Elements of the Literary Analysis Essay

The Literary Analysis Essay

The Literary Analysis requires you to break down and interpret a part of your text. For example, a Literary Analysis might ask you to determine if a character is dynamic, identify the various conflicts in the text, or show how a text reveals a certain theme. When analyzing a work of literature, there are multiple parts you can look at in order to write an essay. View some examples of prompts you might encounter when asked to write a Literary Analysis:

How does the author use various literary devices to characterize your protagonist?
How does the author use tone, details, and figurative language to develop your protagonist?
Compare and contrast two characters in your text.
How does the author use conflict to develop the theme of the text?
How does the author use literary devices to develop the mood of the text?

View the characteristics of the Literary Analysis in order to learn how to create a developed essay to support your claims:

Literary Analysis Essay Thesis Statements

Recall that the thesis statement is the most important part of the essay because the thesis reveals the main idea of the essay. The thesis statement for the Literary Analysis Essay will include:

The title of the text
The author of the text

The broad idea of your essay that you will use to write your body paragraph topic sentences (do not list the ideas of your topic sentences in the thesis statement)

*Do not include "I think", "In my opinion", or any other phrases using "I, me, my, you, us, we, or our" because they weaken your argument.

Let's take a look at some example thesis statements.

This thesis statement is broad and includes the title and author
The writer states the topic of the essay, and the writer provides a connection for the topic sentences
The topic sentences for the body paragraphs will expand on the growth of Jem as a character by revealing how the author includes conflicts and details to demonstrate the growth of Jem
Each paragraph could be about how a different conflict forces Jem to grow and change as a person

This thesis statement is broad and includes the title and author
The writer states the topic of the essay, and the writer provides a connection for the topic sentences
The topic sentences for the body paragraphs will expand on the theme of the poem by identifying how literary devices come together to create the theme
Each paragraph could be a different literary device such as one paragraph on metaphors and one paragraph on symbolism that create the theme

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