Literary Analysis Essay
Introduction:
The skill of composing the literary analysis essay is one that will be used over and over by high school and
college students alike. It is an art as well as a skill as the requirements for analysis can be quite broad,
allowing for lots of personal creativity but also putting the onus on the author to find something
meaningful, and defendable, within a particular piece of literature. A careful analysis of a piece of
literature often requires the author to know something about the writing of literature, the culture during
which it was written, the author’s life, and/or related literature by the same author or different authors. In
writing a literary analysis essay, students discuss a work of fiction or poetry in terms of one or more
elements of the work, such as theme, character, style, philosophy, symbolism, etc. The author of the essay
would then defend his opinion by using specific evidence from the text and professional literary criticism to
defend his position or opinion. Our Media Center has several texts that are literary criticism and can and
should be used as a mean to help get you started and defend your opinions.
Cautions:
The literary analysis essay is not a book review nor is it a summary of a piece of literature. The author
would need to find a thesis to prove and support it using portions of the literature.
Although the literary analysis is more or less personal opinion, it is a formal essay. Composers of the
analysis must avoid using the less formal “I” and more importantly “you”. Third person should be all that
is used. Also verbs should be present tense to show the continuing nature of the content of the literature as
well the universality of its themes.
When using professional literary criticism many young authors tend to lose their own voice and simply
follow the lead of the professional critic. Authors should always use others’ material with caution and
make it work within the context of the literary analysis topic or theme.
Topics:
Topics for the LA essay can really be anything related to the text of the literature—a character study,
thematic elements, narration or point of view, setting, language or dialogue, etc. From the Goshen College
English Department web page comes the following:
In writing about literature or any specific text, you will strengthen your discussion if you offer specific
passages from the text as evidence. Rather than simply dropping in quotations and expecting their
significance and relevance to your argument to be self-evident, you need to provide sufficient analysis of
the passage. Remember that your over-riding goal of analysis writing is to demonstrate some new
understanding of the text.
How to analyze a text:
1.
Read or reread the text with specific questions in mind.
2. Marshal basic ideas, events and names. Depending on the complexity of book, this requires
additional review of the text.
3.
Think through your personal reaction to the book: identification, enjoyment,
significance, application.
4. Identify and consider most important ideas (importance will depend on context of class,
assignment, etc.)
5. Return to the text to locate specific evidence and passages related to major ideas.
Principles of analyzing a passage
1. Offer a thesis or topic sentence indication, a basic observation or assertion about the text or
passage, especially as it relates to “universal” ideas about literature or culture.
2. Offer a context for the passage or passages without offering too much summary—your assessment
3. Cite the passages from the text using correct format.
4.
5.
Then follow the passage with some combination of the following.
Explain what it means, tie it to your thesis or relate it back to its significance to the work as a
whole.
Discuss what happens in the passage and its significance to your thesis or the text as a whole.
Assess various aspects, such as word choice, structure, and contribute to the meaning of the
passage.
Explain the importance of the imagery, ideas, characterizations, symbols, etc.
Be sure to use as much textual information as necessary, while also keeping your own voice and
keeping the focus on your thesis.
The thesis will be the focus of the analysis. Like the essay itself, the thesis can be either simplistic or
sophisticated. It is important to remember that the thesis statement controls the entire composition. If an
idea is not stated in the thesis—either directly or indirectly—then it does not belong in that essay. A
focused and concise thesis statement will give you a greater chance of producing writing that clearly
communicates your argument.
A formula for the most basic analysis thesis could look something like this:
In (title of poem/novel/play), (author's name) uses (1st idea or literary device), (2nd idea or literary device),
and (3rd idea/literary device) to (show/criticize/explain/etc.) (some aspect of human nature).
Notice that the second part of such a thesis (beginning with "to") identifies the theme of the passage, which
will be the focus of the analysis. An example of this type of simple thesis is:
In "If you Were Coming in the Fall," Emily Dickinson uses simile, diction, and syntax to describe how
people wait, hoping to fall in love.
If all you do in one body paragraph is give a few examples of irony from the text and simply identify them
as irony, then you haven't analyzed anything. The analysis part involves explaining how those examples are
irony and how they help to communicate the theme of the passage. But to be sophisticated in your analysis,
you must have ideas that are "in-depth" - not just the superficial facts of what you see on the page. You
must interpret what the author has given us to work with and show that you understand the theme. It is not
a compare/contrast but an analysis.
So, Your Literary Analysis Assignment: Create at least a two page, typed, (TNR, 12 pt. or less, 1 inch
margins, header only on page 1—change the font on Google Docs!) literary analysis essay using any two
of our readings (from Fitzgerald back through the Romantic/Realist literature) focus. You need to create a
viable thesis that focuses on a character study in relation to the literary philosophy for this and then defend
it with the pertinent lines and sections from the text. You must use at least one of the literary criticisms
available in our Media Center and at least one other from online or other source to help support your thesis
when necessary or applicable. You may choose to highlight the context in which a literary work appears or
how the literature highlights a more universal truth. You may choose to say something about a character or
a section of dialogue and show how that relates to a literary philosophy or a cultural experience. Or you
may choose a particular scene or a recurring motif that illuminates something broader than just the text.
Below are the due dates.
Thursday, October 23:
Monday, October 27:
Thursday, October 30:
Wednesday, November 5:
Topics/Thesis Due
Outline
Rough Draft/Peer Edit
Final Draft Due (including all rough draft work)