Literary Analysis EssaySenior Project - IRHS

Summary-overview

Line-by-line close

analysis.

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

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).

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.

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

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).

What’s 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.

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

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.

Sample Body ParagraphSammy's descriptions of the A & P present asetting that is ugly, monotonous, and rigidlyregulated. We can identify with the uniformitySammy describes because we have all been inchain stores. The fluorescent light is as blandlycool as the "checkerboard green-and-creamrubber tile floor" (486). The "usual traffic in thestore moves in one direction (except for theswim suited girls, who move against it), andeverything is neatly organized and categorizedin tidy aisles. The dehumanizing routine of thisenvironment is suggested by Sammy's offhandreferences to the typical shoppers as "sheep,""house slaves," and "pigs." These regularcustomers seem to walk through the store in astupor; as Sammy tells us, not even dynamitecould move them out of their routine (485).

Resources

“Literary Analysis Planning Guide” may help, but it should be expanded to include more than three body paragraphs.

Online Resources on Scheel’s Webpage

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

3-5 Pages PLUS Works Cited and Reflection

Introduction:• HOOK the reader

• Include brief (non-plagiarized) summary

• Titles and authors of both novels• Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Zora Neale

Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God both focus on….

• Ends with THESIS statement (C/C)• Caught between action and inaction, Shakespeare’s

Hamlet provides a case study for modern readers who face daunting tasks with eternal consequences.

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

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:• Shakespeare’s Hamlet provides readers and viewers

with the action in a modern world where inaction is perhaps even more a part of the status quo.

This presentation’s 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