Literary analysis is a genre of essays that involve multiple skills, which go beyond the act of writing. When you're tasked to analyze a work of literature, you're required to read and think critically before you can even think about writing. You want to ask questions about the material and try to answer them, but don't stop at basic plot type questions. As, I'll explain, the plot is just the beginning.
If it helps to think of yourself as a journalist investigating the story, do so. Begin with the classic journalism questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Look at the plot and characters, first. What's actually going on in the story? Then, think about the setting. Is the setting important? If you're unsure, ask yourself how the story would be different if it were set in another place or time.
What about themes? Are there any obvious themes in the work? Remember: Themes are not morals. Themes can be simple words or phrases like love, death, time, childhood, or parenthood. It is your job to figure out which themes are present in the work and analyze them.
When I read, I have a pen in my hand. I make marginal notes of important details. I underline key passages. This makes my job a lot easier when it comes time to pull quotes from the text into my paper. Now when I underline things, I underline what seems important to me. I have my own slant, my own ways of viewing the world, and they impact the way I read literature too. This is where working with literature becomes fun.
In many cases, the assignment you'll have will be relatively open-ended. Professors will ask you to "trace" a theme throughout a text or multiple texts, for example. It's up to you to figure out what's important to you, ask yourself why it's important to the text(s) and in what way. Once you figure out your angle, it's a matter of putting it into words.
At this point, it's much like any other writing assignment. You have a question you're supposed to address and other requirements. You take your angle and start thinking about how to organize your paper. An outline is a great tool for this. You want to take your focus and turn it into a thesis. Once you have a thesis, it's all about proving the thesis. This should be your primary concern in organizing your paper.
Like in any genre of writing, there are several pitfalls in literary analysis.
This first one is my biggest pet peeve: Avoid plot summary. Now this is a very tricky topic of discussion because you do need to summarize. You need to provide context in your writing. However, you don't want to give us the blow by blow plot summary. Remember: If I wanted to read the story, I'd read the story. The trick is to provide only the most crucial context, and follow it up with analysis. In other words, tell us what happened, but then tell us why it happened, why it's important, why the author wrote it that way, etc. Ultimately, we care about what you think about the story more than your ability to summarize it.
Along the same lines: Don't overuse direct quotations. Quotations signal to your reader that what you're quoting is really important. Quotes are the evidence with which you support your claims. You want to be very choosy about which quotes use and only use the parts that specifically pertain to your argument. Your goal is to make the quote fit your usual writing style as closely as possible. For all of these reasons, you don't want to use too many quotes in your paper.
These are some things to keep in mind when writing a literary analysis essay.
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