Literary analysis is a form of expository writing. Expository writing serves to clarify, set forth, or explain in detail an idea about a subject. In basic literary analysis, your "subject" is usually an examination of one element, or a few similar elements, in a story. Examples of these elements may be found in the list below. To succeed with this type of writing, you must have a strong thesis statement and good use of examples to back up this thesis.
A strong thesis statement contains a subject and a clearly focused predicate. For instance, if you were to write about the relationship between the man and Jig in Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants," your thesis statement might look something like this:
(SUBJECT)"In Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants," (PREDICATE) the relationship between the man and Jig provides an interesting insight into male and female roles at the time the story was written."
Examples to back up the thesis are simply "pieces" of the story which illustrate your point. In Hemingway's story, you might focus on Jig's acceptance, reluctant as it may be, of the man's desire to abort her pregnancy and everything within their dialogue that led up to it.
There are three general ways you may approach the essays:
Keep in mind that you may combine any of these approaches!
While writing these papers, there are certain things you must do:
ACTION: the thing or things that happen in a story’s plot--what the characters do and what is done to them.
ATMOSPHERE: the mood, feeling, or quality of life in a story as conveyed by the author’s choices of language and organization in describing the setting in which the speech and activity of the characters takes place.
CHARACTER: any person in writing. Characters may be flat or static--simple, one-dimensional, generally unsurprising or unchanging, or they may be round or dynamic--complex, full, described in detail, and often contradictory.
EPIPHANY: a “showing forth” or sudden revelation of the true nature of a character or situation through a specific event--a word, gesture, or other action--that causes the reader to see the significance of that character or situation in a new light.
FORESHADOWING: the introduction of specific words, images, or events into a narrative to suggest or anticipate later events that are central to the action and its resolution.
IMAGE: a word or group of words used to give a concrete representation, either literal or figurative, of a sensory experience or an object that is perceived by the senses.
IMAGERY: the use of images, especially of a consistent pattern of related images--often figurative ones--to convey an overall sensory impression.
IRONY: the reader’s or audience’s awareness of a reality that differs from the reality the characters perceive (dramatic irony) or the literal meaning of the author’s words (verbal irony).
MAGICAL REALISM: fiction that interweaves realistic and fantastic details, juxtaposing the marvelous with the ordinary.
MOTIVATION: the external forces (setting, circumstance) and internal forces (personality, temperament, morality, intelligence) that compel a character to act as he or she does in a piece of writing.
NARRATION: the dramatic telling of the events that make up the action or plot of a story. First-person narration is the telling of a story by a narrator who participated in or directly observed the events being recounted and who is thus a character in the story, identifying himself or herself as I. Third-person narration is the telling of a story by a detached, almost always anonymous voice that refers to the characters as he, she, and they. A third-person narrator may or may not be omniscient.
NARRATIVE:
PLOT: the series of events in a narrative that form the action, in which a character or characters face an internal or external conflict that propels the story to a climax and an ultimate resolution.
POINT OF VIEW: the perspective from which an author lets the reader view the action of a narrative; thus, the choice of who tells the story. In first-person narration the narrator tells a story he or she took part in or observed directly; such a narrator usually knows only what has been explicitly revealed, or what he or she has been able to deduce form that. In third-person narration the narrator is not directly involved in the story and so views it from a certain distance, i.e., like a fly on the wall.
REALISM: the telling of the events in a manner that is faithful to the reader’s experience of real life, limiting the events to things that might actually happen and characters to people who might actually exist.
SETTING: the place and time in which a story’s action takes place; also, in a broader sense, the culture and the ways of life of the characters and the shared beliefs and assumptions that guide their lives.
STYLE: the habitual manner of expression of an author. This manner is made up of choices concerning vocabulary, organization, diction, imagery, pace, and recurring themes.
SURREALISM: a way of writing that involves the presentation of a super-real, dreamlike world where conventions are upended and rationality is dispensed with.
SYMBOL: a person, event, or thing that stands for or represents by association some other, usually broader, idea or range of ideas, in addition to maintaining its own literal meaning.
THEME: the central, unifying point or idea that is made concrete, developed, and explored in the action and the imagery of the writing.
TONE: the expression of the author’s attitude toward his or her subject matter--the characters, their setting, and the action they undertake or undergo. Tone is revealed through the author’s diction, imagery, organization, and vocabulary.
VOICE: a term referring to the specific manner chosen by the author to tell the story, encompassing elements of point of view and style.
The information on this page is adapted from:
Charters, Ann. The Story And Its Writer: An Introduction To Short Fiction. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford, 1995.