American Studies
Graziano
Literary Analysis Essay Assignment
For your next essay in this course, you will be working with one or more of the poems or
short stories that we’ve read in the first two units. Ideally, you will choose one that you’ve
related to or understood on a level that transcends the literal. When analyzing literature, you
are demonstrating your critical thinking skills and your comprehension of subtext. You will
say something about the text that can be argued and supported with textual evidence. You
will offer insight into the text that will challenge readers to examine it in ways they might not
have considered in the past, bringing with you—in some cases—your eye and experiences as
a 21st Century reader.
Assignment: Write a 2-4 page literary analysis essay that uses specific textual evidence to
support a clear and debatable thesis. While the thesis should include your own opinions
about the text, it should also allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.
The final essay should be:



Typed and double-spaced
In MLA format
Proofread and well-edited.
Topics are completely up to you, but below are a couple of prompts that you can use while
brainstorming for a thesis. You might want to expand on one of your responses on one of
the summative exams as well.
Again, remember the thesis be able to be argued. For example:
NOT A GOOD THESIS: The narrator in “A Rose for Emily” is a member of the town
who is curious about the enigmatic Emily Grierson.
BETTER THESIS: The townsfolk, not insane Emily Grierson, in William Faulkner’s “A
Rose for Emily” are responsible for the murder of Homer Barron.
Here is a list of prompts:
1. Choose a poem or story we’ve read in class and psychoanalyze the speaker or main
character. What observations can you make about them? Be specific.
2. Examine the use of setting/landscape in one of the poems or stories we’ve read in
class.
3. Analyze and interpret a symbol, and how it is used to illuminate meaning in a story
or poem.
4. Examine the use of allusion in a piece of writing. How is it used throughout the
work? How does it illuminate meaning?
5. Compare and contrast a main character or speaker’s conflict in two pieces of writing.
6. Examine a piece of writing through a feminist lens. Look at the author’s treatment of
female characters and their conflicts?
7. Analyze a piece of writing in relation to the historical time frame in which the piece
was written. Do any of the historical events of the author’s life bear down on the text
itself?
8. Examine of piece of writing through a Marxist lens. How does social class and
wealth factor into our understanding of the text?
9. Examine how The American Dream in treated (or corrupted) in The Great Gatsby.
10. Analyze one of the symbols from The Great Gatsby—the green light, Daisy’s voice,
The Valley of Ashes, etc.
11. Analyze whether Gatsby a tragic or “pathetic” character, as critic John W. Bicknell
asserts.
This is a short list of possible prompts to help you think of a strong and arguable thesis
statement for your essay; however, realize that discovering a strong thesis is large part of the
assignment. Also read through the Germanna Community College handout titled “Writing a
Literary Analysis Paper.”
If there is an alternative text that you’d like to work with for the essay, please let me know.
The only stipulations are that the writer is American, and I have a chance to familiarize
myself with the text before you write the essay.
The rubric I will be using to grade the essay is attached.