Hello students! Today I'm going to show you an example literary analysis essay so that you can know what to do when you write yours. So the first thing at the top of the page you want to write your first and last name, my name, what block, and the date.
And then you want to think of a title that tells you something about the topic that you're going to be talking about. So this literary analysis is about a short story called the story of an hour. So let's just talk about the components or the parts of a good literary essay.
So the first thing you want to do is start with a hook. So this is a quote from someone famous. Sartre once wisely said, hell is other people. And this is a quote that foreshadows what the essay is going to be about.
And then the next thing that this author does is she writes what short story, so the title, and the author of the short story she's going to analyze, and then talks about the topic, a view of marriage. And then this author gives a very brief summary of what happens in the story. Okay, this is just a basic summary of the short story that the person read. And then here, the last sentence of the introduction paragraph is a thesis statement.
We call this the thesis statement. Okay, and so there are three parts to a thesis statement. This basically tells your reader, it's like a map of your essay. So it tells your reader what you're going to be reading, okay?
So the claim is the first thing. So this part highlighted in yellow is your opinion about the essay. So for you, this is going to be what your opinion is about the theme of your short story or what your opinion is about the... characters. So this one says, Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour expresses the oppressive nature of marriage.
So it's saying the theme here is that the nature of marriage is oppressive, it's bad. And then we have this word because. This word because here is very important.
You need to link your opinion with three reasons. Okay, so because and then this author has three reasons why. And then for your body paragraph, you're going to start with your first reason, the settings, reflection of Mrs. Mallard, and you're going to put that as the topic sentence of your body paragraph.
Okay, so the first body paragraph needs to talk about your first reason. Okay, and so let's look at this body paragraph. After hearing of her husband's death, Mrs. Mallard quickly progresses from grief to hope. hopefulness, a change that Chopin shows through her description of the setting. Initially, Mrs. Mallard cries, but quickly locks herself alone in her room.
As she looks out the window, Mrs. Mallard could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring light. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. Mrs. Mallard immediately notices the new growth and life of the springtime, which reflects her own new life that is possible after her husband's death. Normally, a recent widow would not be using words like delicious to describe the world around them immediately after the passing of a loved one.
However, Mrs. Mallard feels she has escaped the oppression of her husband and is beginning to see a new world, a world that is hers to love and explore. While she does grieve quickly for her late husband, Mrs. Mallard's view of nature and Chopin's description of the setting reveal her true feelings. So in this body paragraph, the author is doing a couple of things.
She's giving evidence and explaining her evidence for this first reason. So why does she think that the setting proves that nature of marriage is oppressive? So we have a direct quote here and you'll notice the quotation marks before and after and then the in-text citation.
Now you'll notice that really it should have The last name of the author and the page number. So that's the MLA citation. So this is her evidence. After she states her first reason, this writer puts her evidence. It's something from the story that she's going to then explain how this proves this.
So after her evidence, she has her reasoning. Okay, she's saying that it's very weird that she's using words like delicious. and new spring life because these things are good and it's unexpected to say things like that after the passing of a loved one.
Okay and then she goes on to say that the reason she does this is because she is escaping oppression of her husband. Okay so in this body paragraph she ends with a concluding sentence that restates the main idea of this paragraph which is the true feelings that she has of nature okay through the setting so what we see in the body paragraph is the reason that's listed in the thesis statement. The reason, the evidence, and then an explanation of how that evidence supports the reason that she gave. Okay, so reason, evidence, and then an explanation. And that's what you're going to do with the next two body paragraphs.
It's the same thing. The second reason, more evidence. from the text and an explanation of the evidence.
Reason, evidence, explanation. And in the conclusion paragraph is just a restatement of the main ideas of what was already said earlier on in the paper. And that is an example of a literary analysis. I'll see you.