How to write a literary analysis essay. Complete writing guide
Literary analysis isn’t the same as writing a Goodreads or Kindle Store review. If you’re assigned a literary analysis paper, you’ll need to turn your reading, critical thinking, analytical, and writing skills to eleven. But what is a literary analysis essay? Does it need an outline? And how do you write it? By the end of this post, you’ll have answers to these and many other questions.
What is a literary analysis?
Literary analysis is a written assessment of a novel, poem, or play that evaluates the effectiveness of the author’s choice of literary devices, plot, and character development. It’s not a review but rather an argumentative piece that supports your point of view with plentiful examples from the piece under scrutiny. Literary analysis is typical for English and World Literature classes, though students taking Drama, Writing, and other creative courses could also encounter this assignment.
Despite its seeming simplicity, literary analysis is among the most common assignments that make students look for paper writing help online. Most have trouble differentiating between analysis and a simple retelling of the plot or a personal take on individual characters or plot devices.
Types of literary analysis essays
Before we dive into the specifics of how to write a literary analysis, let’s consider the different implications this assignment can hold. Depending on the prompt you encounter, the outline and focus of your paper may differ. Although professors rarely specify the types of literary analysis they want you to perform, the phrasing may imply one of the following:
- Theoretical analysis is the most common type, calling for an examination of literary devices used, their effectiveness, and their overall impact on the storyline, characters, etc.
- Applied analysis is a subjective examination of the plot and characters and any potential ties or influence they have on your life.
- Comparative analysis requires you to compare and contrast similarities and differences across two or more works by the same author or different authors. For instance, you may compare the themes of absolute power in “1984” and “Animal Farm”.
- Contextual (historical) analysis accounts for the historical period when the piece was written, the author’s social standing, and other external factors that may have affected the book.
Outline of a literary analysis
Before you worry about how to start a literary analysis essay, take a few minutes to put together a rough outline of what you will write about. The planning stage is critical for keeping the paper cohesive and focused on the main issue instead of devolving into a mix of disjointed thoughts and quotes. Besides, it doesn’t need to take long, especially if you follow the tried-and-true basic literary analysis essay outline template for a 5-paragraph paper that looks like this:
You can adjust and expand each of the body paragraphs in this literary analysis template into a longer section with several passages if the word count requirements call for it. The basic structure will remain the same, but you’ll have more room for quotes and analysis to support each major argument.
How to write a literary analysis
Before you write: topic selection, research, and planning
You need to have an in-depth understanding of the book before choosing the topic, formulating the thesis statement, and creating an outline. Active reading is the best time-saving strategy, so remember to highlight important quotes or paste pieces of the book into a separate file for later use.
Browsing the SpeedyPaper sample literary analysis essay collection can also be helpful. You can skim the titles to come up with a topic, mine the reference section for useful secondary sources, and borrow meaningful quotes and good word choice.
Refer to other sections of this post for more tips on choosing the topic and creating an outline.
Writing literary analysis
There’s no secret about how to write a character analysis or any other type of literary analysis quickly. As long as you complete the pre-writing routine, you can use the “brain dump” method to get as many words on paper as possible within the shortest time. With this approach, you can write the paper quickly, but editing will require more time.
You can use common writing tricks, like writing at an unusual hour or place, having a couple of drinks before writing, or using speech recognition software to create notes on the go.
And if none of the above work, you can always get our paper writing service to take over the task.
Post writing: editing, proofreading, and formatting
The final stage of how to do a literary analysis and score high marks is polishing the finished paper after a short break. Look it over with fresh eyes or ask a classmate to review it, paying special attention to weak or conflicting points, irrelevant quotes, and repetitions. You may need to delete or replace sentences or passages, but it will only strengthen your paper.
Once you’re happy with the contents, work on the first impression your paper will make by removing mistakes and typos and formatting the essay according to the formatting style requirements. Remember to cite all primary and secondary sources properly and include the reference list.
Literary analysis essay topics
In most cases, professors will provide a prompt or several questions for you. But if they want you to follow the literary analysis format and have full freedom of choosing the piece for analyzing, you can use our short list of literary analysis topics for inspiration. It covers a few common books covered in most high schools and colleges across the US:
- Compare the effectiveness of different literary devices in James Joyce’s “Ulysses”
- Assess the different approaches Charles Dickens uses for describing the three ghosts in “A Christmas Carol”
- Analyze the depiction of the effects of propaganda in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”
- Evaluate the effectiveness of mental issues’ representation in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”
- Consider the power of sensory depictions in “The Diary of Anne Frank”
- Examine the representation of adultery and jealousy in Shakespeare’s “Othello”
- Assess the differences and similarities in characterization of Frankenstein and the monster
- Consider the themes of innocence and growing up in “The Catcher in the Rye”
- Evaluate the power of symbolism in “The Story of an Hour” by Louise Mallard
- Compare the depiction of first impressions in “Pride and Prejudice” and “Jane Ayre”
To make things interesting, we suggest formulating the topic and the thesis statement to tie them with current issues. For instance, you can connect the major dystopian themes in Orwell’s “1984” with the current authoritarian regimes in China, Russia, or Venezuela to see how they compare.
Final thoughts
Literary analysis is a common assignment, which doesn’t make it any easier for high school and college students. It requires active reading of the piece, a thorough examination of its aspects, and an ability to formulate strong arguments and support them with stronger evidence. We hope our recommendations help you master this assignment, but if you need more help coming up with exciting topics, outlining, or writing a literary analysis, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our English experts can get it done in under 24 hours and help you meet an impossible deadline.
Besides, SpeedyPaper can help with all writing tasks beyond standard literary analysis. We’re also the best admission essay writing service, a renowned term paper team, and an authority on editing and proofreading all types of papers.
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