How to write a literary analysis essay
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This presentation is directed toward AP English students who need to know how to write a literary analysis.
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Understanding the Short StoryTitle __________________________.docx
Understanding the Short Story
Title :_________________________________________________________________
Plot
1) What does the reader learn during exposition?
2) What is/are the conflict(s)?
3) What complications are introduced?
4) What is the climax of the story?
5) How is the conflict resolved?
Point of view
1) From what point of view is the story narrated? (first person, third person, etc.)
2) How does the narration influence your understanding of the story?
Characters
1) Who is the protagonist?
2) Who is the antagonist?
3) Are the characters round or flat?
4) Are the characters static or dynamic?
Setting
1) What is the setting of the story?
2) Does the setting influence other elements of the story?
Theme
1) What is/are the theme(s) of the story?
2) How do you know?
LITERARY TERMS
"Structure" includes all the elements in a story. The final objective is to see the story as a whole and to become aware of how the parts are put together to produce a unified effect.
ELEMENTS OF PLOT
All fiction is based on conflict and this conflict is presented in a structured format called PLOT.
Exposition
The introductory material which gives the setting, creates the tone, presents the characters, and presents other facts necessary to understanding the story.
Foreshadowing
The use of hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in the story.
Inciting Force
The event or character that triggers the conflict.
Conflict
The essence of fiction. It creates plot. The conflicts we encounter can usually be identified as one of four kinds. (Man versus…Man, Nature, Society, or Self)
Rising Action
A series of events that builds from the conflict. It begins with the inciting force and ends with the climax.
Crisis
The conflict reaches a turning point. At this point the opposing forces in the story meet and the conflict becomes most intense. The crisis occurs before or at the same time as the climax.
Climax
The climax is the result of the crisis. It is the high point of the story for the reader. Frequently, it is the moment of the highest interest and greatest emotion. The point at which the outcome of the conflict can be predicted.
Falling Action
The events after the climax which close the story.
Resolution (Denouement)
Rounds out and concludes the action.
CHARACTERIZATION
MAJOR CHARACTERS
Almost always round or three-dimensional characters. They have good and bad qualities. Their goals, ambitions and values change. A round character changes as a result of what happens to him or her. A character who changes inside as a result of what happens to him is referred to in literature as a DYNAMIC character. A dynamic character grows or progresses to a higher level of understanding in the course of the story.
Protagonist
The main character in the story
Antagonist
The character or force that opposes the protagonist.
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Essay Instructions Literary AnalysisInstructions for the Li.docx
Essay Instructions: Literary Analysis
Instructions for the Literary Analysis Essay (English 1302 Online)
Literary Analysis
In this essay you should combine your practice responding and analyzing short stories with support derived from research. So far, in the discussion boards, we have practiced primarily formal analysis. Now I want you to practice "joining the conversation." In this essay you will write a literary analysis that incorporates the ideas of others. The trick is to accurately present ideas and interpretations gathered from your research while adding to the conversation by presenting
your own
ideas and analysis.
You will be evaluated, in part, on how well you use external sources. I want to see that you can quote, paraphrase and summarize without plagiarizing. Remember, any unique idea must be credited, even if you put it in your own words.
Choose one of the approaches explained in the "Approaches to Literary Analysis" located at the bottom of this document. Each approach will require research, and that research should provide the context in which you present your own ideas and support your thesis. Be sure to properly document your research. Review the links in the "Writing about Literature" tab as these will help guide you.
While I am asking you to conduct outside research, do not lose sight of the primary text to which you are responding---the story! Your research should support
your
interpretations of the story. Be sure that your thesis is relevant to the story and that you quote generously from the story.
Purpose: critical analysis, writing from sources
Length: 5 pages, approx 1500 words
Documentation: Minimum of 5 sources required. Documented in MLA format. (Note: review the material in "finding and evaluating sources" to help you choose relevant and trustworthy sources.)
Choose from the following short stories, all located in the folder located in this unit.
A Perfect Day for a
Bananafish
The Short Happy Life of Francis
Macomber
The Wall
The Swimmer
The Lesson
At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers
The Bound Man
The Birthmark
For Esme... with Love and Squalor
Below are some examples. I do not require you to choose one of these topics. They are just here to give you an idea of the type of approaches that will work for this essay.
1. Philosophical analysis: How do the stories by Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus reflect the philosophy of existentialism?
2. Socio/cultural analysis: What opinion about marriage and gender roles does Hemingway advance in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"?
3. Historical analysis: What social dilemmas faced by African Americans in the 1960s might have inspired Toni Cade Bambara to write "The Lesson"?
4. Biographical analysis: What events in Salman Rushdie's life might have influenced the events in "At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers"?
5. Psychological analysis: How is John Cheever's "The Swimmer" a metaphor for the psychology of .
Core 168 LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAYYour first essay for the c.docx
Core 168: LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY
Your first essay for the course will be a literary analysis essay. You will choose one primary text (one of the poems, stories, speeches, or memoirs) from our class reading so far and then focus your essay analyzing the text.
Your analysis must have:
· a worthwhile, interesting introduction leading to your thesis sentence (stating the focus/main point of the essay);
· a substantial body of paragraphs to support your analysis (at least 2-3 paragraphs);
· an interesting, relevant conclusion.
You will follow these steps of the writing process to write your essay. Each step will also earn you assignment credit. Your assignments will provide guidance for how to approach and perform a literary analysis. Also, included below are specific directions for HOW TO WRITE A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY:
1. Read “How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay” (below in this document);
2. Choose a primary text of literature as your focus for the essay; (9/25/18)
3. Brainstorm regarding two different aspect of the text—the content (WHAT THE TEXT SAYS) and the literary devices (HOW THE TEXT SAYS WHAT IT SAYS). If you would like to use a recommended topic, you may do so, but you are also free to explore your own topic (9/27/18)
4. Determine WHAT is interesting and important about what happens in the text and make a statement about it. That statement is your thesis statement. (9/27/18)
5. Write an essay to support your thesis statement, using textual evidence (quotes from the primary text) to illustrate and provide examples of your thesis. (10/2/18)
6. Revise your essay for content and organization. (10/4/18)
7. Edit your essay for clarity and correctness.
8. Visit the Writing Center and do a peer review of your essay.
9. Proofread your essay before submitting it.
10. Submit your essay by the deadline of 10/10/18.
SUGGESTED/EXAMPLE TOPICS
· Examine Sherman Alexie’s poem “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World”
· Examine how Nora Naranjo-Morse uses the legend/tradition of the coyote trickster in her poem “A Well Traveled Coyote”
· Analyze the coyote figure in any of the coyote texts from Native American Coyote Mythology
· Analyze Red Jacket’s rhetorical strategies he used in his speeches
· Examine how Black Elk uses descriptive details to evoke empathy for his people in Black Elk Speaks
· Analyze Lame Deers use of one or more of the following literary devices: simile/metaphor; circular storytelling; humor
· Analyze E. Pauline Johnson’s short story (fiction) “As It Was in the Beginning,” focusing on one or more of the following:
· 1st person point of view;
· the focus on skin color and how race is characterized in the text;
· the focus on womanhood, particularly Ester’s connection with her mother and how Ester uses the wisdom passed from her mother;
· the circularity of the story in terms of the beginning and end of the text and Ester’s return home;
· the significance of the snake;
· how Christian ideas of heaven and hell a.
Midterm Essay Metacommentary (750 Words)Form The form of thi.docx
Midterm Essay: Metacommentary (750 Words)
Form: The form of this essay will take after Jenny Boully’s The Body, an Essay. Rather than writing a standard essay form, you will instead write only footnotes that reference an absent body text. The body text you reference can be a real text, such as a text from class, your own writing, or elsewhere. Alternatively, it can an imagined text, one that doesn’t actually exist at all.
Content: The content of this essay is your commentary on something else. Your notes about the absent text you are referencing. Your observations and thoughts about that which we cannot, ourselves, as readers, see. If your absent text is a poem from class, then your essay will be your thoughts on the poem. If your absent text is a grocery list you put together the night before, then your essay will be your thoughts on that grocery list.
Citations: You must reference or cite three texts, either poems or essays, from the readings we’ve done in class.
Expanded Midterm Explanation
When writing this paper, you’ll begin by choosing something from your journal, from your notes, from lecture, from the texts we’ve read in class, etc.
Ex 1: As the Vietnamese delegates explained how the US War in Viet Nam depended on gendered and sexualized violence in Asia, Asian American women emphasized the transnational nature of that violence. “We, as Asian American women, cannot separate ourselves from our Asian counterparts,” Evelyn Yoshimura argued. 1 “Racism against them is too often racism against us…. The mentality that keeps Suzy Wong, Madame Butterfly and gookism alive turns human beings into racist murdering soldiers and also keeps Asian Americans from being able to live and feel like human beings.”
Add a footnote or two, explaining your thinking about something in your chosen excerpt.
Evelyn Yoshimura references the inseparability of Asian American women from Asian women across the world. How the Asian American woman might sometimes seem an isolated figure, distant from those who live in Asia. But how the very same violences that affect Asian American women affect, too, those women across the Pacific.
Ex 2: You can also add a footnote based on your own footnote!
It has never occurred to me that I might be isolated, myself, from Asia. I have always considered myself to be in relation to people, even if I’ve only been once or twice to Japan. There is something that keeps my attentions on Japanese media, Japanese people.
Ex 3: You might add a footnote to something you’d written in your assignments earlier. For example, if earlier you wrote about your parents’ immigration story:
I think what I was trying to say here was that in order for me to understand myself, in order for me to explain myself to anyone else, I first must start with the story of my parents. So I want to take this space to tell that story.
But remember! The source of your footnote will not be included in the essay. Only the footnote.
Later, when y.
Dr. C. Carney .docx
Dr. C. Carney
Essay # 2: Literary Analysis of a Short Story with Light Research
This assignment requires you to
analyze a work of fiction from my list of options (see link on Canvas assignment page). This essay requires you to
develop a focused and opinioned thesis about the story, as this assignment is not asking you to write a mere “book report” which is only a re-telling of the story. It also requires you to
find and use three sources to support your ideas:
one source that needs to be from a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal in literature that pertains to the story and/or the author (this source must be obtained through the HCC library databases) AND another source (website preferably) that DOES NOT pertain directly to the story nor to the author, but rather to
the theme presented in your thesis statement and discussed throughout your essay (you cannot pursue this second source until you’ve established your thesis and know what “angle” you are pursuing) AND a third source that is entirely your choice.
I. The Purpose of a Literary Analysis:
A literary analysis is not merely a summary of a literary work. This kind of analysis analysis, like any analysis, is just that:
ANALYTICAL! It is intended to reveal and/or explain meaning. Thus, the assumption is that meaning exists, and it is the job of a (close/active) reader to ferret it out and offer a response to it!
Far from being a mere summary, it is an argument, essentially, about the work that expresses the essay writer’s personal perspective, interpretation, judgment, or critical evaluation. This is accomplished by examining the literary devices, word choices, or writing structures the author uses within the work first, followed by a critical analysis of content. Another purpose of a literary analysis is to demonstrate why the author used specific ideas, word choices, or writing structures to convey his or her message.
II. How to Create a Literary Analysis:
1. Select (and ideally
print) one of the stories listed on my Learning Web page (linked on the Canvas assignment page for this essay assignment). The stories listed here are the only acceptable stories for this assignment, and they are all in full text so there’s no need to find them elsewhere.
2. Read the text closely at least a couple of times. Focus on the ideas that are being presented. Think about the characters’ development and the author’s writing technique. What might be considered interesting, unusual, or important?
3. Brainstorm a list of potential topics. Highlight important passages in the text and take notes on these passages. Think of the ideas/concepts that strike you as you read. Later, when writing the paper, these notes should help a writer to .
riting About LiteratureGenerally, the essays you write in lite.docx
riting About Literature
Generally, the essays you write in literature courses attempt to answer interesting questions about works of literature. These questions are interesting for at least two reasons: a) their answers are not obvious, and b) their answers (or at least the attempt to answer them) can enrich other readers’ understanding and experience of those works of literature. Often works of literature seem to be intentionally posing these questions to us; they require us to do some work to get them to work.
Readers have asked many different types of questions of works of literature, for example:
· What did the author want to communicate in this work?
· What does the work reveal about the author’s feelings, opinions, or psychology?
· What does the work reveal about the society in which it was written?
· What can we learn from this work about the issues or topics it deals with?
· What motivates the characters in the work to behave as they do?
· How are literary devices used in the work?
· How does the work create emotional or intellectual experiences for its readers?
· Is this work good or bad?
· Is this work good or bad for its readers?
Some of these questions require information from outside the text itself; for example, to argue that a work reveals a writer’s psychological condition, it would be helpful to have some other evidence of that condition to corroborate your interpretation of the work of literature. Some of these questions ask about the world outside the work—about the author, his/her society, or our own society, for example—while others try to focus more on the features of the work itself. Analyses which try to make statements about the work itself is often calledformalist criticism: it attends more to the structures and strategies employed in the work. Ultimately, such arguments generally do try to move beyond the work, to claim, for instance, that it is likely to create certain effects in its readers, or that readers will understand the writer’s intent more clearly if they pay attention to its formal characteristic.
In LIT 100, we are going to be paying attention primarily to these formal features of literary works. In fiction, some of these features include tone, point of view, setting, character, etc. We will be paying less attention to extra-textual features, such as the author’s biography or the historical contexts in which the literature was produced and/or read; these elements are not less important than formal features, but they naturally vary greatly from one work to another and often require in-depth study to truly appreciate. To understand how Shakespeare’s social situation in London in the 1590s might have been reflected in his plays would require a whole course in Elizabethan history. On the other hand, the formal features we will be studying in this course can be found in literature of all eras and genres, though they may often be used to different effect by different writers at different times. A ...
Literary AnalysisWhat distinguishes literature from other forms o.docx
Literary Analysis
“What distinguishes literature from other forms of knowledge is that it cannot be understood unless we understand what it means to be human.” (J. Bronowski)
There are many ways to interpret, analyze, and evaluate literature. Perhaps you’ve already been asked to make an observation or take a position about a work of literature (whether a poem, short story, novel, play, or film) and examine such elements as plot, characters, theme, setting, conflict, structure, point of view, imagery, or symbolism. When you are asked by a teacher to write an interpretation, a critique, or a literary analysis, you are being asked to figure out what is going on in a work of literature. Much more complicated than merely summarizing a piece or writing a personal reaction to it, literary analysis requires that you read between the lines of a text and discover something meaningful there. Why does a specific image recur throughout a poem? How does a novel relate to a social issue facing the author at the time it was written? Do you recognize a pattern or perceive a problem with a character’s behavior in a play? How is the role of women significant in a movie? Answers to all of these questions can be determined only through critical thinking and the synthesis of your ideas.
· An interpretation—explains a text’s overall meaning or significance, explaining your reasoning for this interpretation with supporting evidence from the text.
· A critique—also called a critical response or a review, it provides your personal judgment about a text, supported by reasons and references to the work of art and often secondary sources.· A formal analysis—different from a critique in that examines a work of art by breaking it down into various elements to discover how the parts interrelate to create meaning of effect.
· A cultural analysis—examines a work of art by relating it to the historical, social, cultural, or political situations in which it was written to show how the author was influenced by personal experiences, events, prevailing attitudes, or contemporary values.
How can I persuade readers that my view or interpretation is reasonable?
First, be sure that your view or interpretation asserts a debatable claim.
For instance, if you were to say that “Antigone is a play about a young woman who questions authority,” you wouldn’t be saying much beyond a summary. But if you said that, “Antigone’s punishment is well-deserved because she violates the laws of the king,” that is debatable. Another student could just as easily argue that Antigone’s punishment is not well-deserved and that she should be commended for respecting the higher laws of the gods over the laws of the king.
Because you are essentially arguing that your perspective is a valid one, you have to support it effectively with reasons, evidence from the piece (direct references to specific quotations, lines, passages, scenes, etc.), and—if required—secondary sources (articles and bo ...
riting About LiteratureGenerally, the essays you write in litera.docx
riting About Literature
Generally, the essays you write in literature courses attempt to answer interesting questions about works of literature. These questions are interesting for at least two reasons: a) their answers are not obvious, and b) their answers (or at least the attempt to answer them) can enrich other readers’ understanding and experience of those works of literature. Often works of literature seem to be intentionally posing these questions to us; they require us to do some work to get them to work.
Readers have asked many different types of questions of works of literature, for example:
What did the author want to communicate in this work?
What does the work reveal about the author’s feelings, opinions, or psychology?
What does the work reveal about the society in which it was written?
What can we learn from this work about the issues or topics it deals with?
What motivates the characters in the work to behave as they do?
How are literary devices used in the work?
How does the work create emotional or intellectual experiences for its readers?
Is this work good or bad?
Is this work good or bad for its readers?
Some of these questions require information from outside the text itself; for example, to argue that a work reveals a writer’s psychological condition, it would be helpful to have some other evidence of that condition to corroborate your interpretation of the work of literature. Some of these questions ask about the world outside the work—about the author, his/her society, or our own society, for example—while others try to focus more on the features of the work itself.
Analyses which try to make statements about the work itself
is often called
formalist
criticism: it attends more to the structures and strategies employed in the work. Ultimately, such arguments generally do try to move beyond the work, to claim, for instance, that it is likely to create certain effects in its readers, or that readers will understand the writer’s intent more clearly if they pay attention to its formal characteristic.
In LIT 100, we are going to be paying attention primarily to these formal features of literary works. In fiction, some of these features include tone, point of view, setting, character, etc. We will be paying less attention to extra-textual features, such as the author’s biography or the historical contexts in which the literature was produced and/or read; these elements are not less important than formal features, but they naturally vary greatly from one work to another and often require in-depth study to truly appreciate. To understand how Shakespeare’s social situation in London in the 1590s might have been reflected in his plays would require a whole course in Elizabethan history. On the other hand, the formal features we will be studying in this course can be found in literature of all eras and genres, though they may often be used to different effect by different writers at different times. Almost all fict.
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How to write a literary analysis essay
- 1. Writing a literary analysis essay Advanced Placement English 12
- 29. An effectively-written and well-organized introductory paragraph should act as a signpost for the rest of the paper.
- 30. A good introduction essentially writes the rest of the essay for you.
- 39. And oila! Your essay is complete! A+