Preparing to Write Literary Analysis As you read the poem, short story, or play you will be writing about, mark your text, making notes and underlining passages. Use a pen, pencil, or highlighter, but write all over your book. Mark whatever your intellect or instinct tells you. Consider the following ways of marking the passages and the kinds of markings you might use. Marking the Text 1. Underline phrases that point to ideas you suspect are important to understanding the theme or following the plot. 2. Put question marks by words or phrases you do not fully understand. If something confuses you, write a question in the margin: "How come?" "Why is she doing this?" If there are words you don't understand, look them up and write a definition in the margin. 3. If you start to notice a pattern of words or images or ideas, underline the words or phrases that seem basic to it, or bracket the passage and make a note in the margin. 4. As you see undertones in a character's speech, note your reaction to and conclusions about them: "Seems hostile." "Prideful." "Is he joking?' 5. If one work of literature reminds you of another work you have been studying, whether in its characters, its symbols, or its theme, make a note: "Sounds like Huck Finn." "Is this another death-wish poem?" Posing a Thesis As you read and mark your text, you are doing the groundwork for developing a thesis for your paper. The reactions and interpretations that you are putting into your marginal notes are the beginning of some statement you will make as the main point of the analysis. What do your notes suggest about possible topics for an essay? What patterns are you seeing? What about the literature interests you? The kernel of the idea for your essay is somewhere in your notes. Gathering Evidence No matter what kind of paper you are writing, you will need to make specific reference to the text (primary source) of the poem, short story, or play you are writing about as part of the evidence you introduce in support of your essay. You should use apt quotations from the primary source in your paper to support your thesis sentence. Go to the following link and read the fable. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm044.html 1
Analysis Statement: Defend the statement that the doctor in "Godfather Death" is doomed from his birth and later participates in that doom. Thesis Sentence: In the short fable by the Brothers Grimm, "Godfather Death," the doctor, is doomed from the moment he is born and actively participates in his own demise. Support from primary source (text) 1. "... when the thirteenth came into the world, he did not know what to do and in his misery ran out onto the great highway to ask the first person he met to be godfather." P. 6 --The man's son seems to be doomed from the son's birth as he is the 13th. In our culture, 13 is unlucky. 2. "Then I don't want you for a godfather," the man said. You give to the rich and let the poor go hungry." P. 6-7. --The father dooms his son again by refusing to choose God as the godfather 3. "If I could only just this once outwit Death! thought the doctor. I'll take my chance." P. 7. --The doctor takes his first risky step toward his doom. 4. "When the doctor came to the sick girl's bed, he saw Death at her feet. He ought to have remembered his godfather's warning, but the great beauty...and how Death lifted his hand in the air and threatened him with his bony fist. --The doctor has been greedy in his desires and has sealed his fate but trying to fool death a second time. A literary analysis examines one aspect of the short story such as character, setting, tone, point of view, etc. Therefore, your paper should deal with this one aspect only. When gathering information for the topic, make sure the textual support deals with the one particular aspect you have chosen. The following is a literary paper which analyzes the ironies in the short story "The Story of an Hour." Notice it has used the primary source and one secondary course. Also, note the literary paper employs the MLA style of documentation of sources. 2
Seven Principles You Should Apply When Writing the Literary Analysis 1. The title of the essay should not be the title of the work; rather it gives the reader an indication of what you are writing about. 2. The introductory paragraph should not begin by saying, "In this story..." Rather it captures the reader's attention by using a line form the story, or by summarizing the story briefly, or by providing as aspect of the author's life which in some way leads to the thesis sentence. The introductory paragraph should not be a developmental paragraph. 3. The organization should be effective. (In the paper that follows, the smaller ironies are discussed in the second and third paragraphs, the central or chief irony is discussed in the fourth paragraph; that is, the essay does not dwindle or become anticlimactic-rather, it builds up to the central irony.) 4. Some quotations should be used, both to provide evidence and to let the reader hear the author's voice. 5. The essay should be devoted to analysis, not to summary. 6. Documentation should be provided for both the primary and the secondary source. 7. Make sure the thesis has the name of the author and the name of the short story included in it. Example Thesis Sentence: "In the short fable by the Brothers Grimm, "Godfather Death," the doctor, is doomed from the moment he is born and actively participates in his own demise." The following analysis is based on the short story by Kate Chopin s The Story of an Hour on page 331. 3
Ironies of Life in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" Hudspeth 1 Kate Chopin, a feminist far ahead of her times, paints a rather dim view of marriage, especially for women. It portrays a woman's silent suffering. Chopin uses the structural device of irony to convey this suffering. In "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin has depicted irony in many of the details in the story from beginning to end. After we know how the story ends, if we reread it, we find irony at the very start because Mrs. Mallard's friend and her sister assume, mistakenly, that she was deeply in love with her husband, Brently Mallard. They take great care to tell her gently of his death "in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing" (Chopin 393). They mean well, and in fact, they do well. Bringing her an hour of life, an hour of joyous freedom, but it is ironic that their news is sad. True, Mrs. Mallard at first expresses grief when she hears the news, but soon (unknown to her friends) she finds joy in it. Therefore, Richard's sad message, though sad in Richard's eyes, is in fact a happy message. Among the small but significant ironic details is the statement near the end of the story that when Mallard entered the house, Richards tried to conceal him from Mrs. Mallard, but "Richards was too late" (Chopin 395). This is ironic because almost at the start of the story, in the second paragraph Richards "hastened" to bring his sad message. If he had at the start been "too late," Brently Mallard would have arrived at home first, and Mrs. Mallard's life would not have ended an hour later but would simply have gone on as it had been (Barnet, et al. 62). Yet another irony at the end of the story is the diagnosis of the doctors. They say, "she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills (Chopin 395). In one sense, the doctors are right. Mrs. Mallard has for the last hour experienced a great joy. However, of course the doctors totally misunderstand the joy that kills her. It is not joy at seeing her husband 4
Hudspeth 2 alive, but her realization that the great joy she experienced during the last hour is over. All of these ironic details add richness to the story, but the central irony resides not in the well-intentioned but ironic actions of Richards, or in the unconsciously ironic words of the doctors, but in Mrs. Mallard's own life. She "sometimes" loved her husband, but in a way, she has been dead, a body subjected to her husband's will. Now, his apparent death brings her new life. Appropriately, this new life comes to her at the season of the year when: the tops of the trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air... The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves (Chopin 394). However, ironically, her new life will last only an hour. She is "free, free, free" but only until her husband walks through the doorway. She looks forward to "summer days," but she will not see even the end of this spring day. If her years of marriage were ironic, bringing her a sort of living death instead of joy, her new life is ironic, too. This is true not only because it grows out of her moment of grief for her supposedly dead husband, but also because her vision of "a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely" (Chopin 394) is cut short within an hour of a spring day. 5
Hudspeth 3 Works Cited Barnet, Sylvan, et al. Writing about Literature. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1992. Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8 th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2007. 342-343. 6
Questions for Literary Analysis Choose only one question from the following to write your analysis. Your paper should employ all the standard conventions of the formal essay. It should have an introductory paragraph which captures the reader's interest and then presents the thesis sentence. You should have several paragraphs of development which will contain textual support from the primary source. The paper must be typed and doubled spaced. It should have a cover sheet with the name of the paper, your name, date, course and section number. You must use two secondary sources for your paper. You will be shown how to find authoritative sources when you make your trip to the library. The paper will be due. "A Jury of Her Peers" - Susan Glaspell 1. Contrast the competence of the males and females as they relate to finding Mrs. Wright's motive for killing her husband. 2. Compare and contrast Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale to Mrs. Wright. Include why they are her peers. "The Lottery" - Shirley Jackson 1. Discuss the ironies in the story. 2. What attitudes do the following characters have toward the ritual of the lottery? a. Mr. Summers b. Old Man Warner c. Steve Adams d. Tessie Hutchinson "Everyday Use" Alice Walker 1. Compare and contrast the two sisters in the story. 2. Prove that Mrs. Johnson is a dynamic character. A Rose for Emily William Faulkner 1. Write a paper that illustrates that Miss Emily is frozen in time and holds on 7
to the past. 2. Compare and contrast Emily Grierson and Homer Barron. Two Kinds Amy Tan 1. Discuss the conflict between the two cultures that exists in the story. Take into consideration the parent child. 2. Compare and or contrast the two mothers is Two Kinds and Everyday Use. The Horse Dealer s Daughter D. H. Lawrence 1. Discuss the barrenness of a loveless life as exemplified in the three brothers and show how love can add to one s life. 8