Leanne R.
Leanne R.

Literary Analysis Essay - An Ultimate Writing Guide

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Published on: Nov 19, 2019

Last updated on: Jan 20, 2023

Literary Analysis Essay

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Are you having difficulty writing a literary essay? Hold onto your seats; you are at the right place.

The endless pursuit of knowledge is what every student desires. The world has so many amazing stories to tell, and it's up to you to explore them. But where do you start?

It can be quite daunting when faced with the prospect of writing a literary analysis essay for school. Don't worry, though!

This blog post will teach you everything you need to know about how these essays work. It includes the benefits of analyzing literature!

Stop being worried and learn to write a flawless essay from this guide.

What is a Literary Analysis Essay?

A literary essay carefully examines and analyzes a piece of literature to make it easy to understand. It breaks the subject into parts and analyzes each part separately.

According to a literary analysis essay definition:

“It is a type of essay that carefully evaluates a work of literature to understand it better.”

This essay closely studies a piece of text, interprets its meaning, and explores why the writer has made certain choices. The analysis could be of a movie, book, short story, novel, poem, play, or any other form of literature.

Fundamental Characteristics of a Literary Analysis Essay

There are four fundamental characteristics of a literary analysis essay.

1. The Elements

There are four main elements of a literary essay:

  • Plot: It is the pattern of events that make up a story.

  • Character: They are the people that play a role in the story.

  • Conflict: It is a dispute between two parties.

  • Setting: It is where the actions take place.

A literary analysis essay should include these elements because they make up the whole essay. Therefore, no element should be missing from the essay.

2. The Focus

The focus of this essay is on the literary devices, symbols, and metaphors of the literary work. It closely analyzes the symbols and metaphors of a literary work to interpret their meaning.

3. Literary Analysis Essay Structure

The basic structure of a literary essay is similar to other kinds of essays. It consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

4. Literary Analysis Essay Format

The essay format tells how the parts of the work are assembled. Usually, the MLA format is followed to write a good literary essay.

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Literary Analysis Essay Rubric

Literary Analysis Essay Rubric

Literary Analysis Essay Outline

The outline helps in organizing the information in a proper structure. The outline structure for a literary analysis essay is as follow:

  • Introduction:
    • Hook statement: Grab the reader’s attention with a strong hook statement.
    • Background: Educate the reader about the topic.
    • Thesis statement: Set the tone of the essay and tell your reader what they should expect.
  • Body:
    • Topic sentence: Introduce a line of argument.
    • Supporting evidence: Support the argument with facts and evidence.
    • Transition statement: Move to the next argument.
  • Conclusion:
    • Revision: Restate the thesis statement.
    • Summary: Summarize the whole analysis.
    • Comment: Make a relevant comment about the literary work

How to Start a Literary Analysis Essay?

The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to analyze a literary work. Therefore, when you start writing a literary analysis essay, follow these prewriting steps to do a good analysis.

  1. Choosing the Text to Analyze

    The first and foremost thing is to choose the text that you want to analyze. It could be a book, novel, short story, movie, or any other literary text.

  2. Reading the Text

    Carefully read the text and try to understand what the reader wants to convey through the text. Pay attention to every little detail and make initial notes. Look for the surprising and confusing things in the writing; these are the things that you can dig into your analysis.

  3. Identifying Literary Devices

    The objective of a literary essay is not just simply explain but to examine the text on a deeper level. Therefore, identify the literary devices that the writer has used to convey his message and create effects.

  4. Coming Up With a Good Title

    To get started with the analysis, you need to select a suitable topic for your essay. This essay prompt could be simple, or you can be creative with it. For example,

    “How effective is the role of Shams in the forty rules of love?”

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay?

When you write a literary essay, you need to remember that you are not writing a report or a summary. Instead, you are doing an argumentative analysis where you have to examine every perspective of the text.

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Here is the writing process of a literary analysis essay:

    1. Literary Analysis Essay Introduction

      The introduction tells the reader what your essay is all about. It provides a quick overview of the main argument. Here, you are supposed to introduce the text that you are going to analyze.

      Start the introduction with a strong hook statement that grabs the reader’s attention immediately. Give a general idea about the author and the text and lead to the thesis statement.

      Write a good thesis statement that indicates to the reader what’s coming up in the body section. A literary analysis essay thesis is a precisely worded declarative statement that tells the purpose of the essay.

    2. Literary Analysis Essay Body

      The body section is used for the development of the central idea of the essay. Usually, it consists of three paragraphs that support the thesis statement. It contains the explanation of the ideas and evidence from the text that support those ideas.

      While writing the body, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that presents a specific idea about the text. Support the topic sentence with facts, evidence, and logic that helps the reader understand the text. Each body paragraph’s substance includes summaries, explanations, quotations, and specific details that you need to support the topic sentence.

    3. Literary Analysis Essay Conclusion

      The conclusion paragraph should give a sense of completeness and let the reader know that he has come to an end. Don’t introduce any new ideas here; just wrap up the whole discussion.

      Restate the thesis statement and summarize the main points of the essay. Finally, make a relevant comment about the work that you have analyzed.

Literary Analysis Essay Examples

Now you have a complete guide for writing a literary essay, check out the following example to get a clearer idea. These sample essays give you a deeper understanding of the essay structure.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics

Here are some amazing literary analysis essay prompts for your help:

  • Analyze ‘10 minutes and 38 seconds in this strange world’ main character
  • Analyze the historical context of ‘War and Peace.’
  • Analyze ‘A tale of two cities’ main ideas
  • Fate and love in ‘Romeo and Juliet’
  • Women and misogyny in ‘Hamlet.’
  • Analyze ‘Into the Wild’ themes
  • What message does Elie Wiesel convey in ‘Night.’
  • Analyze the evidence provided in ‘The History of the Decline: And Fall of the Roman Empire.’
  • Analyze the narrative presented by J. M. Coetzee in ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’
  • Evaluate the mood of ‘Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

A good way to approach this essay is to summarize the text’s main argument and stress the conclusion. If you find any difficulty in doing the analysis, hire an expert essay writer.

We at FreeEssayWriter.net work 24/7 to help you with all types of academic writing assignments. Check out the free essays given on our website and get some inspiration to take help from us. Our writers are highly professional and experts at their work.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What should a literary analysis essay include?

A good literary analysis essay should include an explanation of your idea and evidence from the text that supports it. Textual evidence is when you talk about what happened in the story, summarize it, or give specific details. You can also quote the author.

What should be the tone of the literary analysis essay?

The tone of an essay is the attitude of the writer. In a literary analysis essay, a writer can be direct by stating his opinion, or indirect, by using words that have a certain feeling.

How many types of literary analysis are there?

There are six types of literary analysis, which are:

  1. Cultural Analysis
  2. Feminist Analysis
  3. Historical Analysis
  4. New Criticism Analysis
  5. Psychological Analysis
  6. Reader Response Analysis

What are the seven literary standards?

Literary standards are very important to determine whether the work done is literary or not. Following are the seven essential standards:

  1. Artistry
  2. Suggestiveness
  3. intellectual value
  4. spiritual value
  5. Permanence
  6. Universality
  7. Style.
Leanne R.

WRITTEN BY

Leanne R. (Literature, Education)

Leanne is one of the most experienced writers on our platform and holds a Ph.D. degree from Cambridge. She has worked as a journalist, an editor, and a content creator for newspapers, magazines, and websites around the world. Leanne’s research and writing skills are unsurpassed making her one of the best-reviewed writers on our platform.

Leanne is one of the most experienced writers on our platform and holds a Ph.D. degree from Cambridge. She has worked as a journalist, an editor, and a content creator for newspapers, magazines, and websites around the world. Leanne’s research and writing skills are unsurpassed making her one of the best-reviewed writers on our platform.

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