Why Close Reading?

Close reading is important because it gives us a chance to delve below the surface of the text and truly examine what the author is attempting to convey to us. It’s something that can help us get extreme meaning out of the story. Without close reading, there are so many allusions to other literature and different stylistic elements that the author places in their story to get the reader’s attention and pull them closer into the story. There are also other reasons for us to close read. One of the biggest reasons is that we might have missed some elements of the story if we just read the surface. We might miss certain key themes and elements that would have normally made the story easier to relate to or easier to understand. And going with understanding, if we don’t close read, we might not understand where the story is coming from or the purpose of why the story was written. Those are some key things that we would miss. Another reason close reading is important is because on the pieces that it’s most necessary for, they are pieces that are a social commentary or something that speaks to the bigger picture in our lives and if we don’t close read, we’ll completely miss it and we wont understand some of the meanings of the parts of the story. It’s also necessary to see where the author is coming from and their personal experiences because that can help us shape the story in certain aspects. Like the Yellow Wallpaper if you didn’t understand the history behind why she wrote what she wrote. Or the way that the specific story impacted her life directly and maybe why she was writing what she wrote. What specific meaning it held in her life. In doing that we become better readers and that’s why close reading is important.