Putting Together the English Literature Paper

When you write a paper involving literature, you will usually perform a literary analysis. In your analysis, you will interpret short stories, poems, plays, etc., that you have read for the class. This interpretation will either explain the function of the elements (plot, setting, rhyme, author's background, etc.) in the readings or set out your response (did you like the play or dislike it? what do you think of the main character? etc.) to the readings. To complete your analysis, you may want to use the following models for your introductory paragraph and your body paragraphs. INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH The introductory paragraph should tell your reader the topic of your paper and the name of the work(s) to which you are responding. To set out this information clearly, you should 1) State the title(s) of the work(s), 2) State the author(s), if known, of the work(s), and 3) State your thesis. Title and Author You need to state the title(s) and the author(s) of the work(s) because your class may have been assigned several works or paper topics; your reader should not have to guess which work or which topic you are writing about. If you wish, you may state the title and the author in the same sentence:
In his play The Tragedy of Othello, William Shakespeare . . . William Faulkner's "A Rose for Miss Emily" . . . John Donne's poem "The Flea" . . .

DO NOT let the title of your own essay function as part of the introductory paragraph. DO NOT:
Setting in "The Open Boat" This story is about . . . ]

DO:
Setting in "The Open Boat"

In Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat" . . .

Remember to state the full name of both the author and the work the first time you mention them. Later, you can refer to the author by his or her last name and to the work by a key word in the title:
Shakespeare, in the first act of Othello . . . In the opening lines of "Miss Emily," Faulkner . . . Donne's use of imagery in "The Flea" . . .

Also remember to underline titles of complete works (novels, plays, movies, etc.) and to place quotes around titles of poems and short stories no matter where you mention them. The Thesis Your thesis represents your interpretation of the work. To complete your thesis, you need to have a clear understanding of your assignment. If your instructor has given you a question, then your thesis should be your answer to that question:
Sample question: What motivates Iago, the villain in Shakespeare's Othello? Thesis: Iago is motivated by his jealousy of Othello and by his ambition to rise through the ranks of the Venetian army.

If your instructor has asked you to decide on your own topic, then you may find the following frames useful:
1) (The author) uses____(1)____to show____(2)____. 2) Through the use of____(1)____, (the author) shows (how)____(2)____. 3) The development of____(1)____reveals____(2)____.

In space 1 of each frame, you insert the element(s) you are interpreting; in space 2 of each frame, you explain the net effect of the element(s) on the work or on some portion of the work.
1)Shakespeare uses the X-plot to show Iago's growing influence over Othello. 2)Through the use of the grotesque, Faulkner shows how Miss Emily's secrets represent ugly truths about the American South. 3) The development of the flea as a symbol for love reveals the desperation behind the speaker's attempt to seduce the lady he is addressing.

The length of the introductory paragraph should be determined by the overall length of your paper. Shorter papers will usually require shorter introductions, and longer papers will usually require longer introductions. As a general rule, you should have no less than three sentences in your introductory paragraph. BODY PARAGRAPHS Once you have stated your thesis, you must support that thesis in your body paragraphs. To support your thesis, you must cite and explain passages, from the work itself, that give rise to your interpretation. Remember that you are explaining and interpreting the work and NOT summarizing it (that is, simply retelling what happens). You should assume that your reader is familiar with the work. By following the model below, you can create any number of body paragraphs to support your thesis. The Five-Step Paragraph
1) Topic Sentence 2) Narrow Down Sentence 3) Quotation 4) Explanation 5) Conclusion

1) Topic Sentence 2) In the topic sentence, you should present some portion of your thesis to be proven in the paragraph. If you are working with a thesis created from the three models above, you can present the information you inserted into spaces 1 and 2. Early paragraphs in your essay should focus on the information in space 1, and later paragraphs should focus on the information in space 2. Each new paragraph should either develop a new portion or expand a point made in a previous paragraph. 2) Narrow Down Sentence The narrow down sentence should point the reader's attention to a specific passage that supports your topic sentence. You should name the source of the passage (who is speaking here?), name the location of the passage (is it toward the beginning of the work? toward the end? in what paragraph?), or describe the content of the passage (who's doing what?). 3) Quotation

In this sentence, you should write out the passage you pointed out in the narrow down sentence. If you write the passage word for word, you must put it in "quotation marks." If you paraphrase the passage (rewrite it in your own words), then you won't need quotations marks. However, whether you quote word for word or paraphrase, you need to document your source by giving the last name of the author and the page number on which the quoted passage appears in the original work (give only the page number if you mention the author's name in the narrow down sentence or if you are writing about a single work). If you are quoting from a play, you may cite the act, scene and line instead of the page number. This citation will appear in parentheses after the quotation. 4) Explanation In this sentence, you need to a) explain the meaning of the passage you just quoted, and/or b) explain how that passage supports your topic sentence. Refer to specific words in the passage that carry special meaning or extra importance and show how those words give rise to your interpretation. 5) Conclusion To conclude the body paragraph, you need to finish your explanation of the passage and sum up the points just presented. You may also need to provide a transition to the next paragraph. You can create a body paragraph of five sentences by writing one of each sentence type described above, but not all paragraphs will follow the model. Some paragraphs, for example, may not have conclusions; some paragraphs may have more than one explanation sentence. Each paragraph, however, should start with topic sentences and narrow down sentences and end with quotations, explanations, or conclusions. Below is an example of an introductory paragraph and a body paragraph based on the instructions set out above:
While reading William Shakespeare's play The Tragedy of Othello, we are saddened by the deaths of Othello and Desdemona, and we are appalled by Iago's treachery. Often, an audience will ask itself, Why did Iago do it? This question, though simple, is important to our understanding of the play because Iago's actions move the play forward. Iago is motivated by his jealousy of Othello and by his ambition to rise through the ranks of the Venetian army. The first of Iago's motivations is jealousy for Othello. He first expresses this jealousy in Act I, Scene III, when he relates a rumor concerning his wife, Emilia, and Othello: "It is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets/H'as done my office" (I.iii.360-1). The "office" he refers to is the duty of a husband to maintain sexual relations with his wife, so he is stating his belief that Othello has slept with Emilia. This belief is one of Iago's justifications for seeking revenge against Othello.

FOR MORE HELP: See The Rinehart Handbook for Writers Chapter 43 "Critical Reviews"; Chapter 41a "MLA Documentation"; Chapter 41b "Sample Research Paper Using MLA Style." Also see Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama "Supplement: Writing." For more help with documentation, see the Norton Textra writing program on the Writing Lab computers: Edit Menu F5 "Handbook"; Alt Menu F4 "Works Cited."