Reading Behind-the-Scenes: Finding Pattern (Part 1)
Reading Time: 7 Minutes
Revealing Patterns of Meaning & Design
We have already spent time believing in our own ability to Notice the unexpected in what we read, and we’ve also considered the possible Significances of what we noticed. Our third step is to recognize how these ideas are woven into Patterns.
This means, mostly, matching up the ideas we’ve already speculated about, finding connections and relationships. What emerges when we do this is a larger Pattern of meaning which our individual ideas of Significance might never have seen.
In addition, seeking Patterns of meaning helps us narrow down the best interpretations from our list of Significant ideas. Having ideas for what a metaphor or image in literature is excellent, but true critical reading begins when we move from our initial “guesses” to finding those ideas repeated or added to, finding the connections–and then we lay claim to that deeper meaning!
Whatever patterns we uncover, naming the relationships formed is important: that may well be a deeper meaning we seek.
So What Counts as Pattern?
And once again, we are in a realm somewhere between logic and personal association. First, we might talk about what a Pattern isn’t. It’s not merely a repeated idea; on the other hand, neither is it a link that is based on a random dream we had or news story we read.
Looking across our lists of Significances, we seek connections, possible relationships, they might share. The kind of relationship is varied: it might be in similarity, contradiction, causes and effects, analogies, themes, hierarchies, or any number of links we can find. (Do you see another list possibly forming? This time, perhaps all the possible links we find!)
Whatever patterns we uncover, naming the relationships formed is important: that may well be a deeper meaning we seek.
Patterns of Image
Words and images are great places to start for finding patterns. You may have already seen this back when Noticing the text. And yes, while I’m spelling out these four steps, it’s worth pointing out here that these steps do overlap frequently!
What’s important here is that while we may have Noticed an image before, once we have, our eyes and brain are more likely to see it again when it occurs. (“Hey, he spent a lot of time talking about the colors in the kitchen scene, especially the bananas, and now the woman in this next scene is wearing a yellow hat.”) It might be a coincidence, but how often does it have to happen to be called a Pattern?
Objects, imagery, metaphors, and sensory details are all important to pattern. And while repetition is an important relationship, don’t miss other relationships:
- The kitchen scene has lots of colors, but the next scene with the woman in the hat perhaps has no color details at all.
- The bananas in the first scene are barely ripe, almost green, but as this couple meets, the fruit in the scene is more and more ripe and then rotted (like their moral choices? their relationship? their plans?).
- The food and color in the kitchen scene is the opposite of the workplace scene with computers and buzzing and dull grays.
- The woman in the hat says in the next scene, “My ex-husband once worked for Dole. Now he’s just a full-time stalker.”
- All that detail on the bananas in the kitchen scene and then a nearby chapter takes place at a farm in Brazil.
The point is that word and image connections can be formed into Patterns in many ways. How many repetitions or connections have to be made to be a Pattern? This is also a matter of interpretation, but my rule of thumb is “two may be coincidence, but three is worth investigating.” And you may have noticed in my examples above that all the scenes were next to each other: How close do two images have to be to count as Pattern? One term to describe this nearness is juxtaposition: when a writer places two or more images or scenes or objects next to one another, a new meaning/relationship is built between them. So my informal rule to closeness: Close is better, but close enough to remember is all that counts.
Side Note on Repetition: Repetition is the most clean and popular form writers use to create patterns of meaning” they repeat images, repeat symbols, using similar metaphors. Repetitions of images (or even ‘families’ of images–for instance, all nature images, or all family images, or geometric forms) are called motifs. Motifs, then, are a kind of Pattern, but not yet fully formed enough to be called a theme, which is a fuller message or question a work poses.
Patterns of Structure
These are often harder to spot in prose, but easier in poetry. We might notice patterns in rhyme or rhythm, in stanzas or spacing. We might notice how a poet ends her lines (an unusual use of enjambment) or how some lines are interrupted by punctuation or pause. The visible form of poetry often makes structure visible on the page.
In prose, however, we can still recognize structural connections. These may be in the lengths of sentences or paragraphs, the use of setting, conventions of genre or trope (for instance, if our romance heroine repeatedly saves herself before the beau arrives, or if the adventure film suddenly turns to look more like horror).
In structure, I have found it’s easier (and more meaningful) to find subversions or “breakings” of expectation rather than comfortable readings. In poetry, it’s not what the rhyme scheme is that counts, but where that rhyme scheme varies a bit: we are more likely to Notice that, we may more easily therefore recognize what is Significant about that moment of change, and therefore, we may start to see Patterns from that Significance.
In prose and poetry, form complements meaning. That is, when we spot something structurally, we should expect a content or meaning difference to appear, as well. If it doesn’t, we might call that variation just a gimmick. (I’m thinking of the novels of George R. R. Martin that repeatedly set our sympathies up for characters only to kill them unexpectedly, usually without any meaningful idea behind it except to play with reader emotions.)
“If this is a love poem, why is it so full of death imagery?”
Patterns of Character
Using any of the above ideas, watch for recurring or unexpected actions, or traits of characters that stubbornly remain or shift, or even ideas spoken by characters and how they shift or change. And as we examine our characters, let’s not forget that the narrator of a story or speaker of a poem is also a character, sometimes presenting to us a particular viewpoint.
In Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” I Noticed that our speaker says he would love the woman; but I also Noticed that then he wants to seduce her physically. In terms of Significance, the speaker has an unusual idea of love, he only promises that he would, but . . . , and that he spends more time in describing her physically than any of her qualities of personality. I already don’t trust him, I think he is a manipulating letch, and his imagery gets morbid and even violent towards the end. (Already my Noticing quickly spotted Patterns.) But while I’m looking for Patterns, I also notice that the poem is written in three stanzas, and that the speaker’s entire argument is openly illogical. Now, in terms of larger Patterns, I might wonder if he is rather stupid or if the Pattern is that he knows that his seduction is stupid and doesn’t care, or more, if there is still something more going on.
Patterns are not necessarily conclusions, even of characters, because just when we think we’ve found a Pattern for our character’s behavior or motivation, we will then seek Patterns between that and those of other characters, other settings, etc.
What Do I Call My Pattern?
Sure, we think we see something that is a Pattern, but how do we describe it?
From my view, we describe it very much as we describe any meaning that we find in our reading: these just look a little deeper, more significant than before because they’re based on multiple places in a text, not single discoveries. But we should note that they are, indeed, Patterns.
- “Marvell’s speaker continually disrespects the woman he is trying to seduce.”
- “Marvell’s speaker exaggerates everything, as if he is covering for something.”
- “If this is a love poem, why is it so full of death imagery?”
Or, from our earlier thoughts on Gambino’s “This is America” video:
- Childish Gambino’s song can’t seem to hold onto a single emotion or response.
- “This is America” keeps pairing violence with images of celebration.
- The whole song and video is full of juxtapositions, and almost every one is a kind of contradiction.
- Is the violence in the video serious death, ritualized violence, or performance for entertainment and shock? All of these seem possible in each instance. Is he saying that we can no longer tell the difference?
- The music styles and dance styles are from different places, times, cultures. Is America a mix of everything? Or does America consume everything?
Where Next?
If you’re like most readers, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, to feel confused about all of the Significances and Patterns we begin to see. But we’re not done talking about Pattern, and it is this very feeling–the enormousness of possible meanings–that we must discuss.
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