Literary Analysis–How To

Written by Ali Pineo

What is a Literary Analysis?

A literary analysis is a common assignment in first-year writing and English courses. Despite how ubiquitous they are, literary analyses can sometimes feel confusing or maybe even a little intimidating. This type of analytical essay requires you to zoom into a text to unpack and wrestle with deeper meaning (through exploring diction, syntax, structure—just to name a few elements) and then zoom out to illuminate how those elements contribute to the “big picture,” whether that be a central idea, theme, or social commentary.

Central to the literary analysis is the “why.” You should not aim to merely explain, describe, or interpret—you must do all three in addition to answering bigger questions like, “Why does this interpretation matter?” and “How is this perspective significant?” These questions are at the heart of analysis, which aims to examine complex ideas by studying their individual parts, characteristics, and features. 

Your job, then, is to put on your detective cap, search for major ideas, and identify patterns in how those ideas connect. In doing so, you’ll work to bring the implicit to the surface and develop (and evolve!) your questions and interpretations to explore the text. Cultivating this detective state of mind will allow you to conquer your next major task: writing the literary analysis. 

3 Ways to Find a Topic

1. Notice what catches your attention

   Is it a symbol that continues to reappear? Is it the power struggle between two characters? Is it a nagging question you can’t shake? Investigating something that stands out to you is a good starting place. You may not end up writing on that particular topic, but it could lead you to a compelling idea worthy of unpacking.

2. Don’t take class for granted

   check your notes! Your professors often leave a really clear trail of themes and ideas you can explore in your essay. If you think this will preclude you from having a novel or unique idea, think again. There are many ways to approach previously made arguments. Picking up on your professor’s bread crumbs is precisely why you go to class—to learn from an expert and to practice your analytical skills under their guidance. Following their lead can often guide you toward the richest ideas to explore and unpack. 

3. Talk to a friend and have them keep track of the words and themes that keep popping up for you

   Do you continue circling back to the theme of power? Or perhaps you keep repeating the same three words—like “education, socio-economic status, and success” (you might then ask yourself how those three things are connected). Saying your ideas out loud and having them repeated back to you can help you to develop clarity and understanding of your potential topic(s). 

Once you’ve chosen a topic, you’re ready to explore significant quotes, passages, and themes that will make up your evidence. Rereading key sections of the text will help you to elevate your understanding of the ideas and evidence you are considering and aid in the tedious narrowing of your topic. This prep work is crucial to constructing your main argument, A.K.A. your thesis, which consists of a narrowed topic + the “so what.” When you’re ready, head over to this guide on How to Write a Strong Argument to build an outstanding thesis statement for your essay. 

Writing Your Intro

Your introduction is like a map—it should orient your reader to the main argument (your thesis). Your map should be inviting, clear, and useful, as well as capture your reader’s attention. If your map had a shape, it would be an upside down triangle, starting general and narrowing to its most specific point—your thesis. 

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Pro tip: Although the intro comes first in the essay, that doesn’t mean you actually have to write it first. It’s hard to introduce something that doesn't exist yet! Instead, you could start by writing a simple place-holder introduction and come back to revise and refine it after you’ve finished drafting the body paragraphs. (This is how many of your professors write.)

Top of the funnel: Start with a hook (remember, enticing)

An interesting rhetorical question like “Is Heathcliff worthy of sympathy?” or a bold statement(s) (think newspaper headlines) like “He tortured his newphew and son. He abused women. He crafted a master plan to seek revenge on his enemies'' will catch your reader’s attention.

Middle of the funnel: Contextualize your argument 

At first, writing an intro can feel like navigating murky waters? “Put the stuff a reader needs to know to understand your paper in the intro” is the advice often given to students. But how do you know exactly what to include and what to leave out? The easiest way to construct your intro is to reverse engineer it from your thesis statement and/or topic sentences.

3 Ways to Reverse Engineer: 

1. Divide your thesis into parts and provide context that sequentially elaborates on those individual parts. 

2. Think about your thesis statement as a set of key terms—define those terms so the reader is able to understand the specifics of your argument. 

3. After you’re done writing the essay, compile every first and last sentence of your body paragraphs. Paraphrase those sentences into an introduction.

BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL: end with your thesis statement

Moving Beyond the 5 Paragraph Structure

In high school, you were likely taught the 5 paragraph structure for an essay: intro, 3 body paragraphs, conclusion. While the 5-paragraph structure can be a helpful beginner’s tool for understanding argumentation and organizing your ideas, it can be constraining in certain situations. It’s highly likely you’ll want to move beyond the 5-paragraph essay, for example, when your ideas or argument demand it, as is often the case for a literary analysis (and probably most if not all of your college essays). 

One pitfall I often see in literary analyses that attempt to adhere to the five-paragraph structure is the tendency to prove the same point, “my thesis is true,” for every body paragraph. Your analysis should add up to more than proving that your thesis is true or valid—it should also question, complicate, and most importantly, evolve your main argument. One way to do this is through David Rosenwasser’s “10-1” method, which aims to cultivate freedom of thought and hopefully, deeper analysis.

The 10-1 Method (in a nutshell)

Your first job is to find the best representative example to use as your evidence for a point you’ll want to make in your analysis (that stands for the “1”). You can do this by collecting quotes that support or illustrate the same idea and then selecting the quote that most overtly represents your claim. 

Next, you’ll want to unpack 10 points of analysis for each piece of evidence. This will likely feel difficult—but that’s the point! You can dig into the details, identify patterns, wrestle with meaning, highlight implications, point out significance, and more. By doing so, you’ll stretch your thinking and make connections you might have otherwise overlooked. This part of the exercise will also help you generate ideas and content for your body paragraphs, which you can use when outlining or drafting. You don’t have to necessarily use all 10 points you generate—you can narrow them down to the points that best support that paragraph’s claim. What will result is deeper analysis and a more nuanced argument.

As you continue to formulate your body paragraphs, you can repeat the first two steps with new evidence that further extends and qualifies your argument. This will help you to avoid a static argument and help your main argument gain complexity and relevancy. 

The 10-1 method will help to free up your thinking through the selection of strong, representative evidence and the unfolding of insightful, detailed analysis. When you shift from outline to draft, you’ll have ensured that your arguments have movement to them, reminiscent of a visual spectacle—evolving and changing shape from beginning to end. 

The Importance of Transitions

Transitions may seem like an accessory, a nice embellishment. But imagine you’re following that map we discussed earlier, and it leads you through scenic waterfalls and mountains by way of an extremely bumpy road. You’ll probably miss the view because you’re focusing so hard on keeping the steering wheel straight! Similarly, your transitions allow for a smooth ride, taking your reader from idea to idea without ejecting them from their seat. More importantly, good transitions will allow for your arguments and ideas to shine. 

In your essay, you will utilize two main types of transitions: 

1. Transitions between different ideas in your argument (sentence level)

2. Transitions between arguments (paragraph/section level)

Whether you are transitioning from one idea to the next or introducing a totally new argument, you want to show how the thing you’re saying connects and leads to the next thing you’d like to say, or how something links back to a piece you spent time exploring earlier. 

So, how do you do that? 

1. On a sentence level: start your sentences by referring back to the main idea or subject of the sentence before it, and end your sentences with the new information. This way, you create a smooth ramp into your next idea. 

2. On a paragraph level: start by either summarizing or referring back to the “so what” of the paragraph before it and use a strong transition word or phrase to connect it to your next argument. 

Examples of great transition words

• As a result

• Accordingly

• Similarly

• In contrast

• Therefore

• While

• First, second, third, next, finally

• Additionally/in addition

• Furthermore

• Lastly

For greater detail and further examples, check out this guide to transitions from the University of Melbourne.

To evaluate your transitions, ask yourself:

1. Are there smooth transitions and/or topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph? Underlining or circling those transitions will help you to visually map whether you're providing adequate anchors and links for your readers. 

2. Can I define or explain the relationship a transition is trying to convey between each new idea (e.g. are they similar? do they contrast? are they chronological?). If you’re struggling to answer that question, you probably a) don’t have a transition yet or b) need a stronger, more specific transition. 

Feel free to check out this guide on How to Edit a College Essay for more tips on how to up-level the focus, clarity, and style of your essay with strong transitions. 

Writing Your Conclusion

Let’s begin with what the conclusion is not: it is not strictly a summary of your main points and thesis. While the conclusion frequently does start with a look back at previously made arguments, the majority of the conclusion should be forward looking. It should focus on the “so what” and aim for a feeling of resolution with an openness to possibilities. 

Here’s one way to think about it: In your essay, we don’t mean “conclusion” as in “to end”; we mean it more along the lines of “to draw conclusions,” as in “to make judgements, often about the greater meaning or importance of a thing.”

So, how do you achieve this?

Reflect

Introduce your evolved thesis by circling back to reevaluate and establish connections between previously made arguments. Using keywords to guide this “summary” will help you to avoid redundancy while still communicating the important evolution of your ideas throughout the essay.  

Connect to Implications and/or Larger Themes 

Broaden your focus to larger issues or themes brought forth by the text. A few different moves you can make include: 

• stating the author’s implied warning to the reader

• identifying and connecting the significance of your thesis to a larger theme

• commenting on the cultural currency of your argument

Example conclusion from a comparative analysis of Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage and Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo by Ntozake Shange:

Female protagonists Esther and Indigo were ahead of their time in their ability to exemplify powerful, independent women. They used their creativity to retain their sense of self and make unique contributions to the world around them. As a result, they did not need to rely on men or societal acceptance to formulate strong identities. By creating strong female characters grounded in their “domestic” creative art, Nottage and Shange reframe female domesticity as more than just a role women should play—it’s a tool that women can wield to generate fuller, more empowered lives for themselves. 

Notice that the underlined section does link back to and in effect summarizes some of the major points made in the essay (and notice that even without having read the whole essay, you have a clear sense of what was likely discussed). But the section in italics draws conclusions by examining the wider meaning or importance and by discussing its possible social implications and applications.

Final Thoughts

Let me normalize something for you—writing is hard. 

For basically everybody. If you don’t believe me, read Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts.”

But IMO, knowing how to analyze and write a textual analysis is one of the best tools you can have in your writer’s toolbox. You’ll have learned to cultivate a critical lens, which sets a solid foundation for all types of analytical writing, including writing on research, government policies, historical events, works of art, and much more. And though writing may sometimes feel like what I once heard someone else describe as a “glorious frustration,” I hope this guide helps you find your “glory” (or at least eases the frustration a bit).

Special thanks to Ali Pineo for writing this post and contributing to other College Writing Center resources