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Natalie Bradford
April 19, 2021
WRI 350
Literary Analysis Writing Guide
If you’re considering an English major, chances are that you’re already pretty confident
in your writing ability. As a prospective English student, you probably like writing and may have
been a successful writer in high school or in courses taken prior to declaring your major. Reading
and writing are the major tasks that you will be expected to complete as an English major—and
you will likely have to do a good bit of both of them. Having papers due regularly is a fact of life
for English majors; you can expect to write several each semester. The most common type of
assignment that you will be asked to write in your English classes is a literary analysis, a paper in
which you consider at length a specific component of a text that you have read and how it
informs a theme in that piece of literature. These papers differ from those written in other
classes; unlike assignments for STEM or social science courses, literary analyses don’t tend to be
very research heavy. Instead, you will have to rely on your own creativity and argumentative
skills to craft and support the claims that you want to write about. A literary analysis may be
anywhere from three to fifteen pages, depending on the scope of your argument and the
expectations of your professor. You might be asked to analyze a novel, short story, poem, or a
play.
Dr. Keri Epps, an English-student-turned-writing-professor, remembers her professors
“asking for ‘new,’ creative, or innovative arguments about texts” and emphasizing the
importance of “clarity, grammatical correctness, and close-reading.” She describes the purpose
of writing a literary analysis as “learning to ask poignant questions about life—especially other’s
experiences—and learning about ourselves through how we identify and understand others’
expressions of lived experience.” While such lofty aims might at first seem daunting, considering
the process and individual components of a literary analysis paper may help make them feel
more achievable. For this guide, I have synthesized advice from various college writing centers
and my own experiences as an English major to offer insight into writing a thesis-driven literary
analysis that is reliant on compelling textual evidence. I have also included advice from
professors, Dr. Epps and Dr. Jenny Pyke, a professor in the English department, on what they
look for in students’ writing.
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The Harvard College Writing Center succinctly states, “writing begins with the act of
reading” (1). Performing a close reading must be the first step taken to writing a literary analysis.
When reading the works assigned in your classes, it is important to pay attention to more than
just the general plot; you should take note of formal and structural aspects of the texts, as well as
common literary techniques including imagery, allusion, and figurative language. A repeated
image might seem like a small detail to focus on, but if something comes up again and again it is
likely of some significance. Details such as these offer great starting points for papers—if you
can take notice of them while you are reading and annotate where they appear in the text, it will
make your life much easier when you get ready to write a paper.
The second step of writing a literary analysis is to decide on a topic for your paper. The
topic you choose will be influenced by your assignment. You ought to begin by considering how
much direction your professor has given you in selecting your topic. For some assignments, you
might be given a specific question or concept to consider in your paper. For others, you might
only receive a page count and the chance to write about whatever catches your attention. It is
important, too, to decide what type of analysis your professor wants you to write: are you
analyzing one specific text? Comparing two or more texts? Or applying ideas from a piece of
literary criticism to a work you have read?
Once you understand what you are being asked to do, you will need a topic for your
paper. This topic should be significant to the text, interesting to you, and should answer the
question posed by your professor. The notes that you made while performing your close reading
will be helpful for finding this topic. If you need more direction, different critical theories can be
useful as jumping off points for deciding what you want to focus on. You can look at the text as
a feminist, Marxist, or post-colonial literary scholar might in order to decide what sorts of
questions you want to pose about the text. The lens you choose will likely be informed by what
you have discussed in class:
• If your class is focused on gender, ask what the women in the text are doing or how their
roles contribute to the text’s historical positioning.
• If your professor often discusses economic structures, consider how class functions within
the text or what sorts of power systems are present.
• If you are reading literature from the global south, a post-colonial lens might be appropriate;
think about the text’s relationship to colonial oppression or cultural identity.
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These critical theories provide a focus for your analysis; you needn’t rely on them for the entirety
of your paper but they can give you a scaffold of ideas and terms that you may build upon and
use to direct your own thoughts.
Your next step should be to gather evidence relevant to your chosen topic. Literary
analyses rely heavily on textual evidence; you will need several quotes to support each claim that
you make. If you kept detailed annotations during your close reading, you can go through the
work and gather the quotes that you want to work with. Class discussions can also be useful
when gathering evidence as your professor or peers might call attention to significant passages
that you can use to build your argument. Unlike many other types of papers, the precise language
of the text you are analyzing is important to your argument. Whereas in papers for other classes
you might be encouraged to paraphrase, literary analyses quote verbatim from the text. These
quotes may be long block quotes so that you can analyze entire passages, or they might only be
one or two words, depending upon the claim you are supporting, but the language of the quote is
as important as its general idea.
When including quotes, make sure that you integrate them into your own sentences. A
quote typically shouldn’t be a sentence all on its own, but should be incorporated into your
argument with an introductory clause and some analysis to explain why are you are including it.
An example from MICUSP of a well-incorporated quote would be: “The first dialogue comes
from Mrs. Bennet, who is entreating Mr. Bennet to call on Mr. Bingley. Upon assuming Mr.
Bennet will not do so, she says such things as ‘I am sick of Mr. Bingley’, and then hearing his
admission of having called upon him, says ‘I was sure you loved your girls too well to neglect
such an acquaintance’ (6)” (ENG.G0.18.2). This quote usage is effective because it provides
context and juxtaposes the expression of two different sentiments which the writer can then go
on to analyze in greater depth. It is also important to cite appropriately—MLA style calls for
parenthetical in-text citations with the author’s last name, unless it has already been said in the
sentence, and the page or line number.
In addition to textual evidence, you may be asked to find outside sources. This is
particularly likely for longer papers or for papers that ask you to apply a critical theorist’s ideas
to a text. Gathering evidence of this sort may require you to do some research on your own, or
your professor might provide you with texts to consider in your writing. For this type of
evidence, it is more important to draw out key ideas or terms than to quote to the letter. Rather
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than including long, complicated theoretical quotes, rephrase the author’s points so that you
understand them and can apply the author’s critical framework to your argument. In her own
writing, Dr. Pyke says that she most values the writing that sounds like her; she encourages
students not to let critical readings supersede their original thoughts in their writing. Evidence of
this variety should not supplant your own thinking, but rather add depth or give you new points
to consider. Summarizing a theorist’s ideas, like summarizing a text’s plot, is not the point of a
literary analysis. Even when you are working with multiple sources, it is important that you
continue to foreground your own thinking.
After compiling your evidence, the next stage in writing a literary analysis is to write
your thesis. At this stage in the writing process, you thesis shouldn’t be perfectly crafted, just
something that you can refer back to in order to keep yourself on topic as you write your
analysis; it is very likely that your argument will change as you think through it more. The
importance of a strong thesis has likely been covered in every English class you’ve taken since
beginning high school, but it is helpful to think about what specifically goes into the thesis for a
literary analysis. A thesis should be specific, arguable, and answer the “so what?” question. Your
working thesis doesn’t have to meet all of these requirements before you have written the rest of
the paper, but you can start with a thesis in this general form that can be changed and refined as
your ideas become more concrete. The evidence that you gathered can also be helpful in deciding
your thesis, as it allows you to see what kind of argument you will be able to support.
Specificity is important for your thesis because it limits the scope of your paper. If you
only have four pages to discuss an entire novel, you need to limit your thesis to ensure that you
are able to make your analysis as in-depth as possible, rather than only having room for surface-
level analysis. Specificity also helps to ensure that your argument is interesting; the more broad
your thesis is, the more likely it is that your reader has already considered it. This allows you to
be more creative as well as more thorough in your analysis. A thesis such as, “On the surface,
Queen Wealhtheow and Grendel's mother are dominated by men. However, both women actually
have a great deal of power; it is simply manifested differently than the power of male figures”
could be improved with greater specificity (MICUSP ENG.G0.12.1). The writer might consider
addressing what kinds of power Queen Wealhtheow and Grendel’s mother possess as well as
what their power means for the text as a whole; this would make her thesis more interesting and
strengthen her argument.
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For a thesis to be arguable, it must be something that an intelligent reader could

reasonably disagree with. If someone could not make a case against your argument, it is likely
too broad or it is more of a summary than an argument. Your thesis should not be a statement of
something that objectively happens in a text, but rather an interesting, or even controversial,
interpretation of that text. If you were writing a paper on Hamlet, “Hamlet believes that Claudius
killed his father” would not be an arguable thesis. However, “Hamlet’s concern over his
mother’s relationship with Claudius evinces his Oedipal complex and it is this dynamic which
leads to the play’s tragic conclusion” is a thesis statement which someone could argue against. A
thesis must also be able to answer the question, “so what?” You should consider what the
argument you are addressing contributes to the overall understanding of the text. The thesis
should inform your readers on how the text as a whole may be understood. This component of
the thesis is the most likely to change as you continue writing the rest of your paper.
Here are three examples of theses that are specific, arguable, and answer the “so what?”
question. Each of these theses also draws on one of the critical lenses mentioned earlier; they are
written with feminist, post-colonial, and marxist perspectives in mind. The first is from a paper
written about the novel Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, found on MICUSP. The second is from
a paper on Jane Austen’s Emma and the third is from a paper on Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and
South, both of which I wrote.
• A feminist thesis: “This recurring masculinity in the portrayal of Moll's character

suggests a woman of a new era; the 1800s become an era in which the first cinders of

feminism are kindled. But along with defiance of convention and female masculinity

come the consequences: Moll remains, throughout the novel, an incredibly isolated

figure…Defoe’s Moll represents a changing age, one in which people are not entirely

products of their circumstances and family, in which the individual becomes increasingly

more valued over the ties of duty and kinship; her isolation is the product of not belonging

to any particular group, but to herself” (MICUSP ENG.G0.18.1).

• A post-colonial thesis: “Noting how the peripheral nature of figures such as Mr. Dixon,

the Irish landowner married to Jane Fairfax’s friend, impedes Emma from comprehending
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them and paying particular attention to the significance of Dixon’s Irish-ness in his

inadvertent confounding of Emma’s understanding, illustrates that while the

progressiveness that the novel endorses allows for the acceptance of some, others cannot

be assimilated. Though Dixon’s character may be understood to speak to similar anxieties

as Robert Martin in regards to the changing English society, namely Irish immigration and

upward mobility for the Irish, those forces pose too much of a threat to the extant power

structure to be included peacefully within Emma’s ideal of Englishness.”

• A Marxist thesis: Elizabeth Gaskell’s depiction of Mr. Higgins and Mr. Thornton

demonstrates that disparate manufacturing classes in the novel North and South are

capable of cooperation and both possess meritorious, sympathetic individuals,

contradicting narratives of the undeserving poor which were common in the Victorian era

and contributing to Gaskell’s project of encouraging her readers to think more deeply

about class and the plight of industrial workers.

You can begin to explicate your argument through your body paragraphs after you have
written your working thesis. The organization of the body of your analysis will depend on your
argument, but should correspond to your thesis so that readers can more easily follow your
points. For this section of your paper, it might be helpful to consider some general guidelines of
good writing in English:
1. Complexity is valued in a literary analysis. Though it might be tempting to simplify
something from the text or to leave out pieces of evidence in order to create clear
support for your argument, your paper will be more interesting and more successful if
you consider contradictory evidence and areas in which your argument collapses or is
complicated by the text.
2. Your writing should be concise. Though English writing is often derided as
unnecessarily fluffy or flowery, your professors will appreciate language that is to the
point. If you could say something in fewer words, do that. This will also help ensure
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that your points are clear and not obscured by needlessly complicated language.
Unnecessary repetition or linguistic flourishes will only detract from your argument.
3. Stay focused on the text you are analyzing. Unless your assignment specifically asks
you to do so, a literary analysis should not be based in your personal experiences or on
the history of a text’s author. Even for first person, seemingly autobiographical texts, it
is important to distinguish between the speaker and the author.
4. A good literary analysis starts with good questions and demonstrates good thinking. Dr.
Epps stresses that studying literature helps us to “question aspects of life and human
existence we did not not know to question.” For her, a successful literary analysis is one
that she “can tell the writer has deeply thought about” and that considers “questions
about life, language, and identity.”
5. When you are writing, give yourself time to go through multiple drafts. Dr. Pyke
emphasizes “the necessity of mess and writing garbage.” Working through multiple
stages of drafting, she says, is important to complex, multi-part thinking. The messy
part of that process comes in as we “clarify for ourselves what we want to express” and
figure out how best to show someone what is in your head.
As you go forth to write the many, many literary analyses of your academic career, I will
leave you with a few words from Dr. Pyke. The fear that she sees in her undergraduate students
of not doing a good job is one that Dr. Pyke can sympathize with. As a student, Dr. Pyke felt that
“a good job” meant a paper her professors “would like.” However, she stresses that she wants her
students to know that they are not writing for her. Dr. Pyke urges students to “remember that you
are in college for you.” The writing that you do as an English major is not to impress a professor,
but “to expand and build your own knowledge and ideas and skills in expression and
formulation.” Learning to write a literary analysis, she tells her students, “is about pushing your
brain, trying new things, seeing invisible systems, and seeing the real stakes in literature.” Rather
than trying to please “invisible critics,” Dr. Pyke recommends “rejecting the narratives others
give you, and learning to choose your own” to foreground your own growth as a writer and
“always looking forward in positive ways, to build on what is happening not to ‘correct’.”

Works Cited
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“A Brief Guide to Writing the English Paper.” Harvard College Writing Center,

https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/brief-guides-writing-disciplines.

“Literature.” The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

writingcenter.unc.edu, https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-fiction/.

Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers. (2009). Ann Arbor, MI: The Regents of the

University of Michigan.

“What Makes a Good Literature Paper?” Purdue Writing Lab. owl.purdue.edu,

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_about_

literature/index.html.