Critical Analysis of a Work
Overview: In a critical analysis, you are asked to analyze a literary work according to a single principle: development of themes, characterization, symbolism, use of irony, or a particular technique of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction. In each case, you isolate one level of a work and explore its function and its impact. Critical analysis often leads to judgments of effectiveness. Is the theme treated compellingly? Is the character portrayal moving? Believable? Is the imagery powerful? Is the style effective?
Writing Purpose: By using your critical thinking skills to extract meaning from a close reading of a text, you will allow your readers to return to the story with greater understanding and hence to enjoy it more.
Audience: You are writing for an academic American audience who is familiar with the readings offered for analysis.
Point of View: This essay should be written in third person point of view. ( So please avoid using the pronouns I, me, my, we, our, us, you)
Required Guidelines
Your essay should be 1000-1200 words in length (3-4 pages)
Use MLA formatting and include word count in the heading (which doesn't include the heading/header, title and Works Cited page).
Recommended Guidelines
• Use the AXES process to help you structure your writing. (Handout on Bb)
• Read your paper out loud to catch grammar and spelling mistakes.
• Utilize the Writing Center's services.
• When analyzing the literature be sure to ask yourself what it says about people in general-beyond the frame of the narrative. In one sense, since characters like Mrs. Mallard from "Story of an Hour" and Aylmer from "The Birthmark" are made up, who cares what happens to them? They are black marks on a white page. That is, none of the events in the short stories we've read matter unless the authors are saying larger things about the human condition when they write about these fictional characters. It is this larger stuff that matters to us as critics.
• A note about plot summary :"What happens in the story?" is one question which is almost never instructive in any literary analysis (with the very rare exception of analyses of such works as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Joyce's Finnegan's Wake). I assure you: In none of the fiction that we read for this class is this a pressing question in readers' minds. They may need help understanding what the events of the stories mean, but they never wonder what those events actually are. Nevertheless, one of the most common mistakes students make with this assignment is to spend excessive time outlining the plot. Assume your reader has already read the literature. Spend nearly all of your time explaining meaning, analyzing the story or novel in terms of any of the above questions, and very little time retelling the story. Structure your essay around your discussion, interjecting plot detail only as it is necessary to clarify your comments, perhaps briefly to remind your reader.
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Topics
For your essay, select one of the following prompts based off the readings we did in class. Your thesis statement, in a nutshell, should answer the question posed in the prompt of your choosing.
1) Write an in-depth character analysis of one or two characters from one of the stories we read. Apply specific terms that you learned from the xeroxed copies of the textbook The Norton Introduction to Literature and be sure to discuss the possible intentions of the author when choosing to reveal certain details about a character and not others.
2) Several of the stories we have read utilize symbolism in order to convey inferred meaning. Pick a dominant symbol from one of the stories we have read and analyze how it functions in the text. Apply specific terms that you learned from the textbook The Norton Introduction to Literature and be sure to address the possible meanings that can be inferred by the symbol, as well as how the symbol deepens or enriches the text.
3) Write an analysis of the how the setting functions in the text. Consider how the setting contributes to and reveals meaning in the story.
4) An overarching theme present in the stories we have read focuses on the stereotypical role of women during the Victorian Era. Create an argument that focuses on how the characters in one or several of the stories challenges or exemplifies this role.
5) You may also create an argument of your choosing but you must first seek approval from the professor.