Literary Analysis of a Short Story   Tags: citations, english papers, literary analysis, literature, noodlebib  

Choose a short story.

Determine a theme to trace in the story, from the beginning to the end of the story. Consider, what is the author's main message/reason for writing?

Develop a thesis statement which emphasizes the theme you will be examining. Locate support for your thesis in the story itself and in the works of literary scholars who have written about your story.

Write a critical analysis of the story, supporting your thesis.

The critical analysis paper must be formatted according to MLA standards. 

The tabs in this guide will walk you through use of the library catalog and subscription databases to find sources likely to contain information about your story. Demonstrations will use a story by Katherine Anne Porter titled The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. You can link to the databases to look for sources on the story you have chosen. You need usernames and passwords for remote access to each of the databases, available at the library or in your Angel account.

The last 2 tabs help you with citing your sources, so that you can produce a properly formatted Working Bibliography and Works Cited list.

Through this literary analysis, you are expected to demonstrate the ability to use standard research procedures to evaluate scholarly work, and to present a clearly supported opinion on a literary subject. You are expected to present a specific point of view in a clear thesis statement, presenting various critical opinions to support your thesis.

Do not retell the story, but rather only elements - setting, tone, specific lines, characters, actions, symbols, other literary devices, etc. - which support your thesis

SOURCES

The story :      Carefully select quotations from the story which illustrate your point. Include them in your essay. Do not use more than 2 long quotes (over 4 typed lines) in your research paper.

Biographical information: You may acquaint yourself with the author's work by examining biographies, but since the primary focus of the paper is the theme you've identified, allude to no more than one biography in your paper, mentioning biographical information briefly in the introduction.

Scholarly critical analyses : In your paper, incorporate the words and ideas of literary scholars who have written about the story you've chosen. Use the library databases on the following tabs to find appropriate sources. You cannot use questionable online sources such as SparkNotes or Wikipedia! You cannot use abstracts or 1-2 paragraph excerpts from larger critical essays. Use books from the library and full text articles found through the library databases.