Literary Analysis Essay

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Literary Analysis Essay

• Senior Project - IRHS

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E x E Analysis

• Includes an explanation of your ideas and
  evidence from the text that supports those ideas.
  
• Textual evidence
• Summary
• Paraphrase
• Specific details
• Direct quotations

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Summary Overview

• Provides the reader with broad aspects of
  comparison/contrast.
• EX The boys find the grinding ball, but later
  attempt to bury it (Evidence SUMMARY). Burying
  it is their futile attempt to make time stand
  still and to preserve perfection (EXPLANATION of
  Relevance).

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Paraphrase

• Original "I was twelve and in junior high
  school and something happened that we didn't have
  a name for, but it was nonetheless like a lion,
  and roaring, roaring that way the biggest things
  do."
• Paraphrase Early in the story, the narrator
  tells us that when he turned twelve and started
  junior high school, life changed in a significant
  way that he and his friends couldn't quite find a
  name for.

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Specific Details

• GOAL lend concrete support to the development
  of the central idea.
• "usual traffic"
• "fluorescent lights"
• "checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor"
• "electric eye"
• shoppers like "sheep," "houseslaves," and "pigs"
• neatly stacked food
• dynamite

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Close Analysis

• Uses quoted passages and paraphrasing to
• suggest elements of similarity and
• differences in a literary analysis essay.
• As the "manager" of the A P, Lengel is both the
  guardian and enforcer of "policy." When he gives
  the girls "that sad Sunday-school-superintendent
  stare," we know we are in the presence of the A
  P's version of a dreary bureaucrat who "doesn't
  miss much" (Updike 487).

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Whats the Right Combination?

• Your essay will suffer if you comparisons are TOO
  GENERAL or BROAD.
• Your essay will suffer if it is only about the
  close analysis of a few pages from the novels.

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Balanced Analysis

• Includes an explanation of your ideas and
  evidence from the text that supports those ideas.
  
• Textual evidence
• Summary
• Paraphrase
• Specific details
• Direct quotations

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Topic Sentences

• The purpose of the topic sentence
• 1. To tie the details of the paragraph to your
  thesis statement.
• 2. To tie the details of the paragraph together.

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Sample Body Paragraph

• Sammy's descriptions of the A P present a
• setting that is ugly, monotonous, and rigidly
• regulated. We can identify with the uniformity
• Sammy describes because we have all been in
• chain stores. The fluorescent light is as blandly
• cool as the "checkerboard green-and-cream
• rubber tile floor" (486). The "usual traffic in
  the
• store moves in one direction (except for the
• swim suited girls, who move against it), and
• everything is neatly organized and categorized
• in tidy aisles. The dehumanizing routine of this
• environment is suggested by Sammy's offhand
• references to the typical shoppers as "sheep,"
• "house slaves," and "pigs." These regular
• customers seem to walk through the store in a
• stupor as Sammy tells us, not even dynamite
• could move them out of their routine (485).

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Resources

• Literary Analysis Planning Guide may help, but
  it should be expanded to include more than three
  body paragraphs.
• Online Resources on Scheels Webpage

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Skeletal Structure of Essay

• THESIS
• Topic Sentence for Body Paragraph 1
• Topic Sentence for Body Paragraph 2
• Topic Sentence for Body Paragraph 3
• Topic Sentence for Body Paragraph 4
• Topic Sentence for Body Paragraph 5
• Topic Sentence for Body Paragraph 6

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3-5 Pages PLUS Works Cited and Reflection

• Introduction
• HOOK the reader
• Include brief (non-plagiarized) summary
• Titles and authors of both novels
• Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye and Zora Neale
  Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God both focus
  on.
• Ends with THESIS statement (C/C)
• Caught between action and inaction, Shakespeares
  Hamlet provides a case study for modern readers
  who face daunting tasks with eternal consequences.

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3-5 Pages PLUS Works Cited and Reflection

• Body Paragraphs
• Half page to 1 page in length, generally
• Strong Topic Sentences!!!
• DO NOT pad with long quotations!!!
• Use TRANSITIONAL Topic Sentences

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3-5 Pages PLUS Works Cited and Reflection

• Conclusion
• Restate Thesis (switcharoo)
• Hamlet provides a detailed examination of the
  arduous tension between action and inaction.
• Summarize MAIN POINTS, but do NOT introduce more
  info or quotes.
• Titles and authors of both novels restated at
  some point
• End with a sentence that conveys the goal of your
  analysis
• Shakespeares Hamlet provides readers and viewers
  with the action in a modern world where inaction
  is perhaps even more a part of the status quo.

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This presentations Source

• Mrs. Scheel distilled some points from this
  excellent online resource
• http//www.gmc.edu/students/arc/documents/Literary
  20analysis.pdf
• From Bucks County Community College