What Do I Underline? How to Determine What Matters in a Story

Inevitably, once a person starts annotating literature for the first time, the question arises: “How do I know what to underline? How can I tell what’s important?” After all, when the teacher models annotating in the classroom, they make it look so easy, underlining words and sentences and passages with the ease of a magician’s slight of hand.

Don’t worry, though. You, too, can figure out the things that matter from the things that don’t. Here are a few tips.

1)      Everything is a symbol.

A symbol is an object that represents an idea. Anything in a story can have symbolic value. Why? Because the story has an author, and authors don’t usually make a habit of putting objects in their stories for no reason. The real question is what should we consider an “object.” In Guy de Maupassant’s classic, “The Necklace,” the object in the title should immediately trigger your “symbol alert” senses. But what about the invitation that the main character, Mathilde Loisel’s, husband gives her for a swanky rich person party? It’s a symbol, too. The question is, of course, what does the invitation – or the necklace itself – symbolize. That’s for you to decide.

What about people, though? They are objects, too. Authors manipulate their characters just as they manipulate the non living objects of their stories. So, in “The Necklace,” what does Mathilde herself symbolize? Her husband? Her best friend, Mme. Forestier? They all have symbolic value, too. And your ideas about that will shape what you decide to underline in a story.

2)      Look for irony.

Irony occurs when what happens – or is said – does not meet the expectations you were prepared for by the author. Back to “The Necklace,” it is of course ironic that in the end, Mathilde discovers that the necklace she spent ten years slaving over to replace turned out to be a fake. That’s called situational irony. But it is also ironic that Mathilde begins the story thinking about how poor she is, even though she pays for a servant to clean her “shabby” home. It’s even more ironic that this woman, who thought she was poor, eventually becomes poverty stricken because of her pursuit of feeling rich.

When you see things in a story that play against your expectations, that is irony. Notice it, underline it, and enjoy it. Irony is one of the greatest elements of all literature.

3)      Descriptions matter.

Authors love to describe everything: characters, settings, objects…and it is usually because what they describe is important to the story they are trying to tell. On one level, descriptions can tell us what things look like, sound like, etc., and that is useful. But when we look at the words being selected, they tell us things on a completely different level. Take this description from “The Necklace.”

"All at once, in a box lined with black satin, she came upon a superb diamond necklace, and her heart started beating with overwhelming desire. Her hands trembled as she picked it up. She fastened it around her neck over her high-necked dress and stood there gazing at herself ecstatically."

Consider the word choice. The box is “lined with black satin.” The color black is often a symbol of death, so the immediate association with this obviously expensive necklace is death, which we learn later represents a death of sorts to Mathilde. We also see that Mathilde “fastened it around her neck over her high-necked dress”. The word “neck” is used twice, making that the focus. The general impression is that this necklace is a noose, or at least a shackle, even though Mathilde is ecstatic about it.

These tips are a good way to get yourself started annotating with independence and creativity. Of course, it will be difficult at first, because the process of marking up a text for meaning is new to you. But, give it time, work hard, and look for these things, and soon enough you’ll be finding “hidden” meanings you never thought you’d be able to in a million years.