The Anatomy of an Essay About Literature

Timothy L. Pagaard
that you will violate them intelligently. Picasso broke almost every rule of artistic composition when he drew faces, but his art is beautiful When we talk about structure in writing we mean the arrangement of parts. For an essay to communicate it not only must contain worthwhile because he also knew how to draw faces conventionally; he broke the information, but its parts must be arranged well. Are there rules for dis- rules in order to express something new and unique. Below you see diagrammed the classic structure of an essay. This covering the best structure for your essays? In writing there is really only one rule: Every element of everything one is an essay of four-pages, but the proportions hold true even for book-length compositions. This is a tried-and-true template, nothing you write must be EFFECTIVE. That is, every decision you make fancy, pure vanilla. But it is eminently serviceableit almost always will about content, diction, grammar, or structuremust somehow be determined by the question Does it work? Does this arrangement, say, or be useful to you, if only as a point of departure, an approach to organizing your work, a format that will at least help you to get started. It also this choice of words, this example, help you to achieve the goals set for will be handy to have a conventional structural format in mind for essay this piece of writing ([A] the external goals imposed by the assignment, examinations and the likeoccasions when you have no time to be cre[B] personal goals deriving from your subject, and [C] the goals mandated by the limitations of your audience)? Does it help you to commu- ative with structure. nicate as clearly as possible what you want to communicate to your readers? There are no consistently right answersno TITLE absoluteswhen it comes to deciding these questions. Just SNAPPY OPENING SENTENCE about every rule you have been taught, every convention, FIRST SECTION may be violated if to do so is in the interest of more effective CONTINUED communication. But it helps to know what the conventions are so
INTRODUCTION

STRUCTURE

TOPIC/TRANSITION SENTENCE some structural considerations to bear in mind as you develTHESIS STATEMENT op them. I have treated these in the order that they appear in an essay. Remember, though, that you can write any part TOPIC/TRANSITION SENTENCE SECOND SECTION of your essay at any time. Start where you are hottest, FIRST SECTION where you have the most to say now, and go on from there. Generally you should plan to write your essay in this order: I The body or textagain, beginning where you are the FIRST PAGE SECOND PAGE hottest. I The conclusion. I The introduction. (Think of your essay as a person: How can you introduce someone you have never THIRD SECTION metor worse, someone who doesnt even exist yet?) CONTINUED SECOND SECTION CONTINUED I The title. CONCLUDING/TRANSITION SENTENCE There are two stages in your writing process when you should be concerned about structure: (1) in pre-writing or CONCLUDING/TRANSITION SENTENCE the invention phase and (2) in revising. REITERATE THESIS STATEMENT During the invention phase, once you have accumuTOPIC/TRANSITION SENTENCE lated a fairly large quantity of material to write about, do CONCLUSION what you can to arrange it in a logical orderso that your rst (or zero) draft will not be altogether formless. THIRD SECTION When you begin to draft, however, it will be a good idea to think more about what you have to say than about the order in which you are saying it. You will nd that, if you can think as freely as possiblefree even to pursue distractions or diversions, worrying as little as possible about THIRD PAGE FOURTH PAGE mechanical or structural considerationsyou will have a lot impose order on your essay. Plan to make large-scale, coarse-adjustmore to say. ment changes. It is at this stage, during the revision phase, that you Then, when you revise your draft, work as hard as you can to should think most about the contents of this handout.

THE ELEMENTS What follows are the parts of the essay and

CONCLUDING/TRANSITION SENTENCE

 Title. Your title should: I Point to your key interpretive insight. I Name the author(s) and the work(s) you are analyzing (unless there are manythen describe them in a phrase; e.g., in the Stories of OConnor and Hemingway). I Stimulate your readers interest. Avoid titles that are too general or too specic. Symbolism is far too general. Readers wont even know you are writing about literature (you might be writing about psychological or anthropological symbolism). Symbolism in Flannery OConnor is still too general. Entire books have been written on the subject. A Circle in the Fire is also too general. What about it? Never use the title of a work by itself as your title. (Besides, it is taken: OConnor used A Circle in the Fire already.) Symbolism in Flannery OConnors A Circle in the Fire is better but still pretty general. Again, what about it? Which symbols? Fire as a Symbol in Flannery OConnors A Circle in the Fire is much betterspecic and accurate. Fire as a Symbol of Purification in Flannery OConnors A Circle in the Fire is great.
Introduction. In the rst paragraph (or series of paragraphs) of your essay you should set up the critical issue you intend to discuss. Dene your issue and explain why anybody might be interested in what you have to say about it. Here is another useful rule: If you have a good introduction and a good conclusion, you can get away with murder in between. I am not advising you, of course, not to do your best to create an effective text. But the point remains that it is a good idea to spend as much time on the rst and last paragraphs as you do on the rest of your essay. The rst paragraph of your essay has two functions: I First it should introduce your subject. The key tool for doing this is the thesis statement, usually a single sentence which contains: (A) Your subjectlimited enough so that you can cover it effectively in a four-to-ve-page or ve-to-seven-page essay. Name the author(s) and work(s) you are analyzing (again, unless you are discussing several).
Flannery OConnor uses fire as a powerful symbol of purification in her short story, A Circle in the Fire.

ad on a book cover (A rock-em, sock-em story of passion and greed in the Old West). If you dont engage readers immediately, they hardly will be likely to read on. Think of all the magazine or newspaper articles you have started but put down after the rst boring paragraph. Seize your readers interest through: (A) A snappy opening sentence.
The only way to save Mrs. Cope was to burn all she had. [A Circle in the Fire]

(B) The rest of the introductory paragraph(s): Here you take your readers from the snappy opener to the thesis statement, perhaps employing one or more of the following strategies (chiey for effect, not for supporting your thesis). A broad statement narrowing to your thesis statement.
Good intentions without real moral depth can lead to disaster. When people who have no grasp of their moral responsibilities encounter real evil, they are at a complete disadvantage. A person who is openly committed to badness invited to join the family of such a shallow do-gooder will destroy that family. Rufus Johnson demolishes the life of well-intentioned Sheppard in just this way in The Lame Shall Enter First. [Thesis

Statement] A brief anecdote, a memorable scene from the text.

Harry returned to the river knowing instinctively that he would not be coming back. He brought no suitcase. Understanding next to nothing of the meaning of baptism, but understanding that he had been offered an escape from his lifeless existence, he drowned himself. [Thesis Statement, The

River] Refutation of, disagreement with, an opinion or interpretation your reader is likely to have formed.
Most readers naturally assume that a respectable upbringing based upon traditional family values will produce a good person. A man willing to extend credit to help strangers is by definition a good man; isnt he? Certainly an unjustly convicted and excessively punished prisoner, of all people, has a right to be called a good person. [Thesis Statement, A Good

(B) Your unique critical insight

The pain and finality of fire make it an accurate symbol of the experience of purification from superficial material concerns.

Man Is Hard To Find] An idea or situation that apparently supports a position opposite the one you intend to discuss.
Ernest Hemingway has become pass. It is received wisdom in these politically correct times that Hemingway was sexist, excessively macho, and insensitive. [Shift] But this judgment fails to take into consideration many of his most important stories. Hills Like White Elephants, for example.

[Together] (B) Because fire is both painful and final, (A) Flannery OConnor uses it as a particularly power# The thesis statement is traditionally the last sentence of your rst (or introductory) paragraph. I The second function of your introduction is to arouse your readers interest. It is very much an advertisement for the rest, like the back
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ful symbol of purification from superficial material concerns in her short story, A Circle in the Fire.

[Thesis Statement] A series of short stimulating questions, each to be answered in a major section of your essay.
What happens when everyday people are forced to compare themselves to someone who is truly good? Will they welcome goodness or reject it? Wouldnt a morally Christlike person be accepted

enthusiastically if he or she came into your circle of friends? [Thesis Statement, The Displaced Person]

A key quotation from the text or from a critic.

The Sun was a huge red ball like an elevated Host drenched in blood, and when it sank out of sight, it left a line in the sky like a red clay road hanging over the trees. In the Eucharist the Host symbolizes Gods presence in the material, and throughout A Temple of the Holy Ghost Flannery OConnor uses the sun as a similar symbol of the pervasiveness of God. [Thesis Statement]

I Framing. A very good way to achieve unity in your essay, to pull everything together, is to frame it by linking your introduction and your conclusion. If, for example, you use an anecdote for your introduction strategy, you might leave your story at a climactic moment and conclude it at the end of your essay. Or if you use questioning in your introduction, you could refer in your conclusion to your opening questions and then provide specic answers.

Transitions. E.M. Forsters dictum Only connect is possibly the most important principle of good writing. Connect your ideas to the wider world and to each other. Show how everything in your essay works together. A key place where connectivity is developed is in the rst sentence of each section or paragraph and the last one. These transitional sentences provide the connective tissue for your essayholding everything together. They should fulll these functions: I One sentence or the other should suggest the relationship of the whole to the thesis statement of the essay. I The rst sentence should lead your reader from the section or paragraph you are ending into the material you are going to write about in the one you are beginning. I The last sentence should lead your reader into the next section. Here is an example of a transitional concluding sentence: Sheppards inner lameness [reects the thesis] made his
own life a painful contradiction of his professed values [concludes the present paragraph], but worse, it led to an inner lameness in his son Norton that killed him [points toward the next paragraph].

Text. Traditionally essays contain three main sections of development. Here is an example of a transitional topic sentence: Each of these should cover a separate aspect of your thesis, either If Sheppards lameness [a link to the previous paragraph] was (1) supporting it with concrete evidence or (2) explaining it further. only inward [reects the main thesis], its effects on his son Most will do both. Norton were both spiritual and terrifyingly physical Why three? For some reason the human [main idea of this paragraph]. mind likes trinities, nds them easy to deal CONCLUDING SENTENCE There is no need to use back-to-back tranwith, easy to remember. For example, no one sitional sentences, but be sure that you use at least will have any problem lling in these blanks: TOPIC SENTENCE one whenever you break for a new paragraph, either The Father, the Son, and the ____________; at the end of the paragraph you are concluding or Development or explanation The Executive branch, the Judicial , and the of topic sentence at the beginning of the one you are starting. ____________; The Good, the Bad, and the Paragraphs. The ve-paragraph standard is a Supporting detail, evidence, ____________; Stop, look, and ____________; useful one for writers to begin with. However, examples Moe, Larry, and ____________; and so on. Take there are two central differences between your advantage of this natural human trait when CONCLUDING SENTENCE past writing experiences and the level of writing you structure your essay. On the other hand, you have moved up to in this course: (1) We are TOPIC SENTENCE do not do so slavishly: Be sensitive to the natnow working with longer essays, and (2) We must ural divisions of your subject. For example, an now take the over-all effect of our writing much more into consideressay comparing an OConnor short story with one of Hemingways ation, allowing structure to grow organically out of our subject, could logically be divided into two sections, while one discussing adapting our organization to achieve the effect we want on our readfour different types of grace in OConnors moments of epiphany ers. would naturally have four sections As for #1, dividing 1500 words into ve paragraphs produces Each section and each paragraph should contain the following awkward, unwieldy paragraphs, especially since the rst and last (notice how paragraphs are structured like smaller versions of the pagragraphs in an essay are generally shorter than the others. Threewhole essay): or four-hundred-word paragraphs are awfully long. This of course I Topic sentencefunctions as a mini thesis statement introducing the will be even more of a problem with our research assignment, which main idea of this section or paragraph; it should: will be 2100 words long. Do the math. (A) Express the main idea of the section or paragraph. But #2 has even more bearing on the issue. In terms of the (B) Clearly reect the main thesis statement. effect of our writing on our audience, we must be aware that a series of long paragraphs is a daunting thing to face. You know what it is I Developmentfurther explanation of the topic sentence. like to be reading an assignment in a text book, and to turn a page I Supportdetail, evidence, examples supporting the topic sentence. and see a paragraph running the length of the page. Your heart I Concluding sentence drops. It looks like a lot of work. So when we write it is wise to break (A) Reiterates the topic sentence in light of all that has been said in the up paragraphs of, say, more than 200 words. paragraph; it serves as a conclusion to the section or paragraph. It is also a good idea to vary the length of paragraphs, mixing (B) Must refer to the main thesis of the essay. short ones with longer ones. Using too many short paragraphs gives an essay a choppy, disjointed feel, so it is a good idea to avoid too
TRANSITION TRANSITION
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many of them as well. You should group like ideas into paragraphs, but sometimes your attention shifts in the middle of a long paragraph, and you can logically break for a new one. You will notice that throughout this discussion, in laying out the vanilla ve-paragraph essay, instead of calling the organizational units paragraphs, I have called them sections. It would be a good idea for you to begin thinking of groups of paragraphs, applying what you know about essays to these sections instead of to increasingly lengthy paragraphs. Organizing your text. The following are organizational strategies which may be used as patterns of development either for an entire essay or for its component sections and paragraphs. I Basic organizational strategies. Chronologicaltime sequence, usually rst to last, but may incorporate ashback or ash forward. It is a common practice to analyze a piece of literature by tracing its development from beginning to end. Spatialdetails as they occur in space. You might structure an essay on The River around the three main settings: the apartment, the Connin house, and the river. Simple to complexmoving from what is relatively easy to understand to what is more difficult. A discussion of the characters in The Displaced Person might move from Sulk to Mr. Shortley to Mrs. Shortley to Mrs. McIntyre. Emphatic or climacticpeople remember most what they experience last, so save your most compelling material for last. An analysis of the symbols in The River might cover the Biblestory book, then the pigs, then the river itself. I The classical rhetorical modes. These may be used in two ways: (1) simply as structural guides, patterns for organizing what you have to say, but also (2) invention aides: Consider using one or more of these when you are wondering what to do next in your essay. Exemplicationillustrate your thesis, give examples. (Always use many examples and few generalizations in your writing.) Process analysisexplain the circumstances leading up to an event, e.g., the steps leading up to Mrs. McIntyres rejection of Mr. Guizac. Causal analysisexplain why; discuss reasons and consequences. Why did Mrs. McIntyre reject Mr. Guizac, and how did rejecting him affect her spiritually. Argumentation/persuasionconvince readers of the viability of your position on a controversial issue. All of your essays will be attempts to influence readers to accept your interpretations.

Comparison/contrastpoint out similarities and differences. Often literary essays involve comparisons of authors, stories, characters, themes, settings, etc. Other times critical approaches or interpretations are compared and contrasted. Descriptionpaint a picture in words of a person, an object, a scene. A visual description of Norton hanging from the rafters in Sheppards attic might be a very effective addition to an essay analyzing the rhetorical power of The Lame Shall Enter First. Denitionanalyze the meaning of a word, phrase, concept. A definition of grace might be useful in almost any essay about OConnor. Division/classicationdetermine the parts of your subject and categorize them. You might examine three types of violence in OConnors stories: (1) physical (A Good Man Is Hard To Find), (2) emotional (The Life You Save May Be Your Own), and (3) the violence of personal loss (A Circle in the Fire). Conclusion. The nal paragraph(s) of your essay should provide a sense of completeness and closure. Given the psychological principle that people remember most what they read last, this is a crucial part of your essay and should not be neglected. In your conclusion state as clearly and as dramatically as you can precisely what you want your readers to remember after they have put down your essay. In a good conclusion you will do these two things: I Reiterate your thesis statement, subtly altering the words, reinforcing the main idea of your essay. You should ALWAYS do this. I Use the rest of the paragraph to wrap your subject up, perhaps employing one or more of these strategies: Summarize key points. Reiterate the main idea of each main section of your text, using a sentence or so for each. Show how your thesis extends beyond the scope of the present treatment. Some critics like to close by relating the theme(s) of the literature they are analyzing to life in general. Quotationrelate your views to received wisdom. I Remember the advantages of framing your essay as a strategy for achieving unity. (See page 3.)