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How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

Who is telling the story?
How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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Literary Analysis Essay Writing

Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Outline - A Step By Step Guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay Outline?

An outline is a structure that you decide to give to your writing to make the audience understand your viewpoint clearly. When a writer gathers information on a topic, it needs to be organized to make sense.

When writing a literary analysis essay, its outline is as important as any part of it. For the text’s clarity and readability, an outline is drafted in the essay’s planning phase.

According to the basic essay outline, the following are the elements included in drafting an outline for the essay:

Introduction
Thesis statement
Body paragraphs

A detailed description of the literary analysis outline is provided in the following section.

Literary Analysis Essay Introduction

An introduction section is the first part of the essay. The introductory paragraph or paragraphs provide an insight into the topic and prepares the readers about the literary work.

A literary analysis essay introduction is based on three major elements:

Hook Statement: A hook statement is the opening sentence of the introduction. This statement is used to grab people’s attention. A catchy hook will make the introductory paragraph interesting for the readers, encouraging them to read the entire essay.

For example, in a literary analysis essay, “ Island Of Fear,” the writer used the following hook statement:

“As humans, we all fear something, and we deal with those fears in ways that match our personalities.”

Background Information: Providing background information about the chosen literature work in the introduction is essential. Present information related to the author, title, and theme discussed in the original text.

Moreover, include other elements to discuss, such as characters, setting, and the plot. For example:

“ In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the fears of Jack, Ralph, and Piggy and chooses specific ways for each to deal with his fears.”

Thesis Statement: A thesis statement is the writer’s main claim over the chosen piece of literature.

A thesis statement allows your reader to expect the purpose of your writing. The main objective of writing a thesis statement is to provide your subject and opinion on the essay.

For example, the thesis statement in the “Island of Fear” is:

“...Therefore, each of the three boys reacts to fear in his own unique way.”

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Literary Analysis Essay Body Paragraphs

In body paragraphs, you dig deep into the text, show your insights, and build your argument.

In this section, we'll break down how to structure and write these paragraphs effectively:

Topic sentence: A topic sentence is an opening sentence of the paragraph. The points that will support the main thesis statement are individually presented in each section.

For example:

“The first boy, Jack, believes that a beast truly does exist…”

Evidence: To support the claim made in the topic sentence, evidence is provided. The evidence is taken from the selected piece of work to make the reasoning strong and logical.

“...He is afraid and admits it; however, he deals with his fear of aggressive violence. He chooses to hunt for the beast, arms himself with a spear, and practice killing it: “We’re strong—we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat—!”(91).”

Analysis: A literary essay is a kind of essay that requires a writer to provide his analysis as well.

The purpose of providing the writer’s analysis is to tell the readers about the meaning of the evidence.

“...He also uses the fear of the beast to control and manipulate the other children. Because they fear the beast, they are more likely to listen to Jack and follow his orders...”

Transition words: Transition or connecting words are used to link ideas and points together to maintain a logical flow. Transition words that are often used in a literary analysis essay are:

Furthermore
Later in the story
In contrast, etc.

“...Furthermore, Jack fears Ralph’s power over the group and Piggy’s rational thought. This is because he knows that both directly conflict with his thirst for absolute power...”

Concluding sentence: The last sentence of the body that gives a final statement on the topic sentence is the concluding sentence. It sums up the entire discussion held in that specific paragraph.

Here is a literary analysis paragraph example for you:

Literary Essay Example Pdf

Literary Analysis Essay Conclusion

The last section of the essay is the conclusion part where the writer ties all loose ends of the essay together. To write appropriate and correct concluding paragraphs, add the following information:

State how your topic is related to the theme of the chosen work
State how successfully the author delivered the message
According to your perspective, provide a statement on the topic
If required, present predictions
Connect your conclusion to your introduction by restating the thesis statement.
In the end, provide an opinion about the significance of the work.

For example,

“ In conclusion, William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies exposes the reader to three characters with different personalities and fears: Jack, Ralph, and Piggy. Each of the boys tries to conquer his fear in a different way. Fear is a natural emotion encountered by everyone, but each person deals with it in a way that best fits his/her individual personality.”

Literary Analysis Essay Outline (PDF)

Literary Analysis Essay Format

A literary analysis essay delves into the examination and interpretation of a literary work, exploring themes, characters, and literary devices.

Below is a guide outlining the format for a structured and effective literary analysis essay.

Formatting Guidelines

Use a legible font (e.g., Times New Roman or Arial) and set the font size to 12 points.
Double-space your essay, including the title, headings, and quotations.
Set one-inch margins on all sides of the page.
Indent paragraphs by 1/2 inch or use the tab key.
Page numbers, if required, should be in the header or footer and follow the specified formatting style.

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Example

To fully understand a concept in a writing world, literary analysis outline examples are important. This is to learn how a perfectly structured writing piece is drafted and how ideas are shaped to convey a message.

The following are the best literary analysis essay examples to help you draft a perfect essay.

Literary Analysis Essay Rubric (PDF)

High School Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Outline College (PDF)

Literary Analysis Essay Example Romeo & Juliet (PDF)

AP Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Middle School

Literary Analysis Essay Topics

Are you seeking inspiration for your next literary analysis essay? Here is a list of literary analysis essay topics for you:

The Theme of Alienation in "The Catcher in the Rye"
The Motif of Darkness in Shakespeare's Tragedies
The Psychological Complexity of Hamlet's Character
Analyzing the Narrator's Unreliable Perspective in "The Tell-Tale Heart"
The Role of Nature in William Wordsworth's Romantic Poetry
The Representation of Social Class in "To Kill a Mockingbird"
The Use of Irony in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
The Impact of Holden's Red Hunting Hat in the Novel
The Power of Setting in Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
The Symbolism of the Conch Shell in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies"

Need more topics? Read our literary analysis essay topics blog!

All in all, writing a literary analysis essay can be tricky if it is your first attempt. Apart from analyzing the work, other elements like a topic and an accurate interpretation must draft this type of essay.

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Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Guide with Examples

Published on: Aug 22, 2020

Last updated on: Mar 25, 2024

The Basics of Literary Analysis Writing

Before diving into the specifics of the outline, let's grasp the fundamental elements of a literary analysis essay .

At its core, this type of essay requires a thoughtful examination and interpretation of a literary work. Whether it's a novel, poem, or play, the aim is to analyze the author's choices and convey your insights to the reader.

The Significance of an Outline

An outline is important for two reasons: It helps you organize your ideas and allows readers to follow along easily.

Think of it as a map for your essay. Without structure, essays can be confusing. By using an outline, you ensure that your writing is clear and logical, keeping both you and your readers on track.

Literary Analysis Essay Format

Letâs take a look at the specific and detailed format and how to write a literary analysis essay outline in simple steps:

Outline Ideas for Literary Analysis Essay

Here are sample templates for each of the outlined ideas for a literary analysis essay:

Five Paragraph Essay

This format is a traditional structure for organizing essays and is often taught in schools. It consists of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Each body paragraph focuses on one main point or argument.

MLA Formatted Graphic Organizer

This format is designed to help organize your ideas according to the Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting guidelines. It ensures that your essay is properly structured and formatted according to MLA standards.

Compare and Contrast Essay on Two Texts

This format compares and contrasts two texts, highlighting similarities and differences. This is a common method used to analyze literature. There are two common methods: point by point and block method.

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Literary Analysis Essay Examples Outline

Letâs take a look at the literary analysis essay outline examples in easily downloadable PDF format:

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Middle School

Literary Analysis Outline Graphic Organizer

Critical Analysis Essay Outline Example

Character Analysis Essay Outline

Literary Analysis Essay Topics

Here are some literary analysis essay topics you can take inspiration from:

Analyze the corrupting influence of power in Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
Explore the symbolism of the green light in "The Great Gatsby" and its connection to the American Dream.
Examine Holden Caulfield's journey of self-discovery and identity in "The Catcher in the Rye."
Understand the use of magical realism in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and its reflection of Latin American culture.
Unravel the impact of race, class, and social hierarchy on moral justice in "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Investigate feminist themes and gender roles in "Jane Eyre": Independence, equality, and the quest for autonomy.
Examine the theme of fate versus free will in Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" and its tragic consequences.
Analyze the allegorical critique of totalitarianism in George Orwell's "Animal Farm."
Explore survival and resilience in "Life of Pi" through the protagonist's journey of faith and self-discovery.
Understand existential themes in "The Stranger": Absurdity, alienation, and the search for meaning in an indifferent world.

Need more topic ideas? Check out our â literary analysis essay topics â blog and get unique ideas for your next assignment.

In conclusion, crafting a literary analysis essay outline is a critical step in the writing process. By breaking down the essay into manageable sections and organizing your thoughts effectively, you'll create a compelling and insightful analysis that engages your readers.

Remember, practice makes perfect, so don't hesitate to revise and refine your outline until it reflects your ideas cohesively.

In case you are running out of time you can reach out to our essay writing service. At CollegeEssay.org , we provide high-quality college essay writing help for various literary topics. We have an extensive and highly professional team of qualified writers who are available to work on your assignments 24/7.

Get in touch with our customer service representative and let them know all your requirements.

Also, do not forget to try our AI writing tool !

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Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Last updated on: May 21, 2023

Write a Perfect Literary Analysis Essay Outline

By: Cordon J.

Reviewed By: Rylee W.

Published on: Jan 25, 2022

Writing a great essay can seem daunting. The best way to make your writing more interesting is by making sure that every word counts. Also, the structure becomes important for a good essay. All parts must include appropriately--but it's worth spending time wisely.

The importance of understanding the different types of essays is essential for all students. A literary analysis essay allows the essay writer to analyze the piece of literature. Also, understand the author's thoughts, feelings, and ideas that are expressed in it.

Its main goal is to explore the written work further. With the help of this type of essay, students know how to examine different parts of the text.

To write a good essay, you need to have an outline. An outline will help provide a proper framework for your work; also guide readers through what they're reading. It will also make your writing process easy and fast.

This blog will teach how to write an effective literary essay outline. So, continue reading this blog and get complete information about it.

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What is a Literary Analysis Essay Outline?

An outline is the most important thing in writing a literary analysis essay. To make writing readable and engaging for readers, writers often use an outline. An outline organizationally distributes information in a way that helps them convince people about what they believe.

One of the most enjoyable forms of essays is a "literary analysis" essay. Analyze a novel; it’s critical to know what each detail means. This kind of writing often includes an outline that helps students organize their thoughts and ideas. Find deeper meaning in books they read for pleasure or study purposes.

In order to create an engaging piece of work that leaves your audience wanting more, you should create a proper outline.

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay Outline?

The outline is a very important part of your essay. It should be planned and organized to help you with:

Comprehension
Organization
The Flow of Ideas

The first step to writing a good literary analysis essay outline is understanding the information you need for your essay. You must include the necessary details, so it makes sense for someone to read your essay. They know what topic you discuss and what you are trying to say in your essay.

An outline is important when writing an analysis essay, especially for longer pieces of work. It's always best to have a plan in place that will help you stay on track with your writing.

Three main elements need to be included when writing the literary essay outline, such as:

Literary Analysis Essay Introduction
Literary Analysis Essay Body Paragraphs
Literary Analysis Essay Conclusion

Let’s discuss them in detail.

1. Literary Analysis Essay Introduction

The introductory paragraph is the first thing that catches your reader’s attention in an essay. It should be creative and attention-grabbing. Though not too boring or technical for someone who isn't familiar with what you're writing about.

The introduction is an essential part of any written work. It provides the reader with information about what they will be reading and why it’s interesting for them.

Writing a successful analysis essay begins with figuring out how you want your essay to start. In most cases, this starts by posing an important question that is answered through the thesis statement.

When you are writing an introduction, it is important to start with the hook statement. A good way of doing this would be by starting your opening sentence in an interesting manner that entices readership. And has them interested from their first line all along through what will come next.

The thesis statement is the essence of an entire essay. It should summarize what your entire essay will contain and be written in very simple language that anyone can understand. Also, it should include persuasive tactics to get people on board with agreeing with you.

The best way to write an engaging analysis is by making sure that your thesis statement and background information are short. Your intro should be one paragraph, but it could contain up to five important sentences.

2. Literary Analysis Essay Body Paragraphs

When you finish writing the introduction, move on to start writing body paragraphs. The body paragraphs are the main building blocks of your essay. They provide detailed information about the chosen literary analysis essay topic. And help hold it together by presenting ideas about what you believe to be analyzed in a novel, movie, book, etc.

The body of an essay typically consists of three paragraphs. Each paragraph starts with a topic sentence that presents an interesting idea from literature. Also, it is related to both overall contexts and the specific thesis statement. Textual evidence is used to provide evidence for the topic sentence.

Make sure that you do not drag out any unnecessary data, as it will make your essay extraneous. Instead, stick to the point and only mention relevant information to avoid being boring. Use literary devices and make the essay body paragraphs more interesting.

When writing the essay body paragraphs, make sure that your essay ends with an engaging final sentence. This will give readers some idea of what's coming next in their reading experience.

3. Literary Analysis Essay Conclusion

Now that you know how to write a body paragraph, it's time for the conclusion. A good conclusion should end energetically and with an enthusiastic review of all elements discussed in previous paragraphs or sections.

The last paragraph should summarize the main points of your essay. This section needs to use emotional language, make a strong ending argument, and restate the thesis statement.

For your better understanding, we gathered an outline sample that you can use for your help.

SAMPLE LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY OUTLINE

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Examples

One of the best ways to understand anything is by using examples. To give your analysis essay a unique voice and avoid mistakes. You must look at some good examples before starting your writing phase.

Here are some great examples that our professional experts write. Take a look and know how to write a perfect outline of this kind of essay without any difficulty.

HIGH SCHOOL LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY OUTLINE

LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY OUTLINE COLLEGE

Tips for Writing the Literary Analysis Essay

Here are some tips that you should follow when writing a literary analysis essay.

Follow the proper essay outline format.
Start a body paragraph with a concise topic sentence.
Answer the question in the body paragraphs and explain why you chose that particular topic.
Use poetic language.
Create an excellent thesis statement.
Pick a good topic after knowing your audience’s interest.
Use transition sentences to make a flow between sentences.
Provide some background information related to the topic in the introduction section.
Explain the purpose of the essay in-depth.
Show your understanding of the authors’ methods and goals.
Gather data from credible sources.
Write in your own words.
Support all your main points with quotes and paraphrases.
Conclude the essay properly by summarizing the main points and restating the thesis statement.
Avoid writing a simple summary.
Never forget to proofread your essay before submitting it.

The process of writing a literary analysis outline is not only tricky but also challenging and time-consuming. However, if you want to complete this task well, it needs thorough planning and preparation.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 5 components of literary analysis.

The main five components of a literary analysis essay are:

Point of view
Figurative language

What is the main purpose of literary analysis?

A literary analysis is used to show that an author has a particular point of view. It is a way to understand the author's purpose, meaning, and message.

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Literary Analysis Essay - Ultimate Guide By Professionals

Interesting Literary Analysis Essay Topics for Students

Introduction

You’ve been assigned a literary analysis paper—what does that even mean? Is it like a book report that you used to write in high school? Well, not really.

A literary analysis essay asks you to make an original argument about a poem, play, or work of fiction and support that argument with research and evidence from your careful reading of the text.

It can take many forms, such as a close reading of a text, critiquing the text through a particular literary theory, comparing one text to another, or criticizing another critic’s interpretation of the text. While there are many ways to structure a literary essay, writing this kind of essay follows generally follows a similar process for everyone

Crafting a good literary analysis essay begins with good close reading of the text, in which you have kept notes and observations as you read. This will help you with the first step, which is selecting a topic to write about—what jumped out as you read, what are you genuinely interested in? The next step is to focus your topic, developing it into an argument—why is this subject or observation important? Why should your reader care about it as much as you do? The third step is to gather evidence to support your argument, for literary analysis, support comes in the form of evidence from the text and from your research on what other literary critics have said about your topic. Only after you have performed these steps, are you ready to begin actually writing your essay.

Writing a Literary Analysis Essay

How to create a topic and conduct research:.

Writing an Analysis of a Poem, Story, or Play

If you are taking a literature course, it is important that you know how to write an analysis—sometimes called an interpretation or a literary analysis or a critical reading or a critical analysis—of a story, a poem, and a play. Your instructor will probably assign such an analysis as part of the course assessment. On your mid-term or final exam, you might have to write an analysis of one or more of the poems and/or stories on your reading list. Or the dreaded “sight poem or story” might appear on an exam, a work that is not on the reading list, that you have not read before, but one your instructor includes on the exam to examine your ability to apply the active reading skills you have learned in class to produce, independently, an effective literary analysis.You might be asked to write instead or, or in addition to an analysis of a literary work, a more sophisticated essay in which you compare and contrast the protagonists of two stories, or the use of form and metaphor in two poems, or the tragic heroes in two plays.

You might learn some literary theory in your course and be asked to apply theory—feminist, Marxist, reader-response, psychoanalytic, new historicist, for example—to one or more of the works on your reading list. But the seminal assignment in a literature course is the analysis of the single poem, story, novel, or play, and, even if you do not have to complete this assignment specifically, it will form the basis of most of the other writing assignments you will be required to undertake in your literature class. There are several ways of structuring a literary analysis, and your instructor might issue specific instructions on how he or she wants this assignment done. The method presented here might not be identical to the one your instructor wants you to follow, but it will be easy enough to modify, if your instructor expects something a bit different, and it is a good default method, if your instructor does not issue more specific guidelines.You want to begin your analysis with a paragraph that provides the context of the work you are analyzing and a brief account of what you believe to be the poem or story or play’s main theme. At a minimum, your account of the work’s context will include the name of the author, the title of the work, its genre, and the date and place of publication. If there is an important biographical or historical context to the work, you should include that, as well.Try to express the work’s theme in one or two sentences. Theme, you will recall, is that insight into human experience the author offers to readers, usually revealed as the content, the drama, the plot of the poem, story, or play unfolds and the characters interact. Assessing theme can be a complex task. Authors usually show the theme; they don’t tell it. They rarely say, at the end of the story, words to this effect: “and the moral of my story is…” They tell their story, develop their characters, provide some kind of conflict—and from all of this theme emerges. Because identifying theme can be challenging and subjective, it is often a good idea to work through the rest of the analysis, then return to the beginning and assess theme in light of your analysis of the work’s other literary elements.Here is a good example of an introductory paragraph from Ben’s analysis of William Butler Yeats’ poem, “Among School Children.”

“Among School Children” was published in Yeats’ 1928 collection of poems The Tower. It was inspired by a visit Yeats made in 1926 to school in Waterford, an official visit in his capacity as a senator of the Irish Free State. In the course of the tour, Yeats reflects upon his own youth and the experiences that shaped the “sixty-year old, smiling public man” (line 8) he has become. Through his reflection, the theme of the poem emerges: a life has meaning when connections among apparently disparate experiences are forged into a unified whole.

In the body of your literature analysis, you want to guide your readers through a tour of the poem, story, or play, pausing along the way to comment on, analyze, interpret, and explain key incidents, descriptions, dialogue, symbols, the writer’s use of figurative language—any of the elements of literature that are relevant to a sound analysis of this particular work. Your main goal is to explain how the elements of literature work to elucidate, augment, and develop the theme. The elements of literature are common across genres: a story, a narrative poem, and a play all have a plot and characters. But certain genres privilege certain literary elements. In a poem, for example, form, imagery and metaphor might be especially important; in a story, setting and point-of-view might be more important than they are in a poem; in a play, dialogue, stage directions, lighting serve functions rarely relevant in the analysis of a story or poem.

The length of the body of an analysis of a literary work will usually depend upon the length of work being analyzed—the longer the work, the longer the analysis—though your instructor will likely establish a word limit for this assignment. Make certain that you do not simply paraphrase the plot of the story or play or the content of the poem. This is a common weakness in student literary analyses, especially when the analysis is of a poem or a play.

Here is a good example of two body paragraphs from Amelia’s analysis of “Araby” by James Joyce.

Within the story’s first few paragraphs occur several religious references which will accumulate as the story progresses. The narrator is a student at the Christian Brothers’ School; the former tenant of his house was a priest; he left behind books called The Abbot and The Devout Communicant. Near the end of the story’s second paragraph the narrator describes a “central apple tree” in the garden, under which is “the late tenant’s rusty bicycle pump.” We may begin to suspect the tree symbolizes the apple tree in the Garden of Eden and the bicycle pump, the snake which corrupted Eve, a stretch, perhaps, until Joyce’s fall-of-innocence theme becomes more apparent.

The narrator must continue to help his aunt with her errands, but, even when he is so occupied, his mind is on Mangan’s sister, as he tries to sort out his feelings for her. Here Joyce provides vivid insight into the mind of an adolescent boy at once elated and bewildered by his first crush. He wants to tell her of his “confused adoration,” but he does not know if he will ever have the chance. Joyce’s description of the pleasant tension consuming the narrator is conveyed in a striking simile, which continues to develop the narrator’s character, while echoing the religious imagery, so important to the story’s theme: “But my body was like a harp, and her words and gestures were like fingers, running along the wires.”

The concluding paragraph of your analysis should realize two goals. First, it should present your own opinion on the quality of the poem or story or play about which you have been writing. And, second, it should comment on the current relevance of the work. You should certainly comment on the enduring social relevance of the work you are explicating. You may comment, though you should never be obliged to do so, on the personal relevance of the work. Here is the concluding paragraph from Dao-Ming’s analysis of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

First performed in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest has been made into a film, as recently as 2002 and is regularly revived by professional and amateur theatre companies. It endures not only because of the comic brilliance of its characters and their dialogue, but also because its satire still resonates with contemporary audiences. I am still amazed that I see in my own Asian mother a shadow of Lady Bracknell, with her obsession with finding for her daughter a husband who will maintain, if not, ideally, increase the family’s social status. We might like to think we are more liberated and socially sophisticated than our Victorian ancestors, but the starlets and eligible bachelors who star in current reality television programs illustrate the extent to which superficial concerns still influence decisions about love and even marriage. Even now, we can turn to Oscar Wilde to help us understand and laugh at those who are earnest in name only.

Dao-Ming’s conclusion is brief, but she does manage to praise the play, reaffirm its main theme, and explain its enduring appeal. And note how her last sentence cleverly establishes that sense of closure that is also a feature of an effective analysis.

You may, of course, modify the template that is presented here. Your instructor might favour a somewhat different approach to literary analysis. Its essence, though, will be your understanding and interpretation of the theme of the poem, story, or play and the skill with which the author shapes the elements of literature—plot, character, form, diction, setting, point of view—to support the theme.

BC Open Textbooks: English Literature Victorians and Moderns: https://opentextbc.ca/englishliterature/back-matter/appendix-5-writing-an-analysis-of-a-poem-story-and-play/

Literary Analysis

The challenges of writing about english literature.

Writing begins with the act of reading . While this statement is true for most college papers, strong English papers tend to be the product of highly attentive reading (and rereading). When your instructors ask you to do a “close reading,” they are asking you to read not only for content, but also for structures and patterns. When you perform a close reading, then, you observe how form and content interact. In some cases, form reinforces content: for example, in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14, where the speaker invites God’s “force” “to break, blow, burn and make [him] new.” Here, the stressed monosyllables of the verbs “break,” “blow” and “burn” evoke aurally the force that the speaker invites from God. In other cases, form raises questions about content: for example, a repeated denial of guilt will likely raise questions about the speaker’s professed innocence. When you close read, take an inductive approach. Start by observing particular details in the text, such as a repeated image or word, an unexpected development, or even a contradiction. Often, a detail–such as a repeated image–can help you to identify a question about the text that warrants further examination. So annotate details that strike you as you read. Some of those details will eventually help you to work towards a thesis. And don’t worry if a detail seems trivial. If you can make a case about how an apparently trivial detail reveals something significant about the text, then your paper will have a thought-provoking thesis to argue.

Common Types of English Papers Many assignments will ask you to analyze a single text. Others, however, will ask you to read two or more texts in relation to each other, or to consider a text in light of claims made by other scholars and critics. For most assignments, close reading will be central to your paper. While some assignment guidelines will suggest topics and spell out expectations in detail, others will offer little more than a page limit. Approaching the writing process in the absence of assigned topics can be daunting, but remember that you have resources: in section, you will probably have encountered some examples of close reading; in lecture, you will have encountered some of the course’s central questions and claims. The paper is a chance for you to extend a claim offered in lecture, or to analyze a passage neglected in lecture. In either case, your analysis should do more than recapitulate claims aired in lecture and section. Because different instructors have different goals for an assignment, you should always ask your professor or TF if you have questions. These general guidelines should apply in most cases:

A close reading of a single text: Depending on the length of the text, you will need to be more or less selective about what you choose to consider. In the case of a sonnet, you will probably have enough room to analyze the text more thoroughly than you would in the case of a novel, for example, though even here you will probably not analyze every single detail. By contrast, in the case of a novel, you might analyze a repeated scene, image, or object (for example, scenes of train travel, images of decay, or objects such as or typewriters). Alternately, you might analyze a perplexing scene (such as a novel’s ending, albeit probably in relation to an earlier moment in the novel). But even when analyzing shorter works, you will need to be selective. Although you might notice numerous interesting details as you read, not all of those details will help you to organize a focused argument about the text. For example, if you are focusing on depictions of sensory experience in Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” you probably do not need to analyze the image of a homeless Ruth in stanza 7, unless this image helps you to develop your case about sensory experience in the poem.
A theoretically-informed close reading. In some courses, you will be asked to analyze a poem, a play, or a novel by using a critical theory (psychoanalytic, postcolonial, gender, etc). For example, you might use Kristeva’s theory of abjection to analyze mother-daughter relations in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. Critical theories provide focus for your analysis; if “abjection” is the guiding concept for your paper, you should focus on the scenes in the novel that are most relevant to the concept.
A historically-informed close reading. In courses with a historicist orientation, you might use less self-consciously literary documents, such as newspapers or devotional manuals, to develop your analysis of a literary work. For example, to analyze how Robinson Crusoe makes sense of his island experiences, you might use Puritan tracts that narrate events in terms of how God organizes them. The tracts could help you to show not only how Robinson Crusoe draws on Puritan narrative conventions, but also—more significantly—how the novel revises those conventions.
A comparison of two texts When analyzing two texts, you might look for unexpected contrasts between apparently similar texts, or unexpected similarities between apparently dissimilar texts, or for how one text revises or transforms the other. Keep in mind that not all of the similarities, differences, and transformations you identify will be relevant to an argument about the relationship between the two texts. As you work towards a thesis, you will need to decide which of those similarities, differences, or transformations to focus on. Moreover, unless instructed otherwise, you do not need to allot equal space to each text (unless this 50/50 allocation serves your thesis well, of course). Often you will find that one text helps to develop your analysis of another text. For example, you might analyze the transformation of Ariel’s song from The Tempest in T. S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land. Insofar as this analysis is interested in the afterlife of Ariel’s song in a later poem, you would likely allot more space to analyzing allusions to Ariel’s song in The Waste Land (after initially establishing the song’s significance in Shakespeare’s play, of course).
A response paper A response paper is a great opportunity to practice your close reading skills without having to develop an entire argument. In most cases, a solid approach is to select a rich passage that rewards analysis (for example, one that depicts an important scene or a recurring image) and close read it. While response papers are a flexible genre, they are not invitations for impressionistic accounts of whether you liked the work or a particular character. Instead, you might use your close reading to raise a question about the text—to open up further investigation, rather than to supply a solution.
A research paper. In most cases, you will receive guidance from the professor on the scope of the research paper. It is likely that you will be expected to consult sources other than the assigned readings. Hollis is your best bet for book titles, and the MLA bibliography (available through e-resources) for articles. When reading articles, make sure that they have been peer reviewed; you might also ask your TF to recommend reputable journals in the field.

Harvard College Writing Program: https://writingproject.fas.harvard.edu/files/hwp/files/bg_writing_english.pdf

In the same way that we talk with our friends about the latest episode of Game of Thrones or newest Marvel movie, scholars communicate their ideas and interpretations of literature through written literary analysis essays. Literary analysis essays make us better readers of literature.

Only through careful reading and well-argued analysis can we reach new understandings and interpretations of texts that are sometimes hundreds of years old. Literary analysis brings new meaning and can shed new light on texts. Building from careful reading and selecting a topic that you are genuinely interested in, your argument supports how you read and understand a text. Using examples from the text you are discussing in the form of textual evidence further supports your reading. Well-researched literary analysis also includes information about what other scholars have written about a specific text or topic.

Literary analysis helps us to refine our ideas, question what we think we know, and often generates new knowledge about literature. Literary analysis essays allow you to discuss your own interpretation of a given text through careful examination of the choices the original author made in the text.

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Writing A Literary Analysis Essay

Library Resources
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What is an Literary Analysis?
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Using quotes or evidence in your essay
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Copyright, Plagiarism, and Fair Use

Video Links

Elements of a short story, Part 1

YouTube video

Elements of a short story, Part 2

online tools

Collaborative Mind Mapping – collaborative brainstorming site

Sample Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Paper Format and Structure

Introduction, Body, and Conclusion :: Health Sciences, Education and Wellness Institute

Analyzing Literature and writing a Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis are written in the third person point of view in present tense. Do not use the words I or you in the essay. Your instructor may have you choose from a list of literary works read in class or you can choose your own. Follow the required formatting and instructions of your instructor.

Writing & Analyzing process

First step: Choose a literary work or text. Read & Re-Read the text or short story. Determine the key point or purpose of the literature

Step two: Analyze key elements of the literary work. Determine how they fit in with the author's purpose.

Step three: Put all information together. Determine how all elements fit together towards the main theme of the literary work.

Step four: Brainstorm a list of potential topics. Create a thesis statement based on your analysis of the literary work.

Step five: search through the text or short story to find textual evidence to support your thesis. Gather information from different but relevant sources both from the text itself and other secondary sources to help to prove your point. All evidence found will be quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to help explain your argument to the reader.

Step six: Create and outline and begin the rough draft of your essay.

Step seven: revise and proofread. Write the final draft of essay

Step eight: include a reference or works cited page at the end of the essay and include in-text citations.

When analyzing a literary work pay close attention to the following:

Characters: A character is a person, animal, being, creature, or thing in a story.

Protagonist : The main character of the story
Antagonist : The villain of the story
Love interest : the protagonist’s object of desire.
Confidant : This type of character is the best friend or sidekick of the protagonist
Foil – A foil is a character that has opposite character traits from another character and are meant to help highlight or bring out another’s positive or negative side.
Flat – A flat character has one or two main traits, usually only all positive or negative.
Dynamic character : A dynamic character is one who changes over the course of the story.
Round character : These characters have many different traits, good and bad, making them more interesting.
Static character : A static character does not noticeably change over the course of a story.
Symbolic character : A symbolic character represents a concept or theme larger than themselves.
Stock character : A stock character is an ordinary character with a fixed set of personality traits.

Setting: The setting is the period of time and geographic location in which a story takes place.

Plot: a literary term used to describe the events that make up a story

Theme: a universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature.

Dialogue: any communication between two characters

Imagery: a literary device that refers to the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture with words for a reader.

Figures of Speech: A word or phrase that is used in a non-literal way to create an effect.

Tone: A literary device that reflects the writer's attitude toward the subject matter or audience of a literary work.

rhyme or rhythm: Rhyme is a literary device, featured particularly in poetry, in which identical or similar concluding syllables in different words are repeated. Rhythm can be described as the beat and pace of a poem

Point of view: the narrative voice through which a story is told.

Limited – the narrator sees only what’s in front of him/her, a spectator of events as they unfold and unable to read any other character’s mind.
Omniscient – narrator sees all. He or she sees what each character is doing and can see into each character’s mind.
Limited Omniscient – narrator can only see into one character’s mind. He/she might see other events happening, but only knows the reasons of one character’s actions in the story.
First person: You see events based on the character telling the story
Second person: The narrator is speaking to you as the audience

Symbolism: a literary device in which a writer uses one thing—usually a physical object or phenomenon—to represent something else.

Irony: a literary device in which contradictory statements or situations reveal a reality that is different from what appears to be true.

Ask some of the following questions when analyzing literary work:

Which literary devices were used by the author?
How are the characters developed in the content?
How does the setting fit in with the mood of the literary work?
Does a change in the setting affect the mood, characters, or conflict?
What point of view is the literary work written in and how does it effect the plot, characters, setting, and over all theme of the work?
What is the over all tone of the literary work? How does the tone impact the author’s message?
How are figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, and hyperboles used throughout the text?
When was the text written? how does the text fit in with the time period?

Creating an Outline

A literary analysis essay outline is written in standard format: introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. An outline will provide a definite structure for your essay.

I. Introduction: Title

A. a hook statement or sentence to draw in readers

B. Introduce your topic for the literary analysis.

Include some background information that is relevant to the piece of literature you are aiming to analyze.

C. Thesis statement: what is your argument or claim for the literary work.

II. Body paragraph

A. first point for your analysis or evidence from thesis

B. textual evidence with explanation of how it proves your point

III. second evidence from thesis

A. textual evidence with explanation of how it proves your point

IV. third evidence from thesis

V. Conclusion

A. wrap up the essay

B. restate the argument and why its important

C. Don't add any new ideas or arguments

VI: Bibliography: Reference or works cited page

End each body paragraph in the essay with a transitional sentence.

Links & Resources

Literary Analysis Guide

Discusses how to analyze a passage of text to strengthen your discussion of the literature.

The Writing Center @ UNC-Chapel Hill

Excellent handouts and videos around key writing concepts. Entire section on Writing for Specific Fields, including Drama, Literature (Fiction), and more. Licensed under CC BY NC ND (Creative Commons - Attribution - NonCommercial - No Derivatives).

Creating Literary Analysis (Cordell and Pennington, 2012) – LibreTexts

Resources for Literary Analysis Writing

Some free resources on this site but some are subscription only

Students Teaching English Paper Strategies

The Internet Public Library: Literary Criticism

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Literary analysis: applying a theoretical lens.

A common technique for analyzing literature (by which we mean poetry, fiction, and essays) is to apply a theory developed by a scholar or other expert to the source text under scrutiny. The theory may or may not have been developed in the service literary scholarship. One may apply, say, a Marxist theory of historical materialism to a novel, or a Freudian theory of personality development to a poem. In the hands of an analyst, another’s theory (in parts or whole) acts as a conceptual lens that when brought to the material brings certain elements into focus. The theory magnifies aspects of the text according to its special interests. The term theory may sound rarified or abstract, but in reality a theory is simply an argument that attempts to explain something. Anytime you go to analyze literature—as you attempt to explain its meanings—you are applying theory, whether you recognize its exact dimensions or not. All analysis proceeds with certain interests, desires, and commitments (and not others) in mind. One way to define the theory—implicit or explicit—that you bring to a text is to ask yourself what assumptions (for instance, about how stories are told, about how language operates aesthetically, or about the quality of characters’ actions) guide your findings. A theory is an argument that attempts to explain something.

Let’s turn again to the insights about using theories to analyze literature provided in Joanna Wolfe’s and Laura Wilder’s Digging into Literature: Strategies for Reading, Analysis, and Writing (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016).

Here’s a brief example of a writer using a theoretical text as a lens for reading the primary text :

In her book, The Second Sex , the feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir describes how many mothers initially feel indifferent toward and estranged from their new infants, asserting that though “the woman would like to feel that the new baby is surely hers as is her own hand,. . . she does not recognize him because. . .she has experienced her pregnancy without him: she has no past in common with this little stranger” (507). Sylvia Plath’s “Morning Song” exemplifies the indifference and estrangement that de Beauvoir describes. However, where de Beauvoir asserts that “a whole complex of economical and sentimental considerations makes the baby seem either a hindrance or a jewel” (510), Plath’s poem illustrates how a child can simultaneously be both hindrance and jewel. Ultimately, “Morning Song” shows us how new mothers can overcome the conflicting emotions de Beauvoir describes.

Daniel DiGiacomo. From Mourning Song to “Morning Song”: The Maturation of a Maternal Bond.

Notice that in this brief passage, the writer fairly represents de Beauvoir’s theory about maternal feelings, then goes on to apply a portion of that theory to Plath’s poem, a focusing move that establishes the writer’s special interest in an aspect of Plath’s text. In this case, the application yields new insight about the non-universality of de Beauvoir’s theory, which Plath’s poem troubles. The theory magnifies a portion of the primary text, and its application puts pressure on the soundness of the theory.

Applying a Theoretical Lens: W.E.B. Du Bois Applied to Langston Hughes

Experienced literary critics are familiar with a wide range of theoretical texts they can use to interpret a primary text. As a less experienced student, your instructors will likely suggest pairings of theoretical and primary texts. We would like you to consider the writerly workings of the theory-primary text application by examining a student’s paper entitled “Double-consciousness in ‘Theme for English B,” an essay which uses W.E.B. Du Bois’s theory (of double-consciousness ) to elucidate and interpret Langston Hughes’s poem (“Theme for English B”). W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was an American sociologist, civil rights activist, author, and editor. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was an American poet, activist, editor, and guiding member of the group of artists now known as the Harlem Renaissance.

But before you can make sense of that student’s essay, we ask that you read both a synopsis of the theoretical text and the primary text .

Primary Text

The instructor said,

Go home and write a page tonight.

And let that page come out of you—

Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?

I am a twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.

I went to school there, then Durham, then here

to this college on the hill above Harlem,

I am the only colored student in my class.

The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,

Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,

the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator

up to my room, site down, and write this page:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me

at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what

I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:

hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.

(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.

I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

I like a pipe for a Christmas present,

or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.

I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like

the same things other folks like who are other races.

So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white.

But it will be a part of you, instructor.

You are white—

yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

That’s American.

Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.

Nor do I often want to be a part of you.

But we are, that’s true!

As I learn from you,

I guess you learn from me—

although you’re older—and white—

and somewhat more free.

Theoretical Text

W.E.B. Du Bois

Of Our Spiritual Strivings

O water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand,

All night long crying with a mournful cry,

As I lie and listen, and cannot understand

The voice of my heart in my side or the voice of the sea.

O water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I?

All night long the water is crying to me.

Unresting water, there shall never be rest

Till the last moon drop and the last tide fall,

And the fire of the end begin to burn in the west;

And the heart shall be weary and wonder and cry like the sea,

All life long crying without avail

As the water all nigh long is crying to me.

—Arthur Symons

Between me and the other world there is an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or I fought at Mechanicsville; or Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

And yet, being a problem is a strange experience—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards—ten cents a package—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain sadness that I was different from the others; or, like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world as by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination time, or beat them at a footrace, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the hears all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I long for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head—some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white, or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his tw0-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strengths alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.

This, then, is the end of his striving: To be a coworker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius. These powers of body and mind have in the past been strangely wasted, dispersed, or forgotten. The shadow of a might Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the Shadowy and of Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness. Here in America, in the few days since Emancipation, the black man’s turning hither and thither in hesitant and doubtful striving has often made his very strength to loos effectiveness, to seem like absence of power, like weakness. And yet it is not weakness—it is the contradiction of double aims. The double-aimed struggle of the black artisan—on the one hand to escape white contempt for a nation of mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, and on the other hand to plough and nail and dig for a poverty-stricken horde—could only result in making him a poor craftsman, for he had but half a heart either cause. By the poverty and ignorance of his people, the Negro minister or doctor was tempted toward quackery and demagogy; and by the criticism of the other world, toward ideals that made him ashamed of his lowly tasks. The would-be black savant was confronted by the paradox that the knowledge his people needed was a twice-told tale to his white neighbors, while the knowledge which would teach the white world was Greek to his own flesh and blood. The innate love of harmony and beauty that set the ruder souls of his people a-dancing and a-singing raised but confusion and doubt in the soul of the black artist; for the beauty revealed to him was the soul-beauty of a race which his larger audience despised, and he could not articulate the message of another people. This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and faith and deeds of ten thousand thousand people—has sent them often wooing false gods and invoking false means of salvation, and at times has even seemed about to make them ashamed of themselves.

Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faither as did the American Negro for two centuries. To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes of wearied Israelites. In song and exhortation swelled one refrain—Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand. At last it came—suddenly, fearfully, like a dream. With one wild carnival of blood and passion came the message in his own plaintive cadences:—

“Shout, O children!

Shout, you’re free!

For God has bought your liberty!”

Years have passed away since then—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy scepter sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast. In vain do we cry to this our vastest social problem:—

“Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves

Shall never tremble!”

The Nation has not yet found peace from its since; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land. Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people—a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people.

The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp—like a tantalizing will-o-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host. The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Ku Klux Klan, the lies of carpetbaggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes, left the bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry for freedom. As the time flew, however, he began to grasp a new idea. The ideal of liberty demanded for its attainment powerful means, and these the Fifteenth Amendment gave him. The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him. And why not? Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes enfranchised the freedmen? Was anything impossible to a power that had done all this? A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom. So the decade flew away, the revolution of 1876 came, and left the half-free serf weary, wondering, but still inspired. Slowly but steadily, in the following years, a new vision began gradually to replace the dream of political power—a powerful movement, the rise of another ideal to guide the unguided, another pillar of fire by night after a clouded day. It was the ideal of “book-learning”: the curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance, to know and test the power of the cabalistic letters of the white man, the longing to know. Here at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path to Canaan; longer than the highway to Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight, leading to heights high enough to overlook life.

Up the new path the advance guard toiled, slowly, heavily, doggedly; only those who have watched and guided the faltering feet, the misty minds, the dull understandings, of the dark pupils of these schools know how faithfully, how piteously, this people strove to learn. It was weary work. The cold statistician wrote down the inches of progress here and there, noted also where here and there a foot had slipped or someone fallen. To the tired climbers, the horizon was ever dark, the mists were often cold, the Canaan was always dim and far away. If, however, the vistas disclosed as yet no goal, no resting place, little but flattery and criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for reflection and self-examination; it changed the child of Emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect. In those somber forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself—darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission. He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another. For the first time he sought to analyze the burden he bore upon his back, that deadweight of social degradation partially masked behind a half-named Negro problem. He felt his poverty; without a cent, without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbors. To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. He felt the weight of his ignorance,—not simply of letters, but of life, of business, of the humanities; the accumulated sloth and shirking and awkwardness of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet. Nor was his burden all poverty and ignorance. The red stain of bastardy, which two centuries of systematic legal defilement of Negro women had stamped upon his race, meant not only the loss of ancient African chastity, but also the hereditary weight of a mass of corruption from white adulterers, threatening almost the obliteration of the Negro home.

A people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its own social problems. But alas! while sociologists gleefully count his bastards and prostitutes, the very soul of the toiling, sweating black man is darkened by the shadow of a vast despair. Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as the natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance, purity against crime, the “higher” against the lower races. To which the Negro cries Amen! and swears that to such much of this strange prejudice as is founded on just homage to civilization, culture, righteousness, and progress, he humbly bows and meekly does obeisance. But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything b lack, from Toussaint to the devil—before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm and discourage any nation save the black host to whom “discouragement” is an unwritten word.

But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate. Whisperings and portents came borne upon the four winds: Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what we need of education, since we must always cook and serve? And the Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying: Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men? Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud—and behold the suicide or a race! Nevertheless, out of the evil came something of good—the more careful adjustment of education to real life, the clearer perception of the Negroes’ social responsibilities, and the sobering realization of the meaning of progress.

So dawned the time of Sturm und Drang: storm and stress today rocks out little boat on the mad waters of the world-sea; there is within and without the sound of conflict, the burning of body and rending of soul; inspiration strives without doubt, and faith with vain questionings. The bright ideals of the past—physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands—all these in turn have waxed and waned, until even the last grows dim and overcast. Are they all wrong—all false? No, not that, but each alone was oversimple and incomplete—the dreams of a credulous race-childhood, or the fond imaginings of the other world which does not know and does not want to know our power. To be really true, all these ideals must be melted and welded into one. The training of the schools we need today more than ever—the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and above all the broader, deeper, higher culture of gifted minds and pure hearts. The power of the ballot we need in sheer self-defense—else what shall save us from a second slavery? Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek—the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire. Work, culture, liberty—all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood, gamed through the unifying ideal of Race; the idea of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other race, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic, in order that someday on American soil two world races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack. We the darker ones come even now not altogether empty-handed: there are today no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes; there is not true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folklore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness. Will American be poorer if she replace her brutal dyspeptic blundering with light-hearted but determined Negro humility? of her coarse and cruel wit with loving jovial good-humor? or her vulgar music with the soul of the Sorrow Songs?

Merely a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic is the Negro Problem, and the spiritual striving of the freedmen’s sons is the travail of souls whose burden is almost beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear it in the name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers’ fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.

Using a Theoretical Lens to Write Persuasively

Applying a theoretical lens to poetry, fiction, plays, or essays is a standard academic move, but theories are also frequently applied to real-world cases, hypothetical cases, and other non-fiction texts in disciplines such as Philosophy, Sociology, Education, Anthropology, History, or Political Science. Sometimes, the theoretical lens analysis is called a reading , as in a “Kantian reading of an ethical dilemma,” or a “Marxist reading of an historical episode.” At other times, the application of a theory is known as an approach , as in a “Platonic approach to the question of beauty.”

The basic writerly moves to using a theoretical lens include:

name and cite the theoretical text and accurately summarize this text’s argument. Usually this short summary appears in one or two paragraphs at the beginning of the essay. You will want to be sure your summary includes the key concepts you use in your paper to analyze the primary literary text.
use the surface/depth strategy to show how deeper meanings in the primary text can be explained by concepts from the theoretical text. You might think about this as creating a “match argument” between the primary and theoretical text (or case under consideration). Take important points made in the theoretical argument and match them to particular events or descriptions in the primary text. For instance, you could argue Langston Hughes’s line So will my page be colored as I write? (27) matches Du Bois’s argument that the veil prevents Whites from seeing Black’s individuality. Such a match argument can form an organizing structure for the essay as you develop whole paragraphs to support different points of connection between the theoretical and primary texts. You may be able to devote an entire paragraph to the claim that Du Bois’s concept of “the veil” can help us understand Hughes’s description of the challenges his speaker faces in asking his instructor to see him on his own terms.
support your surface/depth claims linking the primary and theoretical texts with textual evidence from the primary text . If you claim that a particular passage exemplifies a particular theory, you need to provide evidence in the form of quotations or paraphrases to support this interpretation. This evidence will most certainly need to be provided from the primary text you are analyzing but perhaps also occasionally from the theoretical text, too, especially if you connect the primary text to a small detail in the theoretical text or if the wording of the theoreticl text helps you explain something in the primary text. Use the patterns strategy to provide multiple examples from the primary text supporting your claims that it matches elements of the theoretical text.
reveal something complex and unexpected about the primary text. The goal of the theoretical lens strategy—like all strategies of literary analysis—should be to show that the text you are analyzing is complex and can be understood on multiple levels.
challenge, extend, or reevaluate the theoretical text (for more sophisticated analyses). The most sophisticated uses of the theoretical lens strategy not only help you better understand the primary text but also help you better understand—and reveal complexities in—the theoretical text. When you first start applying this strategy, it may be sufficient to argue how the theoretical text helps you understand the primary text, but as you advance, you should attempt the second part of this strategy and use the primary text to extend or challenge the theoretical argument. Such arguments may serve as starting points for you to contribute to literary (or philosophical, or sociological, or historical) theory as a theorist yourself. These arguments are often made in the concluding paragraphs of analyses using the theoretical lens strategy.

Common Words and Phrases Associated with Theoretical Lens

A Sample Student Essay

Title: Double-consciousness in “Theme for English B”

Paragraph 1

The post-slavery history of African-Americans in the United States has been one of struggle for recognition. This struggle continued through the civil rights movement in the 1970s and ’80s. W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the most influential African-American leaders of the early twentieth century, described the complicated effects racism had on African-American selfhood. In his treatise The Souls of Black Folk , Du Bois introduces the term “double-consciousness” to describe African-Americans’s struggle for self-recognition. Double-consciousness is the sense of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (8). It means that an African-American “[e]ver feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (8). According to Du Bois, double-consciousness means that African-Americas are always judging themselves through a veil of racism, experiencing how others judge and define them rather than how they might define and express themselves.

Paragraph 2

Langston Hughes’s poem “Theme for English B,” written nearly fifty years after Du Bois’s essay, depicts one African-American’s continued struggle with double-consciousness. However, where Du Bois sees double-consciousness as a painful condition he hopes will one day disappear, Hughes seems to have a more positive view, suggesting that mainstream Americans should also have an opportunity to experience this condition. Instead of eradicating double-consciousness, Hughes seeks to universalize it. His poem suggests that true equality will be possible when all cultures are able to experience and appreciate double-consciousness.

Paragraph 3

We see the poem’s speaker struggling with double-consciousness when he expresses difficulty articulating what is “true” for himself. Hughes writes:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you and me

I feel and see and hear. Harlem, I hear you:

(I hear New York, too.) Me—who? (16-20)

In this passage, which concludes with a question about who he is, the speaker expresses a divided self. At first, he seems to identify with Harlem, an African-American neighborhood in New York, where he is currently sitting and writing. However, this identification becomes troubled by his acknowledgment that Harlem does not completely define him. When the speaker writes “hear you, hear me—we two” (19), he suggests that “you” (referring to Harlem) and “me” (referring to himself) are intimately related by not identical. They are two voices that, while both present in his poem, still “talk” (19) to one another. The fact that these voices converse, rather than speak as one, indicates they are not completely merged.

Paragraph 4

This sense of a divided self is further reinforced by the claim “(I hear New York, too.)” (20). This aside is interesting because it establishes Harlem as both separate from and connected to the larger city. This division reflects what Du Bois calls the “two-ness [of being] an Amercan [and] a Negro” (8). By placing New York in parentheses, the speaker may be suggesting that the American part of himself represented by New York plays a weaker role in his identity than the African-American self represented by Harlem. Like Du Bois, the speaker in “Theme for English B” experiences inner conflict when he tries to reconcile the different parts of himself.

Paragraph 5

We further see evidence of the speaker’s conflict when he writes that he likes “Bessie, bop, or Bach” (24). “Bessie” refrs to the popular blues singer Bessie Smith, an African-American woman who sang a very African-American style of music. At the other end of the spectrum is “Bach,” which refers to the classical European composer J.S. Bach and represents a traditionally White form of music. In the middle is “bop,” which refers to “bebop,” a form of jazz made popular in the 1940s that inspired a particular form of dance most practiced by White teenagers at the time. In saying that he likes all of these forms of music, the speaker indicates that he is a mix of both African and European identities—like Du Bois, he feels both traditional White and traditional African-American culture calling him.

Paragraph 6

The “page” that the poem’s speak has been asked to write likewise reflects the two-ness of being African-American. An essay can be thought of as black ink on white paper, which in the context of the poem represents Black identity articulated against a White background. The speaker refers to this conflict of identities when he writes, “So will my page be colored that I write? / Being me, it will not be white” (27-28). These lines suggest that the speaker is worried that his instructor will only see him as a representative Black student. It shows how the speaker is caught in a double bind: when the teacher asks the class to write something “true” (5), he will expect this particular student (who in the first stanza tells us he is the only Black student in the class) to write in a way consistent with his obvious Black heritage. But the student is aware that his White teacher doesn’t really know what it means to be Black. Thus, if he writes in a way that fulfills his instructor’s expectations, he will write a page that seems to a White teacher to be an authentic depiction of what it means to be Black—in other words, a White representation of Blackness. This dilemma illuminates what Du Bois refers to as “always looking at one’s self thorugh the eyes of others” (8). Because the speaker in the poem is so aware of what his instructor (and possibly the other students in the class) already thinks of him, he is having difficulty articulating just who he really is.

Paragraph 7

At the end of the poem, however, instead of calling for the eradication of double-consciousness as Du Bois does when he longs for the day that African-Americans will be able to “merge his double-self into a better and truer self” (9), Hughes seems to suggest that instead his instructor needs to feel the double-identity that he feels so strongly. Thus, he writes “You are white— / yet a part of me, as I am a part of you” (31-32) and “As I learn from you, / I guess you learn from me—” (36-37). These lines indicate that the White instructor needs to accept, African-American identity as part of his own culture, just as the speaker has needed to see both parts of his identity calling him. This ability to feel and be multiple perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds at once is labeled “American” in the second stanza. Hughes seems to be suggesting that even though the”two-ness” he feels is often difficult and painful, it needs to be seen as central to American—and not just African-American—identity. When he states at the end of the poem, “I guess you learn from me” (38), he is turning the tables on the teacher, and on Whites in general, by suggesting that they have as much to learn from exploring Black culture as Blacks have to learn by studying classic White culture.

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46 Understanding Literary Theory

Dr. Karen Palmer

The next step in your writing journey is to choose a literary lens, also known as a critical lens or critical theory, through which to view your story.

Literary studies have been around long enough that like-minded readers and scholars have gravitated toward basic common positions as they engage in dialogue with each other. As a result, there are a number of widely-recognized critical approaches to literature, from formalists (who focus on how an author employs strategies and devices for a particular effect) to psychoanalytical critics (who explore texts to better understand humans’ psychological structure and their typical responses to particular experiences). As you consider a poem or story, you might choose one of these approaches, called literary theories, as the general lens through which to examine that work.

Imagine putting on a pair of 3D glasses in a movie theater—suddenly things start popping out at you. Though the film hasn’t changed, the way you see it has. Think of applying a literary theory to a text as putting on a pair of 3D glasses that help certain themes to pop out at you and amplify the meaning of the story.

Though there are many different literary theories, we will look at just six: Formalist or New Criticism, Marxist Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Psychological Criticism, New Historical Criticism, and Environmental/Eco Criticism.

Formalist Criticism

Also known as New Criticism, aesthetic criticism, or textual criticism, this theory first emerged in the 1920s at Vanderbilt University as a response to the emphasis placed on using biographical and historical context when analyzing literature at that time. It was largely influenced by TS Eliot, who emphasized the high place of art as art, the emotion expressed in art, and the form, close reading, and appreciation of order within a text.

This approach considers a literary work as an entity separate from its author and its historical context. The formalist explores a work as a mechanic would explore an engine. The mechanic would assume that the engine’s parts and function can be studied without any understanding of the maker’s life and/or the history of the period in which the engine exists. Similarly, to assess a poem’s impact and understand its meaning, a scholar might “take it apart,” considering its separate elements—the form, line length, rhythm, rhyme scheme, figurative language, and diction—and how those pieces make up the effect of and shape the meaning of the whole. The purpose of this type of criticism is to investigate every detail for connection to the whole–how do all the parts affect each other and fit together?

A formalist criticism will focus on form , diction , and unity in the work of literature.

Form grows out of the work’s recurrences, repetitions, relationships, and motifs. According to formalism, what a work means depends on how it is said. Look at how events of plot are recounted, the effect of the story’s point of view, foreshadowing, and progressions in nature that suggest meaning.

Diction looks closely at the word choices the author makes. Pay attention to denotation vs connotation. Denotation is simply what a word means, while connotation conveys a certain feeling about the word. For example, thin and skinny are both words that imply a slim figure. However, skinny often has a negative connotation. Another thing to look for is the etymology or history of a word. Pay attention to allusions to other words and symbols. Sometimes, a character’s diction will tell readers something important about the person.

Unity refers to how all the aspects of a work fit together in significant ways that create a whole. Pay attention to imagery, irony, and paradox.

The point is to look at how the various elements of the text work together to create a theme.

A sample thesis:

In “Everyday Use,” the author unveils how family dynamics can influence decisions through point of view, diction, and imagery.

Marxist Criticism

Karl Marx was a 19th century German philosopher who believed that inequitable economic relationships were the source of class conflict. Marxism was meant to be a set of social, economic, and political ideas that would change the world.

The main principle of Marxist criticism is that, to explain any context, you have to look at both material (economic) and historical situations. It is based on the idea that the bourgeoisie (wealthy) and the proletariat (working class) are involved in a constant class struggle. The main goal is to explain a text by looking at the ways economics influences the characters.

It is important to note that Marxist criticism is not a promotion of socialist government, but rather a close study of how invisible economic forces underpin, and often undermine, authentic human relationships.

Some things to think about:

Commodification–Explains how things are valued for power to impress or resale value rather than for their usefulness.
Materialism vs spirituality: The belief that the material world is reality and that, if you look at the relationship among socio-economic classes, you will find insight into society.
Class conflict: The idea that the bourgeoisie controls the proletariat by determining what is of value in society.
Art, literature, and ideas point out injustice of society.

By looking at the short story, “A&P” by John Updike, through a Marxist lens, the coming-of-age story of a young man working at a supermarket north of Boston transforms into a tale about repression, class conflict, and consumerism in a capitalistic society.

Feminist Criticism

Feminism is based on the assumption that culture is fundamentally patriarchal and that there is an imbalance of power that marginalizes women and their work. Feminist theory began to be applied to literature in the 60s. The goal is to find misogyny (negative attitudes about women) in the text.

It’s important to note that there are many kinds of feminism, but there are similarities among them. For example, though we often think of Christianity as one religion, there are over 30,000 different denominations. They are all different, but have the same roots. Likewise, though all feminisms are rooted in the idea that women deserve to be treated equally to men, there are many different types of feminism.

Feminists look for ways to define the female experience, expose patriarchy, and save women from being the “other.” Using this approach, one examines a literary work for insight into why and how women are subjected to oppression and, sometimes, how they subvert the forces that oppress them.

Expanding on feminist criticism, gender studies explore literature for increased understanding of socially defined gender identity and behavior and its impact on the individual and on society. It includes study of sexual orientation and how non-heterosexual identities are treated by mainstream ideology, a dynamic sometimes reflected in, sometimes critiqued by, literary works.

Things to think about:

1) Studies of difference–assume gender determines everything. How are men and women depicted differently?

2) Power: views of labor and economics, ie who holds the power in the text?

3) What roles do women play?

A Sample Thesis:

“The Day it Happened” reveals a new perspective by showing women as being powerful and men being quite pathetic in unmistakable and also subtle ways.

Psychological Criticism

Psychological criticism attempts to explain growth, development, and the structure of human personality as demonstrated in a text. Based on the theories of Freud and others, this approach examines a text for signs and symbols of the subconscious processes, both of the characters and of humans in general.

There are two basic types of psychological criticism based on the work of Freud and Jung.

The focus of this type of criticism is the idea that the unconscious plays a major role in what we do, feel, and say. Based on Freud’s Tripartite Psyche, characters are analyzed based on their subconscious, namely the id, ego, and superego, in an attempt to discover why they make the decisions they do.

Id: psychic energy, hunger for pleasure. Lawless, asocial, amoral. No thought to consequences, morality, ethics, etc.
Ego: Reality–changes desires by postponing action or diverting it into a socially acceptable form.
Superego: Sense of guilt/conscience.

Jungian or Archetypal

This approach focuses on common figures and story-lines that reveal patterns in human behavior and psychology. Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, key figures in the development of this approach, found that in the many stories they collected from cultures all over the world, these figures and story lines emerged over and over again. Their conclusion was that these figures and story lines are etched into the human psyche (or subconscious), and as we recreate them in our stories, our audiences recognize them as symbolic of their own experience. Jung believed that we all have a personal consciousness, a personal unconsciousness, and a collective unconsciousness , which enables us to identify with universal symbols he calls archetypes.

Common Archetypes

Well-known archetypal characters are the hero, the outcast, the scapegoat, the Earth mother, the temptress, the mother, the mentor, and the devil figure.

Some common archetypal story lines are the journey, the quest, the fall, initiation, and death and rebirth.

Common image archetypes include Colors (red= passion, green=life, blue = holiness, light vs dark); Numbers (3=religion, 4=seasons, elements, 7=whole/complete); Water (creation, birth, flowing water=passage of time); Gardens (paradise/innocence); Circles (wholeness/union); Sun (passage of time)

Sample Thesis Statement:

In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner uses archetypes, foreshadowing, timeline disruption, and unknowing to portray the danger of loneliness, and the lengths humans will go to feel a connection.

New Historical Criticism

The New Historical approach seeks to illuminate a text’s original meaning by uncovering details of the text’s historical context.

Modifying the historical approach, the new historicist assumes that material factors interact with each other. While this approach seeks to understand a text through its cultural context, it also attempts to discover through the literary work insight into intellectual history. For example, a new historicist might consider Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass as a product shaped not only by Douglass’s experience as a U.S. slave, but also by Douglass’s challenge of finding a publisher (most of whom were white), and by his primarily Christian readership. These factors, according to the new historicist, would interact to shape the text and its meanings.

New Historical critics are concerned with social and cultural forces that create or threaten a community. To them, culture is the beliefs, institutions, arts, and behaviors of a particular people in time. They believe that history is subjectively set down–it’s colored by the cultural context of the recorder. There is no single true history/worldview. The main point is to look at how the text reveals and comments on the different voices of the culture it depicts.

Ideas to consider in a text:

1) What were the formative experiences, significant people, texts, religious influences, political stance, and social class in the author’s life?

2) What were the major events, controversies, people of the time? Who represented the power bases? Who opposed power and influence?

3) What voices do you meet in the text? Which ones are powerful? What are the social rules observed? Is the text critical/supportive of them? What does the text imply about the culture it depicts?

Sample Thesis:

In the short story “Marriage is A Private Affair,” by Chinua Achebe, the author’s own experiences, historical time period, and culture illuminate the struggles of the main character.

Environmental/Eco Criticism

Ecocriticism investigates what a text says about nature or the environment. It is particularly effective for looking at texts with a man vs nature type of conflict, but, like any of the literary theories, can be applied to any text. Because ecocriticism is relatively new and still developing, it is often referred to by different names, including American Studies, regionalism, and pastoralism.

An ecocritic might look at the perception of wilderness in a text or the way nature is portrayed. They might also look at the differences in the ways humans and/or animals are portrayed in a text. They might question anthropocentrism (the idea that humans are central and nature exists to serve us).

In this video, Patrick Howard explains Ecocriticism:

Step 4: Choose a Literary Lens

Attributions:

Content created by Dr. Karen Palmer. Licensed under CC BY NC SA .
Content adapted from Writing and Literature , licensed under CC BY SA .

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A Writer's Handbook

Introduction
Purpose & Audience
Opening Sentences
Linking Sentences
Finished Introduction
Topic Sentences
Development
Conclusion Sentences
Conclusion Paragraphs for Essays
Essay Writing Organization: The Outline
Annotating Readings
General Writing Idea Development
Rhetorical and Visual Analysis Idea Development
Character Analysis Idea Development
Theme Analysis Idea Development

Theory Analysis

Exercise 11.

Using the Library
Using Sources for Illustration or Support
Using Research for Essays
Writing About Research
MLA Handbook Summary for Citations
Final Thoughts on Essays
Literary Element Index
Appendix of Example Papers

A literary theory analysis is usually found in upper level composition or literature classes, and is completed when a student looks for certain ideas found in the literature that supports the postulations of a certain theory. Theories include, but are not limited to, Formalism/New Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Structuralism, Marxist Criticism, Deconstructionist Criticism, Multicultural and/or Intersectionality Criticism, and Queer Theory. The following two sources give background on many of these diverse and ever evolving theories:

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory : An Introduction . Vol. Anniversary ed, University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Klages, Mary. Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed . Continuum, 2006.

Begin by looking into a theory that you are comfortable with, or one that you have a working knowledge of or interest in
**Using a theory that is relatively known to you is much easier than trying to write a paper about a theory you have no knowledge about, unless you plan to do some background investigation and research to learn about the theory first.
Make a list of the tenants of the theory that you would like to explore

(Example: A superego examination from a psychoanalytic perspective, or an idea of gender power imbalance under a feminist viewpoint)

Once you have decided the scope of ideas on the theory, pinpoint how to prove that using many of the elements of character or theme analysis
Decide if you will need to discuss the premise of the theory in the introduction as background or if you will need a more extensive area to explain key points of the theory in a body paragraph before connecting the literary elements to it
Find evidence within the work to illustrate your points
Find secondary sources as needed that help you prove your points

Brainstorm some possible theory analysis ideas with these modern, well-known movies.

Start with the following – what could you do with these?

1. Along Came Polly

2. Happy Death Day

3. American Psycho

4. Castaway

5. The Lord of the Rings

6. Finding Nemo

<< Previous: Theme Analysis Idea Development
Next: Finding Research for Essays >>
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8.2: Outlining for Literary Essays

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Outlining Basics

The purpose of an outline is twofold: first, to help you organize your ideas. Second, to help readers follow along with your ideas. Think of an outline as a map for your essay. An essay without some kind of structure often flounders because readers get lost. The following are basic principles of essay organization that should help you craft logically organized papers that keep readers (and you!) on track.

Always include a clear thesis . Think of this as the essay's destination. It essentially tells readers where the essay is going. Without a clear destination, readers might wonder why they are there, reading the essay in the first place!
Keep one main idea per paragraph. Including a topic sentence—a one-sentence summary of the paragraph's main idea—is an effective way to keep the paragraph focused. Think of each topic sentence as a mini-thesis in support of the essay's overall thesis.
Include evidence to support all claims. Usually, one quote or paraphrase per paragraph is an effective use of evidence. Spend at least 2-3 sentences analyzing and explaining each quote.
Be flexible. An essay changes over time. Be willing to adapt and adjust the outline to fit the needs of the essay. If it doesn't serve your essay, let it go.

General Essay Template

This essay template is not meant to be prescriptive (the end all, be all), but to provide a commonly used essay structure students can adapt to write their own essays. As with any learning resource, students should choose organizational methods to enhance their learning and writing process.

Paragraph 1: Introduction

Sentence 1: hook.

Captures readers' attention and interest through a quote, one or two-sentence short story, or a startling statistic.

Sentence 2-3: Context/Background

Helps readers understand where the essay fits into the scholarly discourse by providing background information on the essay topic. For example, you might briefly summarize your research on your topic (what other people/scholars have said about your topic) or you might give historical background on your topic, depending on the essay prompt.

Sentence 4: (The) Thesis statement

Articulates the main argument of the essay. It should be short, specific, debatable, and clear.

Sentence 5: Essay map/sign post

Uses the last sentence(s) of the introduction to transition into body paragraphs. This may look like a "map" where you state the main arguments you will make in your essay. For example, this argument is true because of reason X, reason Y, and reason Z. Basically, you give readers an idea of where the essay is going.

Paragraphs 2-10+: Body Paragraphs

Sentence 1: topic sentence.

Summarizes the main argument or point of the paragraph.

Sentence 2: Present e vidence

Present evidence in the form of quotes or paraphrasing from authoritative primary or secondary sources, which supports the paragraph main idea, as well as the thesis main idea. The more scholarly the source, the better; check with your librarian if you are unfamiliar with in-text citations.

Sentence 3: Analyze, interpret, and e xplain evidence

Use your own words to do so. While what the information means may be clear to you, the writer, you should not assume that readers will understand the information. Explain everything within reason.

Sentence 4: Contextualize evidence

Show how evidence relates to and supports your thesis statement

Sentence 5: Transition

Introduce the next paragraph topic by using a linking word, phrase, or idea. This will improve your essay's organization and "flow."

Final Paragraph: Conclusion

Sentence 1: restate thesis statement.

State the thesis using new words. This helps readers remember the focus of the essay.

Sentence 2-3: Briefly summarize main arguments

Present a summary of the essay's main arguments. Again, this reminds readers of your main points in case they have forgotten.

Sentence 4-5: Explain the significance

Indicate the significance of your analysis and/or research to other scholars in your field/scholars of the subject or topic/society in general. This is also called the "takeaway." Your readers should feel like they learned something new or are seeing the literature in a new light.

General Essay Advice

Be as specific as possible.
Stay on topic. All information in the essay should work towards proving your argument. (Use it or lose it.)
Use the known-new contract. Every sentence should "flow" into the next sentence, unless intentionally breaking the flow to make a point. This is achieved by using repeated words, ideas, or phrases from one sentence to the next.
Practice ethical attribution. Do not plagiarize. Plagiarism can result in an F for the essay and the course, and can even result in expulsion. When in doubt, ask your professor or librarian. Using ethical attribution is the best way to avoid plagiarism, as it also helps you build credibility as a writer and literary scholar.
For more information on essay writing—specifically works cited/references, citation, and formatting (MLA)—please visit the chapter on Ethical Attribution .

Literary Analysis Essay

Literary analysis essays offer a deeper understanding and interpretation of literary works, allowing readers to delve into the intricacies of a story, poem, or novel. Whether you’re a student or a literature enthusiast, analyzing literature can be a rewarding experience. In this article, we will explore a collection of 30+ literary analysis essay examples available in Word, Google Docs, and PDF formats. We will also discuss essential elements such as analysis paper outlines , literary devices, short story analysis, literature reviews, theses, analogies, book reviews, context, and conclusions.

1. Literary Analysis Essay Outline Example

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31. Literary Analysis Essay Guide Example

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What is a Literary Analysis Essay?

A literary analysis essay is a critical examination and interpretation of a literary work. It involves analyzing various elements such as plot, characters, themes, and literary devices to uncover deeper meanings and insights. By dissecting the text and exploring its nuances, readers can gain a deeper appreciation for the author’s intentions and the work’s impact. A well-written literary analysis essay provides a comprehensive analysis that goes beyond surface-level observations.

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay

Before we dive into the examples, let’s outline the steps involved in writing a literary analysis essay:

Step 1: Choose a literary work:

Select a literary work that you want to analyze. It could be a novel, short story, poem, or play. Ensure that the chosen work is rich in literary elements and offers ample material for analysis.

Step 2: Familiarize yourself with the work:

Read the literary work carefully, taking note of important plot points, characters, themes, and literary devices. Pay attention to the author’s writing style and the overall tone of the work.

Step 3: Develop a thesis statement:

Craft a strong thesis statement that encapsulates your main argument or interpretation of the literary work. Your thesis should be clear, concise, and debatable, providing a roadmap for your analysis.

Step 4: Gather evidence:

Collect evidence from the literary work to support your thesis statement. Look for specific examples, quotes, and literary devices that reinforce your analysis. Take note of the context in which these elements appear.

Step 5: Organize your essay:

Create an analysis paper outline to structure your essay effectively. Divide your essay into introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion . Each body paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of your analysis, supported by evidence.

Step 6: Write your essay:

Start with an engaging introduction that provides background information and introduces your thesis statement. In the body paragraphs, analyze different aspects of the literary work, providing evidence and explanations. Ensure a smooth flow between paragraphs. Conclude your essay by summarizing your main points and reinforcing your thesis .

What are some examples of literary devices?

Literary devices are techniques used by authors to enhance their writing and convey meaning. Examples include metaphors, similes, personification, alliteration, and symbolism. For a comprehensive list and explanations, refer to Literary Devices .

Are there any specific examples of short story analysis essays?

You can find examples of short story analysis essays in PDF format here . These examples provide insights into analyzing the elements of a short story effectively.

How does context impact literary analysis?

Context plays a crucial role in literary analysis as it helps readers understand the historical, social, and cultural background in which the literary work was written. It provides insights into the author’s intentions and influences the interpretation of the text.

Literary Analysis Essay Generator

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Analyze the theme of courage in a novel for your Literary Analysis Essay.

Write about the use of symbolism in a short story for your Literary Analysis Essay.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Eco Criticism › Ecocriticism: An Essay

Ecocriticism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on November 27, 2016 • ( 3 )

Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation. Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: The Ecocriticism Reader , edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm , and The Environmental Imagination, by Lawrence Buell.

Ecocriticism investigates the relation between humans and the natural world in literature. It deals with how environmental issues, cultural issues concerning the environment and attitudes towards nature are presented and analyzed. One of the main goals in ecocriticism is to study how individuals in society behave and react in relation to nature and ecological aspects. This form of criticism has gained a lot of attention during recent years due to higher social emphasis on environmental destruction and increased technology. It is hence a fresh way of analyzing and interpreting literary texts, which brings new dimensions to the field of literary and theoritical studies. Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including “green (cultural) studies”, “ecopoetics”, and “environmental literary criticism.”

Western thought has often held a more or less utilitarian attitude to nature —nature is for serving human needs. However, after the eighteenth century, there emerged many voices that demanded a revaluation of the relationship between man and environment, and man’s view of nature. Arne Naess , a Norwegian philosopher, developed the notion of “Deep Ecology” which emphasizes the basic interconnectedness of all life forms and natural features, and presents a symbiotic and holistic world-view rather than an anthropocentric one.

Earlier theories in literary and cultural studies focussed on issue of class, race, gender, region are criteria and “subjects”of critical analysis. The late twentieth century has woken up to a new threat: ecological disaster. The most important environmental problems that humankind faces as a whole are: nuclear war, depletion of valuable natural resources, population explosion, proliferation of exploitative technologies, conquest of space preliminary to using it as a garbage dump, pollution, extinction of species (though not a human problem) among others. In such a context, literary and cultural theory has begun to address the issue as a part of academic discourse. Numerous green movements have sprung up all over the world, and some have even gained representations in the governments.

Large scale debates over “dumping,” North versus South environmentalism (the necessary differences between the en-vironmentalism of the developed and technologically advanced richer nations—the North, and the poorer, subsistence environmentalism of the developing or “Third World”—the South). Donald Worster ‘s Nature’s Economy (1977) became a textbook for the study of ecological thought down the ages. The historian Arnold Toynbee recorded the effect of human civilisation upon the land and nature in his monumental, Mankind and Mother Earth (1976). Environmental issues and landscape use were also the concern of the Annales School of historians , especially Braudel and Febvre. The work of environmental historians has been pathbreaking too. Rich-ard Grove et al’s massive Nature and the Orient (1998), David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha’s Nature, Culture, Imperialism (1995) have been significant work in the environmental history of India and Southeast Asia. Ramachandra Guha is of course the most important environmental historian writing from India today.

Various versions of environmentalism developed.Deep ecology and ecofeminism were two important developments. These new ideas questioned the notion of “development” and “modernity,” and argued that all Western notions in science, philosophy, politics were “anthropocentric” (human-centred) and “androcentric”(Man/male-centred). Technology, medical science with its animal testing, the cosmetic and fashion industry all came in for scrutiny from environmentalists. Deep ecology, for instance, stressed on a “biocentric” view (as seen in the name of the environmentalist group, “ Earth First! !”).

Ecocriticism is the result of this new consciousness: that very soon, there will be nothing beautiful (or safe) in nature to discourse about, unless we are very careful.

Ecocritics ask questions such as: (1) How is nature represented in the novel/poem/play ? (2) What role does the physical-geographical setting play in the structure of the novel? (3) How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? That is, what is the link between pedagogic or creative practice and actual political, sociocultural and ethical behaviour towards the land and other non-human life forms? (4) How is science —in the form of genetic engineering, technologies of reproduction, sexualities—open to critical scrutiny terms of the effects of science upon the land?

The essential assumptions, ideas and methods of ecocritics may be summed up as follows. (1) Ecocritics believe that human culture is related to the physical world. (2) Ecocriticism assumes that all life forms are interlinked. Ecocriticism expands the notion of “the world” to include the entire ecosphere. (3) Moreover, there is a definite link between nature and culture, where the literary treatment, representation and “thematisation” of land and nature influence actions on the land. (4) Joseph Meeker in an early work, The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology (1972) used the term “literary ecology” to refer to “the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works. It is simultaneously an attempt to discover what roles have been played by literature in the ecology of the human species.” (5) William Rueckert is believed to have coined the term “ecocriticism” in 1978, which he defines as “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature.”

Source: Literary Theory Today,Pramod K Nair

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Applying a Theoretical Lens: W.E.B. Du Bois Applied to Langston Hughes

A Sample Student Essay

46 Understanding Literary Theory

Formalist Criticism

A sample thesis:

Marxist Criticism

Some things to think about:

Feminist Criticism

Things to think about:

A Sample Thesis:

Psychological Criticism

Jungian or Archetypal

Common Archetypes

Sample Thesis Statement:

New Historical Criticism

Ideas to consider in a text:

Sample Thesis:

Environmental/Eco Criticism

Attributions:

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