifeless, black & white sky, most likely the result of industrial haze and toxins.

A subset of the Metaphor is the Simile: A comparison that uses "like" or "as." "He was as smart as a bag full of hammers."

When we talk about metaphors and similes, we refer to the thing being described ("sky" or "smart") as the "TENOR." The associated or emotional object ("tuned television"or "hammers") is called the "VEHICLE."  In other words, the hammers are the vehicle through which we see his smarts.

There are many other types of figurative language, and most have definitions. They include Personification, Symbols, Pun, Metonymy, etc. More on that later.