An Exercise in Literary Analysis

In this unit, you will read a short story by an American author and write a short essay about it. To help you better understand the nature of literature and literary analysis, you will find a set of guidelines and short introductory commentaries on the nature of literature, active reading, and criticism. Also, you will find sample "thesis-support" essays that you can use as a model for organization, use of sources, and development.

The Reading Exercise

To begin, read the outline, "How to Read a Short Story Critically," and the commentary, "Tips for Active Reading." Following the outline and the guidelines for annotating texts, read Marshall Bennett Connelly's short story, "Three Dirges."

The Exploratory Exercise

Read the historical excerpt from Penny Lernoux's text, People of God. The brief passage records the scant facts from a horrific incident during the brutal Guatemalan civil war that apparently relates directly to Connelly's story.

Then, read the commentaries, "Literary Criticism" and "Some Notes about Critical Approaches to Literature."

The Writing Exercise

Write an analytical essay on the selection from "Three Dirges." Follow the guidelines found in "How to Write an Analytical Essay About Short Fiction." To better understand the organization and development of a "thesis-support essay," read the "Sample Essay on Connelly."

For some helpful suggestions to assist you in writing about this work and other literature, see "When You Write About Literature: Some Tips for Academic Writers."

How to Read a Short Story Critically

Analyze the Essential Elements of the Story

1. Read the text carefully, noting each character and chain of events.
2. Identify the major character(s)--those who seem to control the action or from whose perspective the story is told.
3. Reconstruct the narrative line--"what happens."
4. Identify elements of the plot--"factors which influence the action."
5. Discuss the essential conflict.

Analyze the Structure of the Story

1. Identify the point(s) of view through which the story is told.
2. Explain how the author uses time.
3. Explain how the author uses setting.
4. Explain how the author uses perspectives (angles).

Analyze Rhetorical Elements

1. Identify the author's use of irony (dramatic, situational, verbal).
2. Identify recurring image patterns.
3. Explain the author's use of symbols.
4. Identify special uses of language like figures of speech, unusual diction and syntax.

Analyze the Meaning of the Story (Interpretation)

1. Identify what seems to be the theme (dominant message or claim) and how the author announces it.
2. Explain how elements above contribute to the theme.
3. Identify contextual elements (allusions, symbols, other devices) that point beyond the story to the author's experience/life, history, or to other writings.

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Tips for Active Reading

One of the most exasperating experiences of many college students is failure to understand what they read. Many students begin their college work, in fact, with a great distrust in their own ability to read college-level assignments and to perform such tasks successfully. Clearly, the ability to master reading is an essential skill critical to the success of each student.

"Tips for Active Reading" is a set of proven strategies for mastering the content of academic reading (with a bonus at the end!) Students who practice these tips create a retrieval system of information, but more importantly, they facilitate both short-term as well as long-term memory that will serve them well throughout their college career, indeed, throughout their lives in every arena which requires a thorough mastery of reading. Here, then, are nine "Tips for Active Reading":

1) Make use of your attention span--whatever it is!

All of us have experienced the loss of concentration on what we read and our mind beginning to drift. Most of us feel guilty when we discover that we're wandering away from the page. Nevertheless, we can use that frustration to our benefit as readers.

As you prepare to begin a reading assignment, step back and watch yourself reading the assignment. Make a mental note about where it was in your text where you caught yourself beginning to drift. Then ask yourself, "Is this where I interrupt the reading? Is this where I make the phone call, run the errand, raid the refrigerator?" Go ahead! Give in to the diversion, whatever it might be, but when you return to the reading, come back to it with a commitment to reading with attention the same length of passage before you will give yourself permission to drift again. What you will find through this conscious effort is your attention span increasing little by little.

2) Concentrate on paragraphs.

For many of us, the idea of having to master the content of a whole book is simply overwhelming. We don't even know where to begin without specific assignments or study questions. The fact is, however, that most of us can master such massive amounts of information if we realize that the basic unit of written communication is not the book, not even a chapter, but a simple paragraph!

Most books are nothing more than a pile of paragraphs, each one strung together to the next and so on. If we can master the content of one, we can master the content of all of them. The problem ceases to be an "issue of the head" as much as an "issue of the heart"! The real question is, "Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to master and control this information?"

3) Read for the main idea of each paragraph.

As you read each paragraph of a chapter, pause after each and ask yourself, "What did I just read? What was this paragraph about?" Then, fill in the blank: "This paragraph is about ______." What you place in your mental blank should be a short phrase, preferably framed in your own words.

4) Annotate the main idea in the margin beside each paragraph.

Throw away the yellow highlighter! Highlighting is no more than an exercise in passive rather than active reading. In no more than three or four words at the most, write or print the main idea beside each paragraph in ink only! In a textbook of your own, never annotate in pencil! The threat of being wrong will actually increase your confidence as a reader with every additional permanent annotation!

5) Develop a strategy for marking the text.

Create a consistent pattern of markings, underlining only certain kinds of information, bracketing other, circling only key words or concepts. The key is to be consistent so that every time you scan a page, the markings themselves will signal a kind of meaning.

6) Develop a strategy for use of margins.

Practice a systematic use of margins, entering symbols of rhetorical patterns ("df" for "definition," "ex" for "example," etc.) on the interior margins, for example; content information (main ideas) in the exterior margins; the main idea of a whole page at the top of the each page.

7) Transfer each main idea to a note card.

The key to retrieving information for class discussion and for developing both short-term and long-term memory is the isolation of each important concept to a separate format. Start at the beginning of a chapter. Write down each important marginal note on a card, entering the page number each time you come upon the same or related annotation. You will find that you will have reduced the key concepts to a set of no more than a dozen or cards for an entire book!

8) Begin your study with the cards.

Review the annotations and page numbers on the cards. Ask yourself, "To what does this note refer?" If you cannot remember the content from the annotation and its page references, then return quickly to the noted pages and scan the markings. Very rarely will you have to reread even a paragraph to remember the key concepts.

9) Study only with other active readers.

Don't be ripped off by lazy readers! Never study with anyone who hasn't read actively. You will be wasting your time and won't be helping your colleague to any significant degree.

BONUS: How to Memorize a Book!

The idea of memorizing a book may sound preposterous for most readers, but that's a matter of context or situation only, right? What if it's your father or spouse or child lying on the gurney being prepared for surgery? You hope and pray that the doctor who's going to do the job not only memorized "the book" but preferably wrote the text, no?

Very rarely would memorizing a book be very important, but in the event you must, here's the process! Here's a tip for memorizing most of the content of any book of expository--that is to say, explanatory--writing based upon the steps above: The key is the creation of paragraph flashcards!

1. Identify the topic sentence--stated or implied--in a paragraph.
2. Identify the primary sentence or two that answer one or more of the critical questions
3. about the main idea in the topic sentence (who? what? where? when? why? and how?)
4. Reframe the topic sentence as a question form beginning with the appropriate interrogative pronoun. Type this question form on one side of the card.
5. On the reverse side of the card, type only the one or two sentences that answer the question.

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from "Three Dirges," An Excerpt from Requiem Guatemala
A Novel by Marshall Bennett Connelly

1. "And then he said, 'Don Lázaro'--to my face!--the Colonel himself, he said, 'Don Lázaro, you've got five boys in Comitán teaching the campesinos how to read. That's subversive. That's communist. So tonight, you have to kill them.' . . . Now, what can I say?--you tell me! What can a man say to something like that, and what's a man supposed to do?"

2. Before sunrise the next day, the little village of San Martín Comitán lay draped, like a wrinkled quilt, over the sharp ravines that scored the floor of the valley. Nestled in a clearing in the pines that lined the slopes of the mountain range, the highland aldea slumbered in the final moments of a long night as the first faint glow of dawn began to trace the eastern rim of the Sierra Madre. Gently sloping patches of tile roofs seemed anchored just above a blanket of ground fog that stretched through the village and up the valley. A rooster crowed in a corner of some milpa, a remote cornfield behind the town.

3. Then [pumpf!]--an Indian skyrocket streaked into the sky, its grey trail racing above the center of the town, followed by a pale orange and yellow burst. Its dull report echoed back and forth between the mountains.

4. In mid afternoon the day before, the military commander of the garrison had been little disposed to wasting time in pleasantries.

5. "Sit down, Don Lázaro," he frowned, eliciting something between a greeting and an order. "You have had a very long walk from Comitán."

6. A weathered hat in hand, his tussled, raven hair glinting in the sunlight flooding the room through the open doorway behind him, Don Lázaro Emilio Cárdenas, a woodcarver and furniture maker by trade and the mayor of San Martín Comitán, stood stoically before Colonel Julio Alfredo Guzmán.

7. "There, Don Lázaro, sit down," repeated the commander, rolling a freshly sharpened yellow pencil between his fingers, never moving his eyes from the face of the leathery Mayan stooping before his desk.

8. Saluting the exploding rocket, its echoes reverberating through the valley, the rooster crowed again. It was answered by another more faintly on the opposite side of the village.

9. [BONK!] . . . [BONK!] . . . [BONK!] . . . The bell in the mission of the town began to clap in a flat, thick bass. From the belfry, a flight of pigeons fluttered aloft and dispersed to roosts somewhere under the fog below. A brilliant, ruby lining now traced the rims of both the dark, gray clouds and the flat, black mountains painted against the horizon. Another flock of birds, a sprinkle of tiny, charcoal specks, swooped out of the fields, spun once over the middle of the valley of San Martín, and drifted to perches in the pines.

10. Following the colonel's gesture, a wooden-faced soldier, in camouflaged fatigues with a heavy, automatic assault rifle slung over his shoulder, pulled a rickety chair from its position next to the doorway and set it abruptly beside the dusty Indian.

11. "Sit down!" repeated the commander as he rose from behind his desk with measured formality.

12. The Indian dropped his eyes to the chair beside him, looked back at the colonel, and gingerly took a seat on the front edge of the chair. Twisting the pencil methodically, Colonel Guzmán walked slowly around his desk and stood directly over the diminutive Mayan peering deeply into the crown of his hat. The wooden-faced soldier stood at attention just behind the chair.

13. "Listen to me, Don Lázaro. Do you understand me?"

14. Then at once, from somewhere deep within the soul of the village, a woman's anguish pierced the still, early morning, followed by yet a duet of wails, and then a full chorus of cries. An orchestration of wrenching, penetrating lamentations began to stream from the center of San Martín Comitán and to work its way slowly, first down one rutted street and then another, passing spectre-like toward the crossroad where the graves climbed up the slope of the town's cemetery.

15. A solemn procession of Comitanes, in full religious regalia, followed the cofrades, the religious principales, in their dark, woolen trajes, or outfits, crimson tzutes tied around their heads with long silken tassels dangling behind--the twelve cofrades, marching in six files, two abreast, carrying before them in outstretched hands the sacred symbols of their rank, the silver monstrances, the barras--tall, slender staffs crowned with the embossed image of San Martín, the village's patron saint.

16. Colonel Guzmán continued as Don Lázaro sat before him, the Indian's head bowed to hide the increasing terror that gripped his heart. "You have five boys--'catechists'--working for the American priest in Comitán. They're teaching the campesinos how to read. Right?" pressed the colonel. "Maybe even you, eh?"

17. Don Lázaro's face froze, and his hands began to tremble. He could not face the commander before him.

18. "I think you understand me plainly enough," said the colonel. "Well, you continue to listen to me! They're communist subversives, these boys," said Colonel Guzmán. "So tonight, Don Lázaro, tonight you have to kill them. Every one of them . . . all five!"

19. Behind the cofrades paced the catechists, five somber young men in sandals, musty jeans, and second-generation western jackets, in some cases too snug and in others obviously too baggy to have been their own. Following the five boys, wearing the long, white ceremonial tunics accented with a single, central woven panel of red brocading, the principal religious women--their hands over their mouths-wept uncontrollably under lacy, white veils, tinted gray in the heavy mist of the morning.

20. The procession of perhaps fifty or more moved with reluctance under the wrought-iron arch that was the entrance to the town cemetery. The solemn assembly flowed slowly around the faded blue and white tombs and over the crest of the hill until the five young men, each escorted now by an older man, followed the cofrades over the ridge of the hill and dropped down on the other side just out of sight. The small congregation then massed along the crest and peered over the hill, craning to watch the proceedings below.

21. "And what could I do? How could I do more?" asked Don Lázaro, as he tried to explain to the parents the imperative for waking them so late in the night. "I took the bus that stops at the military post," he continued. "I took that same bus to Dos Padres. Then I had to run and run. Twice I fell--you can see my hands and knees! All the way I ran to reach you even now, now in the night. So I am telling you what the colonel--what that 'dog of Satan' himself--told me to my own face. He said that 'all five boys' . . ."

22. Don Lázaro choked on words trying to frame such an unspeakable crime, and, for the moment, he could not continue. The mothers and the fathers exchanged looks of horror, unable to compass the full weight of the words they anticipated from Don Lázaro, their mayor.

23. "'All five, Don Lázaro, and by morning,'" repeated the Mayor to the parents of the five boys gathered before him in the candlelight of the altar.

24. "'And you hear me clearly,'" continued Don Lázaro, before the terrified families. "'If those subversives aren't dead by sunrise tomorrow morning, my troops will come to Comitán, and by noon they will kill every living thing in the town and burn it to the ground, and then-before nightfall--they will do the same thing to Santa María Pétzal, to Santa Luz, and to every other subversive town in Sololá!'"

25. The parents exchanged looks of terror and anger. The women began to moan and wail. "That's what the colonel said to me, your alcalde!" cried Don Lázaro, choking on his own tears. "And that is the message I must bring to you!"

26. "But what can we do?" they cried. "Where is our priest to be away from us at such a time, but to 'kill our own sons'! How can we do such a thing? Such a thing isn't possible?"

27. "But what else can you do?" asked the sons.

28. "Have you forgotten what the militaries did in Cuarto Pueblo?" asked Rolando Semitosa, signing the cross in benediction over his head and chest.

29. "Can you not remember the massacre of Puente Alto," interrupted Josúe Vállez, "how they locked all the women and girls in the school house, threw in the grenades, and burned them up? How they placed all the men in the protestant church and clubbed them to death?"

30. "And what they did to the small boys," added Marcos San Miguel, "throwing them into the outhouse, leaving them there to die?"

31. "Surely, they will come and kill us all!" cried Jaime Chopúl. "Perhaps even now, the soldiers are here, up there in the hills already, watching and waiting to see what we will do!"

32. "What bitches have brought these bastards into the world to do such a thing to us!" cried Don Alvaro San Miguel, lifting his fists and shaking them before Don Lázaro.

33. "Que putas negras! What mangy, black-souled whores!" cursed Don Pablo Santa Cruz, rising from the bench beside the altar, stomping his feet, and beating his head.

34. "Why will they not leave us alone?" wept Doña María Mendoza de Vallez, lifting the edge of her shawl to her swollen eyes.

35. "And where is the Padre to speak for us?"

36. "He is not here," wailed Doña Lucía Sánchez de Chopúl. "Why, merciful Madre, why is our Padre not here at such an hour?"

37. "Yes, the Padre is not here, so what choices do we have?" asked Don Lázaro, his open hands outstretched before them.

38. "What choices do you have?" asked the boys, waiting breathlessly for an answer, scanning the anguished faces of their families for some sign, searching about the room for even a margin of hope.

39. . . . . . [BONK!] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [BONK!] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [BONK!] . . . . . . The bell of San Martín Comitán continued to clap its flat, dull refrain. From the cofrades rose a litany of muted, almost imperceptible prayers lifted in the air on drafts of black incense. And then silence. Even the birds ceased their calling.

40. The dense mist surged forward, enveloping the whole scene. Seconds later, screeches of sharpened steel on steel sent trembles through the muted congregation, and a chorus of screams went up as women sought sanctuary against the breasts of their husbands and brothers.

41. Then fell the swaths of five machetes, each finding its mark: [thuck!] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [thuck!] . . . [thuck!] . . . . . . . [thuck!] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [thuck!]

42. The dense wall of the congregation collapsed in a mass of wailing bodies. Their lamentations drifted back through the tombs, out the gate of the cemetery, up the rutted road, and back into the town. They echoed across the valley and then wafted toward the rays of morning sun just beginning their stretch across the heavens.

43. Somewhere away in the pine trees, the ignition of a heavy truck churned and churned and finally fired its engine. The motor revved up once and then again. After a hesitant pause, the drone of the truck slowly dissipated into the rush of a cool wind that began to swirl through the San Martín Valley of the Martyrs, flinging the drifts of clouds and the souls of five young men high into the pines.

Reprinted with permission
Marshall Bennett Connelly

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from People of God (Viking, 1989)
by Penny Lernoux

Every village in this region of El Quiché has a bloody story to tell. During an eight-year reign of terror that did not begin to subside until a civilian president took office in 1986, thousands of Indians were killed or relocated to concentration camps. By the army's own count, it destroyed 440 Indian villages, some dating to Pre-Columbian times. Persecution against the Catholic Church was so ferocious that not a single priest or nun remained in the Quiché diocese. All the chapels were closed, and convents were occupied by troops. In order to celebrate Communion, undercover catechists traveled hours on foot, carrying consecrated Hosts hidden among ears of corn or in baskets of beans and tortillas. Anyone caught with such "subversive material" could expect a slow death by torture. Yet the people kept faith.

Typical of Quiche's "church of the catacombs" were the five catechists of Santa Cruz [del] Quiché--Lucas, Justo, Angel, Domingo, and Juan--who gave their lives for their people; their moving testimony was recorded by a Spanish priest, Father Fernando Bermudez, who worked with Quiché's underground church until death threats forced him to flee to Mexico. One day, in 1982, Santa Cruz, a small market town north of Chichicastenango, was taken over by the army. The villagers were assembled and told that the catechists were "subversives" whom their relatives must kill that very night. Otherwise, the army would raze Santa Cruz and neighboring villages.

The army then withdrew, and the villagers discussed the brutal choice, unanimously concluding that "we won't do it." The catechists were loved and valued for their religious work and for the instructions they had given to promote cooperatives. But such consciousness-raising was subversive to the military's view because it helped to awaken the Indian masses, a majority of Guatemala's population. Teaching Indians to read and write could be punished by death, as demonstrated by the murders of fifteen priests and a nun who were involved in literacy and leadership training programs for the Indians. The Bible was, of all books, the most subversive because it taught that everyone was equal in the site of God--hence the ferocious persecution of catechists.

The villagers had refused to do the deed, but the five catechists insisted that they must: "It is better for us to die than for thousands to die." At 4:00 A.M., a weeping procession, led by the catechists, arrived at the cemetery. Graves were dug, the people formed a circle around the kneeling men, and relatives of the five drew their machetes. Many could not watch the scene; some fainted as the blades fell, and the executioners' tears mingled with the blood of the catechists. The bodies were wrapped in plastic and buried. The villagers returned home in silence.

Next day the army captain in charge of the area was informed that his orders had been carried out. Another source of subversion had been eliminated. Or had it? Forcing the catechists' relatives to kill them was part of an army policy aimed at alienating Indian recruits from their village origins by demeaning their race, religion, and traditions. But it failed to work in Santa Cruz or elsewhere in Quiché because the people honored such martyrdom. "We remember them with holy reverence," said a witness to the catechists' deaths, "because it is thanks to them that we are alive today." Life, explained a young Guatemalan, is meaningless "unless you give it away."

("The Way of the Cross," pages 5-6)

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Literary Criticism

What is "criticism"?

In a popular sense, "criticism" means "judgment," and the assumption usually is that what is being called for in the act of criticism is to "point out the failures" of something. Judgments, of course, can be favorable as well as unfavorable.

"Criticism," however, is much more than rendering a verdict. Many other factors must be taken into consideration when making a judgment. An affirmation or rejection really represents just the end of a much more complicated process.

What are the components of criticism?

The process of criticism involves the following steps:

1) Learning the basics

In the criticism of literature, the "basics" include knowledge of the elements of literature such as character, action, types of literature, conflict, plot, motif, symbol, language, image, rhetorical patterns in prose and poetry, narrative line, time and setting, and theme. Without a vocabulary for discussing literature, any kind of justifiable response (other than a purely emotional reaction) is all but impossible. So the first step in literary criticism is familiarization with basic concepts.

2) Analyzing literary elements

The process of analysis is identifying, clarifying, defining, and isolating the distinctive parts of a subject. You should be able to identify, for example, primary and secondary characters, that is, those who control the action vs. those characters which play only subordinate or supporting roles. You should be alert to recurring image patterns and be able to classify them by types such as "nature" images or "color" images, etc.

3) Interpreting the literature

To interpret a literary work is to explain "what it means." Meaning in literature may be a point an author either states (maybe through a character) or implies (perhaps through images that become symbols). When Huckleberry Finn refuses to go back to St. Petersburg at the end of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we sense, as careful readers, that Huck has grown as a person and can no longer justify the racism and inhumanity that he has left behind. So we might say that the "meaning of the story" is "the necessity to live with integrity," or "the evils of racism," or perhaps "Huck growing up." Each of these broad observations or generalizations constitutes possible "themes" of the story.

Sometimes the meaning may be a concept "demonstrated" by what happens and how it happens in a work like "realism" or "naturalism." Sometimes meaning evolves or unfolds gradually throughout a work as more and more details are revealed. You should be able to identify statements from characters that seem to sum up a point an author may be making about what's going on inside the literature or outside the literature. Sometimes stated, just as often implied, such generalizations are called "themes."

4) Judging the literature

While each of us tends quickly to jump to judgment--we want to say right away whether we like or dislike something--we all know that anyone can rip off an opinion or judgment without it meaning very much. To make a meaningful evaluation, however, assumes that

1. we know what we're talking about (we have learned the basics),
2. we have a thorough grasp of the details of a work and their relationships to each other (we have analyzed the elements), and
3. we have a sense of the author's stated or intended meanings developed in a literary work (we have interpreted the work from the author's perspective).

Only if we have met these three conditions can we really make a significant judgment.

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Some Notes about "Critical Approaches" to Literature

A "critical approach" is a study of a literary work from a single perspective. You might write a paper analyzing and characterizing the type of work (a genre approach) or an essay interpreting the meaning of the story from the point of view of a Jungian psychologist ( a psychological approach). You could explore how certain nineteenth-century events help determine the narrative line of a novel (a historical approach), or you might be called upon to explain the significance of Christian imagery in a poem (a religious or symbolic approach).

There are many possible "critical approaches," then, to the study of literature. Why we make such investigations is because of the complexity of literary works. Every possible human experience, emotion, and relationship can find expression in imaginative literature. No single perspective can account for such complexity. In A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature (1967), Wilfred Guerin compares a literary work to a finely cut gemstone. It is impossible to view the entire piece from any one angle, that is, from any one perspective. Rather, it must be turned, ever so slowly, from one angle to another before the fine nuances of the whole stone can be more fully appreciated.

One example might help clarify Guerin's metaphor. A study of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "Young Goodman Brown, " generates a variety of interpretations, each determined by the critical approach taken. From the genre approach, the story reflects a rather familiar "Christian allegory" in which every element of the story is meant to be read symbolically. As such, the story would seem to convey a distinctively Christian theme: "Like Young Goodman Brown (the main character), we, too, might be 'saved,' by 'looking to heaven' and 'resist[ing] the wicked one.'" On the other hand, from an historical perspective which places the tale in New England's Salem Village during the 1692 "witchcraft trials and hysteria," Brown is nothing like a mentor for emulation, but comes off, rather, as a naive fool; as a member of that community, he, like others at the time, should have doubted what was obviously "spectral evidence" in his condemnation of others. Clearly, we can gain a more rewarding appreciation of a work only by suspending our judgment until we have examined it from at least several points of view.

Any critical approach to a literary work will derive a reliable judgment only after a full examination from that particular perspective. In other words, we will suspend judgment until we have, first, learned the basic concepts belonging to that approach; second, analyzed the related elements within the work; and third, formulated an interpretation based upon a very close reading of the work from that limited point of view. Only then should we render a verdict on the work.

Typical Literary Assignments

While it is possible, of course, to take an investigation of a piece of imaginative literature through the full cycle of steps from any perspective like the critical approaches introduced above, most undergraduate assignments will stop short of a fully developed criticism. You may be asked only to analyze some aspect or to interpret a work.. Such exercises might include assignments like the following:

Analysis

Explain how the author uses color images to . . .
Identify key characters in . . .
Compare/contrast the effects of the ending rhyme patterns in three sonnets by . . .
Describe the central conflict in . . .

Interpretation

Identify two themes in . . .
Explain why the author has chosen to . . .
Discuss the possible meanings of the clothing in . . .
The message for a contemporary audience might be that . . .
Interpret the symbolism in the author's use of . . .

Evaluation

Explain why the images support the theme of the . . .
Explain why one work makes better use of . . . than the other
Discuss your reason for . . .

A Note on Developing Your Essay: Beware of Summary!

Only immature papers fall into simply summarizing a literary work (unless, of course, that is what the instructions for the assignment have directed you to do specifically). When developing your paper, assume that the reader is already familiar with the text. You don't have to retell the narrative line from start to finish. On the other hand, you can introduce your approach directly and make references to supporting passages from the work in the body of your paper, confident that your reader will understand them and, with you, appreciate their importance as supporting examples. See the sample paper, "Tragedy and the Ethic of Responsibility."

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How to Write an Analytical Essay about Short Fiction

1. Read the story carefully. You should be able to recreate the narrative line, identify the essential conflict, and distinguish between major elements of plot that influence the movement of the story.
2. Select an element in the story to explore (examples: theme, point of view, time, foreshadowing, image/symbol patterns). Perhaps you may want to examine the story from a particular critical perspective or approach.
3. Read the story again, identifying and marking passages that relate to that element.
4. Write a "working thesis," making a claim about the element you have chosen to analyze. The purpose of your essay will be to support, explore, demonstrate, or illustrate the validity of the claim you have made about that element.
5. Compose topic sentences (four or five, perhaps) that support, explore, demonstrate, or illustrate your thesis. Always begin with the topic sentence (a claim); never begin a paragraph in the body of your paper with a quotation or summary sentence.
6. Select specific passages in the text of the story that help you to develop each topic sentence. These passages offer the reader evidence of your claim. Avoid quoting passages longer than a single paragraph, but rather, try to incorporate the most important phrases or brief sets of sentences into each paragraph.
7. Build your paper to a climax; save your most engaging or important topic sentence for discussion last.
8. Begin your paper with an introduction that identifies the purpose of the paper and the text you are addressing. Open the paragraph with an interest device like a quotation, startling statement, or rhetorical question that will engage the reader's reflection and interest. The title (which you may want to develop at the end of the writing process) should be provocative without being juvenile, should reflect the perspective of the paper and perhaps your point of view or attitude toward the topic.
9. Conclude your paper with a paragraph that does more than summarize your thesis and major points. You may wish to echo your opening interest device, evaluate the author's development of the motif, or identify points for further reflection.
10. Print out your paper for careful editing. Reread it for smooth transition in and out of quotations and check for adequate support of each claim or topic sentence.
11. After revising the paper, print out your essay again, proofreading it this time for elements of style and correctness. Revise it once more and print out your final copy for submission.

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Tragedy and the Ethic of Responsibility
A Sample Critical Analysis

Requiem Guatemala reflects the horrors of war as enacted upon the people of the small hamlet of San Martin Comitan in the Guatemala highlands. The story, as framed by Marshall Bennett Connelly, recreates imaginatively Guatemalan priest Father Fernando Berrnudez' report of the assassination of five young church workers during some of the darkest days of the Guatemalan civil war. While the story line follows faithfully the priest's report as recorded by Penny Lernoux in her book People of God, the message or theme of Connelly's rendering extends beyond the circumstances of the historical incident itself and challenges the reader's own responsibility for man's inhumanity to man. The theme might be defined as "duty or responsibility in the face of hopelessness."

The theme of duty is framed immediately in the story as a question by the mayor of San Martin Comitan. Reporting the demand for the execution of the sons to the parents of the young lay workers in the church of the community, Don Lazaro Emilio Cardenas, asks desperately, "What can a man say to something like that, and what's a man supposed to do?" The question is both rhetorical and semantic--that is, a question that points to the obvious hopelessness and at the same time challenges the reader to address the issue personally for his or her own context and community.

As a rhetorical question, "What's a man supposed to do?" accents both the helplessness and the hopelessness of the mayor and the incredible alternatives he and his townspeople face: to kill their own sons or to be killed themselves along with the rest of their town. Don Lazaro seems helpless to do more than relay the ultimatum of the Guatemalan Colonel Julio Alfredo Guzman: "You've got five boys in Comitan teaching the campesinos how to read. That's subversive. That' s communist. So tonight, you have to kill them." The hopelessness of the situation is punctuated by the knowledge of the military' s carnage that has swept away the countryside in other communities:

"Have you forgotten what the militaries did in Cuarto Pueblo?" asks Rolando Semitosa, signing the cross in benediction over his head and chest.

"Can you not remember the massacre in Puente Alto," interrupted Josue Vallez, "how they locked all the women and girls in the school house, threw in grenades, and burned them all up? How they placed all the men in the Protestant church and clubbed them to death?" . . .

"Surely, they will come and kill us all!" cried Jaime Chopul.

Clearly, the narrow time frame and the threat of immediate annihilation leaves them no alternative and consequently no hope for saving themselves or those whom they love.

As a semantic question, "What's a man supposed to do?" arches over and beyond the horrific circumstances of the narrative and challenges the resolve of the reader to address such inhumanity. Unlike the characters of the story, the reader has alternatives: outrage, yes, but also the capacity to respond beyond the debilitating threats leveled at the characters of the story. The only source of strength and hope, the American priest is not with them at the time of their greatest need. "'Yes, the Padre is not here, so what choices do we have?' asked Don Lazaro, his open hands outstretched before them." Without the priest to intercede, so goes the implication, the townspeople of Comitan are completely exposed to the repression and its terrifying consequences. With no one else within the tale to respond, the only resolution to the unacceptable horror within the story is to react from without.

What that responsible action must be is dramatically implied in the decision of the five young men who agree to give up their own lives for the safety and security of the rest of the town. "'What choices do you have?' asked the boys, waiting breathlessly for an answer, scanning the anguished faces of their families for some sign of hope, searching about the room for even a margin of hope." By analogy, as readers we are challenged, like them, to be ready to lay down our lives for those we love.

"Now what can you say? You tell me! What can a man say to something like that, and what's a man supposed to do?" The mayor can neither act nor react. The mayor cannot choose between two evils without compromising his responsibility to serve all the people of his town. Neither can the parents choose to kill their own sons without sacrificing in an ultimate sense their roles as parents. Only the sons themselves can resolve the impossible dilemma through their own decision to give up their lives. Only for the sons is the duty clearly defined in the face of hopelessness. The only resolution to their hopelessness is the resolve of the readers to act on their sacrificial behalf.

Dr. Grimes

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When you write about literature . . .
Some Tips for Academic Writers

Sentence Style

1. Use simple sentences as rubrics (pointers).
2. Use compound sentences to suggest balance and to present pairs of ideas of equal value.
3. Use complex sentence to emphasize the most important ideas and to subordinate less important ideas.
4. Avoid "empty" sentence frames that say little or restate the obvious.
5. Use present tense when referencing details in a literary work except for passages written in the past tense.
6. Incorporate short, key quoted phrases into analytical sentences.
7. Avoid the use of such words and phrases as "you" and "the reader" that often lead to wordiness.
8. Avoid the phrase, "In conclusion," when opening the concluding paragraph.
9. Avoid gratuitous complements and superlatives.

Paragraph Development

1. Use Pattern 1 paragraph frames for most paragraphs in the body of academic essays.
2. Begin body paragraphs with claims as topic sentences that repeat key concepts from the thesis sentence.
3. Always introduce the speaker, context, and/or significance of block quotations.
4. Always follow block quotations with a response that clarifies the significance of the quoted passage.
5. Avoid lengthy quotations.
6. Use a balanced reference to the readings of a text, including combinations of allusions, paraphrases, summaries, and quotations.
7. Enhance the discussion of the topic sentence with both primary development (explanation of the main idea in the topic sentence) and secondary development (explanation of the explanation) when to do so reveals new insight.
8. Never begin a body paragraph with a quotation or synopsis of an action in the story.

Essay Development

1. Always assume your intended audience has already read the selection; unless otherwise instructed, summarizing the narrative line of fiction is unnecessary.
2. For out-of-class essays of several pages, use the "thesis-support" outline. For short essays, begin with a brief context statement and narrow quickly to the thesis.
3. Seek opportunities to discuss "why?"
4. Use a title that introduces both the topic and the perspective you plan to develop.
5. Use a specific rather than a general claim as the thesis for the paper.
6. Maintain coherency in the paper through the use of topic sentence, sub-thesis sentences, and echoes.

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