18.6 Writing Your Detailed Analysis of the Literary Work
You have written your thesis statements and your claims. You have chosen your textual evidence. Now, how do you write about the passages that you have chosen? How do you know how long your analysis of each example should be? How do you know when you’ve written enough analysis to persuade the reader?
Practice, practice, practice. The only way to develop the skill of writing analyses of literature (or any work, for that matter) is to do it. Like learning how to ride a bicycle, throw a baseball, drive a car, or play the piano, the learning starts in the attempt.
Begin by selecting a short passage (a key scene, a crucial conversation, or an opening or closing sentence or paragraph) that relates the topic that is most interesting to you. Quote this passage precisely. The next goal is to unfold the meaning of this quotation by focusing on the specific evidence in the passage. Do not spend time summarizing the plot. Your writing should be focused on developing your idea (your interpretation) when it comes to that passage. Use your analysis of the passage to develop your idea about the topic. Don’t get sidetracked or introduce a new topic. Concentrate on analyzing the passage you have selected, analyzing it in order to support your argument.
The first sentence should be your main point, or interpretive claim, about the passage. You may not know what your claim is before you start writing, and that’s okay: often it is in the process of writing about a literary work that we discover what we think it means. Just remember to go back and add your claim to the beginning of the paragraph eventually.
Here is a sample passage analysis in an essay with the following focus:
Example
The writer chose to begin by analyzing the first scene in the novel that Tom is present in. This is what she wrote:
Example
Fitzgerald equates Tom with suffocation from Tom Buchanan’s first scene. Nick Carraway, as narrator, relates his impression when he enters the Buchanans’ house by saying:
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. (8)
The words that Fitzgerald uses here invoke two senses. The first is of levity—the women are lifted “up” by the wind like they are in a “balloon” and have taken “flight.” The second is of movement—the dresses are “rippling” and “fluttering,” and the women are being “blown” and “buoyed.” At this point in the scene, the tone is an upbeat, lively one. That tone changes, however, once Tom enters the room. Fitzgerald writes, “Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor” (8). Tom’s presence stops the “wind.” Fitzgerald’s choice of words—“died out”—suggests that this is a kind of violence—Tom kills the air. The word “boom” invokes a weapon, such as a gunshot or the roar of a cannon. At the same time, Tom also seems to kill the happiness and good spirits that were circulating throughout the room. Not only are the windows “shut,” and the air stopped, but Daisy and Jordan are brought down “to the floor” because of Tom.
Note that the writer leads her paragraph with her main point about the passage: “Fitzgerald equates Tom with suffocation”—and she also mentions the setting of the scene, all of which connect her main point in this paragraph to her overall thesis about the novel: Tom Buchanan is associated with death in the sense that he takes the life out of the women who love him” and “F. Scott Fitzgerald achieves this effect […] through the narrative descriptions of the scenes in Tom’s house.” The writer then introduces the first piece of textual evidence that she intends to analyze, very briefly setting up the context (who is speaking, what is the setting, and at what point in the story). She quotes the evidence. Then, she makes two observations about that setting, pointing out the specific words that draw her to those observations—underscoring the evidence she has collected. She then sets herself up to add her piece of crucial evidence that relates to her overall argument about Tom. She repeats the same process: establishing her point, briefly setting up the who/what/when to contextualize the example, quoting the evidence, then making relevant observations and pointing out the specific words that support her observations.
Acronyms for Passage Analysis: MEAL & TEXT
The writer of the example above followed the acronym TEXT to help her organize her paragraph:
TEXT
- Topic sentence: your topic sentence controls your paragraph, introducing one of the claims related to your thesis.
- Example: briefly contextualize (who/what/when) and then present a quotation or example from the literary work.
- X—explanation: in your own words, explain what you specific details you believe are important in the evidence you have provided. You cannot assume that your readers will interpret the evidence in the same way as you—so you must explain the connections you want them to make.
- Tie it all together—make sure the paragraph reads as a coherent whole before moving on to the next idea. Don’t restate exactly what you just said, but leave your reader with a powerful ending statement at the end of each paragraph.
A similar formula can be found in the acronym MEAL.
MEAL
- Main Point: write a sentence that indicates what all of the other sentences in this paragraph will be about. This sentence should make a claim.
- Evidence: briefly contextualize (who/what/when) and then present a quotation or example from the literary work.
- Analysis: interpret the quotation or example in support of your main point.
- Link: conclude your analysis in a way that prepares your reader for your next idea, linking the ideas raised in this paragraph to your next main point.
Composing the Body Paragraphs
Writing passage analysis is difficult; even established professors and literary scholars find it challenging. If you find yourself staring at a blank screen or page when trying to write, here are some additional exercises that you can try.
Facing your Fear
The Facing Your Fear exercise asks you to do some freewriting without worrying about mistakes. The concept is easy, and it works when freewriting in longhand (handwriting) or on the computer (typing). If writing in longhand, keep a blank page over the sentences you have already written—no peeking! If typing on a computer, cover your screen with a blank page of paper (using a folded piece of paper that you hang over the screen or tape in place).You can give yourself a specific prompt related to the literary work you are writing about, like “what did you think of the interview where Viola Davis and Denzel Washington discussed their roles in Fences?” or you could write through a particular lens (like feminism or ecocriticism). This is a timed exercise—somewhere between five and ten minutes—and the point is to let your mind freely tell your fingers what to write without worrying about eloquence, grammar, or punctuation. Just get your ideas down on the page.
Just Get Started
Another way of overcoming the fear of the blank page is to start formatting your paper per MLA guidelines and inserting an abbreviated version of the prompt or essay instructions. Create your 4-line heading (your name, your instructor’s name, the course, and the date), and give your paper a working title. Already you have moved beyond having an empty page. Now insert a page break and put the words “Works Cited” at the top of the new page. This deliberate attention to formatting will pay off in the end because you won’t have a lot of formatting issues to resolve.
Now, think about the content of your paper. Go back up to the top of the first page and write a few sentences about what you understand the assignment to be asking of you. Type some notes about your writing plan, where you hope to go. These don’t have to be fancy right now.
If you like to outline, create a few bullet points capturing some of your plans for the assignment. Then, flesh these bullet points out to full sentences, as you work back and forth between them.
Have a concluding thought? It’s okay to type it down at the bottom of the page, even if you haven’t written an introduction.
Writing is not always a linear process. Even accomplished writers rarely write a polished document in one sitting, from the first word to the last. We all experience doubts, difficulties, and delays.
In other words, just get started.
Getting this preliminary work out of the way not only produces a page that is no longer blank, but it also gives you a feeling of accomplishment. You have gotten started with your writing assignment.
Reopening your document the next time you work on it, you will experience a feeling of relief—you’ve gotten started, and you know what areas of this document need additional work.
Keep going—and soon you’ll have an entire draft of your assignment created.
Checking Your Argument: The Do/Say Exercise
The Do/Say exercise is useful when you are evaluating your first draft. This exercise asks you to note what a paragraph or sentence does and also be aware of what a paragraph or sentence says.
For this exercise, you will make notes in both margins.
In the left margin, note what the paragraph or sentence does. Paragraphs and sentences can do many things, such as introduce, contextualize, claim, analyze, interpret, describe, support, and conclude. By looking at what a paragraph or sentence does, you are examining the structure and organization of your essay.
In the right margin, note what the paragraph or sentence says. Summarize, paraphrase, restate, or rephrase the paragraph or sentence. Ask yourself if your content (what the paragraph or sentence says) aligns with the function (what the paragraph or sentence does). Perhaps some of the content can be deleted, abbreviated, or better be placed somewhere else in your essay.
Revising Your Argument into a Different Form
Another technique to refine your argument is to translate it into a different form. You can translate your writing into any form, such as an outline, annotated bibliography, draft, essay, text, email, letter, blog entry, creative non-fiction, poem, song, rap, or editorial. Translating your writing into another form requires rethinking your argument to fit the new assignment. You cannot insert an interpretive essay into a text to your friend, for example. Instead, you will want to reframe the main points and your conclusion in ways that attract and maintain their interests. Also keep in mind that you wouldn’t write the same text to a friend that you would send to your grandmother. Each writing situation demands some attention to form, audience, situation, and purpose.
Pick three or four different forms and experiment with planning how you’d transform your current piece of writing to the new forms.
A Word about Writers and Writing
Keep in mind that we don’t have to all be academic writers once we leave the college classroom. Some of these forms will be easier for you to write than others. It’s okay—we all struggle more with some types of writing, while others come more naturally to us.
The skills you learn writing your interpretation essay in the composition classroom will serve you well throughout your college career, and the writing skills you learn here will translate into the workplace. You may go on to a career that requires you to write: reports, emails, grants, proposals, policies and procedures, web pages, technical manuals, training guides, PowerPoints, speeches—and the list goes on. There are all kinds of writing in the workplace, and employers value employees with good writing skills and with critical thinking skills.
You will also continue to write in your daily life—grocery lists, creative pieces, emails, blogs, tweets, social media posts, and the like.
Many of you will go on to complete a bachelor’s degree, and some of you will head off to graduate school.
At each stage of the way, you will be introduced to new kinds of writings.
At every level, we encourage you to embrace the writing process and to value the power of the written word.
Glossary of Literary Terms
Literary devices are the tools authors use to craft their writing. The following sites offer a Glossary of Literary Terms:
- Glossary of Literary Terms
- Literary Research Guide
- Literary Devices and Terms
- Glossary of Literary Terms
Continue Reading: 18.7 Sample Literary Interpretation Essays by Students
