Literary Analysis Essay Writing

1. Literary Analysis Essay Writing Reprinted with permission from Bucks County Community College

2. Purpose • a literary analysis essay asks you to carefully examine literature or an aspect of a work of literature. (discuss and explain) • As with any analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts. • It is a process to help you better appreciate and understand the work of literature as a whole.

3. For instance: • An analysis of a poem might deal with the different types of images in a poem or with the relationship between the form and content of the work. (Like Emily Dickinson’s view of death.) • If you were to analyze a play, you might analyze the character flaw of the tragic hero by tracing how it is revealed through the acts of the play. • Analyzing a short story or novel might include identifying a particular theme and showing how the writer suggests that theme through the characters’ dialogue, actions, and outcomes.

4. In addition: • Writing is the sharpened, focused expression of thought and study. • As you develop your writing skills, you will also improve your perceptions and increase your critical abilities. • Unlike ordinary conversation and classroom discussion, writing must stick with great determination to the specific point of development. (Your Thesis Statement)

5. The Thesis Statement • The thesis statement tells your reader what to expect: it is a restricted, precisely worded declarative sentence that states the purpose of your essay -- the point you are trying to make. • Without a carefully conceived thesis, an essay has no chance of success.

6. Which is the best Thesis Statement? • Moby-Dick is about the problem of evil. • Moby-Dick is boring and pointless. • Moby-Dick is about a big, white whale. • The use of whiteness in Moby-Dick illustrates the uncertainty of the meaning of life that Ishmael expresses throughout the novel.

7. Examples: • Gwendolyn Brooks’s 1960 poem “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” demonstrates how the poet uses the conventional poetic form of the ballad to treat the unconventional poetic subject of racial intolerance. • The fate of the main characters in Antigone illustrates the danger of excessive pride. • The imagery in Dylan Thomas’s poem “Fern Hill” reveals the ambiguity of the relationship of humans and the natural world.

8. The Introduction • The introduction to your literary analysis essay should try to arouse interest • Bring immediate focus to your subject • Supply background information relevant to your thesis and necessary for the reader to understand the position you are taking. • In addition, you need to include the title of the work of literature and name of the author.

9. Reminders: • Use MLA format • Titles of works that appear in collections, subtitles, chapter titles, articles from periodicals should be in “quotation marks” • “I hear America Singing,” “The poetry of Langston Hughes” • Titles of large works such as novels, dramas or plays, newspapers or Websites should be underlined or Italicized • The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, The New York Times

10. Body Paragraphs • Stay focused on the thesis • Do not use personal pronouns: I, me, my, us, or we. • Avoid directly addressing the audience (you) • Use topic sentences • Use transitions • Use ample textual evidence- paraphrase, specific detail, and direct quotations • Smoothly transition into or embed quotes

11. Direct and Embedded Quotation • According to Updike, “That sad Sunday-school-superintendent stare doesn’t miss much.” (487) • The narrator describes the manager Lengel as having, “That sad Sunday-school-superintendent stare doesn’t miss much.” (487) • As the "manager" of the A & P, Lengel is both the guardian and enforcer of "policy." When he gives the girls "that sad Sunday-school-superintendent stare," it is clear that they are in the presence of the A & P's version of a dreary bureaucrat who "doesn't miss much" (487).

12. Use an Ellipsis • Original: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." • This behavior ". . . makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." • This maxim claims that "Early to bed . . . makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." • He said, "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy . . . ."

13. Conclusion • Refer back to the thesis • Do not bring in any new information • Leave the reader satisfied