Recommended
Steps for Developing a Literary Analysis
1. Choose
a topic (or area of focus, such as a theme or recurring image)
2. Review
the text to collect evidence
·
Take careful notes on any passages
that relate to your topic
·
(Or mark up your text and then write
up your notations)
·
Include page numbers in your notes!
3. Analyze
your evidence
·
Look for trends, logical groupings,
progressions, dichotomies, contradictions, etc.
·
Interpret your evidence – What does
it mean? What does it seem to be saying?
4. Organize
your evidence
·
Select the evidence that you will
use your in paper
·
Put your evidence into logical
groupings (paragraphs)
·
Choose a logical order for your
groupings (paragraphs)
·
*Try to avoid ordering your evidence
in the order it appears in the story/novel!
5. Draft
your thesis
·
Remember a thesis statement for
literary analysis should express an interpretation
A few conventions for writing papers about literature
Use the
present tense to describe fictional events.
Amir and Farid go to the
soccer stadium to find the man who has Sohrab.
NOT: Amir and Farid went to the soccer stadium to
find the man who has Sohrab.
References to the author
The
first time you refer to the author, use his or her full name.
You may use just the last name for subsequent references.
Never refer to the author by just his or her first name.
In his novel The Kite Runner, author Khaled Hosseini
depicts the ethnic hierarchy of contemporary Afghanistan. Hosseini includes
characters from Afghanistan’s three major ethnic groups: Pashtun, Tajik, and
Hazara.
Don’t attribute motive to the
author.
Don’t assume you know the
author’s intentions. Readers can never know an author’s motives with certainty,
and in a way, it doesn’t matter. The author may or may not have succeeded in
realizing his or her intentions. What’s important is what the text shows, what
it reveals, and what it suggests.
NOT: Hosseini wants to show the injustice of Afghanistan’s ethnic caste
structure.
The Kite Runner represents injustices in
Afghanistan’s ethnic caste structure.
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