What this handout is about...- This handout describes some steps for planning and writing papers about literature.
Demystifying the processWriting an analysis of a piece of fiction can be a mystifying process. First, literary analyses (or papers that offer an interpretation of a story) rely on the assumption that stories must mean something. How does a story mean something? Isn’t a story just an arrangement of characters and events? And if the author wanted to convey a meaning, wouldn’t he or she be much better off writing an essay just telling us what he or she meant?
It’s pretty easy to see how at least some stories convey clear meanings or morals. Just think about a parable like the prodigal son or a nursery tale about crying "wolf." Stories like these are reduced down to the bare elements, giving us just enough detail to lead us to their main points, and because they are relatively easy to understand and tend to stick in our memories, they’re often used in some kinds of education.
But if the meanings were always as clear as they are in parables, who would really need to write a paper about them? Interpretations of fiction, after all, would not be interesting if the meaning of the story were clear to everyone who reads it. The paper would become superfluous. Thankfully (or perhaps regrettably, depending on your perspective) the stories we’re asked to interpret in our classes are a good bit more complicated than most parables. These stories can’t be easily reduced to one specific meaning that every reader can agree upon, but instead they use characters, settings, and actions to illustrate issues that have no easy resolution. They show different sides of a problem, and they can raise new questions about a problem. Nothing against the parable, but if stories all led to clear lessons or meanings, there wouldn’t be much reason to read them more than once, study them closely, or talk to others about the impressions they get from a story. In short, the stories we read in class have meanings that are arguable and complicated, and it’s our job to sort them out.
It might seem that the stories do have specific meanings, and the instructor has already decided what that meaning is. Not true. Instructors can be pretty dazzling (or mystifying) with their interpretations, but that’s because they have a lot of practice with stories and have developed a sense of the kinds of things to look for. Even so, the most well-informed professor rarely arrives at conclusions that someone else wouldn’t disagree with--and often for good reasons. In fact, most professors are aware that their interpretations are debatable and actually love a good argument. But let’s not go to the other extreme. To say that there is no one answer is not to say that anything we decide to say about a novel or short story is valid, interesting, or valuable. Interpretations of fiction are often opinions, but not all opinions are equal.
So what makes a valid and interesting opinion? A good interpretation of fiction will:
- avoid the obvious (in other words, it won’t argue a conclusion that most readers could reach on their own from a general knowledge of the story)
- support its main points with strong evidence from the story
- use careful reasoning to explain how that evidence relates to the main points of the interpretation.
Writing a Paper on Fiction in 3 Steps1. BECOME FAMILIAR WITH THE TEXT.
There’s just no substitute for a good general knowledge of your story. A good paper inevitably begins with the writer having a solid understanding of the work that he or she interprets. Being able to have the whole book, short story, or play in your head--at least in a general way--when you begin thinking through ideas will be a great help and will actually allow you to write the paper more quickly in the long run. It's even a good idea to spend some time just thinking about the story. Flip back through the book and consider what interests you about this piece of writing--what seemed strange, new, important, or otherwise curious about what you read?
2. MAKE A LIST OF POTENTIAL TOPICS.
After reading your story, a topic may just jump out at you, or you may have recognized a pattern or identified a problem that you’d like to think about in more detail. What is a pattern or a problem?
A pattern can be the recurrence of certain kinds of imagery or events. Usually, repetitions of particular aspects of a story (similar events in the plot, similar description, even repetitions in particular words) tend to render those elements more conspicuous. Let’s say I’m writing a paper on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. In the course of reading that book, I keep noticing the author’s use of biblical imagery: Victor Frankenstein anticipates that "a new species would bless me as its creator and source" (52) while the monster is not sure whether to consider himself as an Adam or a Satan. These details might help me interpret the way characters think about themselves and about each other, as well as allow me to infer what the author might have wanted her reader to think by using the Bible as a frame of reference. On another subject, I also notice that the book repeatedly makes reference to types of education. The book routinely makes reference to books that its characters read and the different contexts in which learning takes place.
A problem, on the other hand, is something in the story that, to put it plainly, bugs you or that doesn’t seem to add up. A character might act in some way that’s unaccountable, a narrator may leave out what we think is important information (or may focus on something that seems trivial), or a narrator or character offer an explanation for something that doesn’t seem to make sense to us. Not all problems that we have with a story lead in interesting directions, but some definitely do and even seem to be important parts of the story. In Frankenstein, Victor works day and night to achieve his goal of bringing life to the dead, but once he realizes his goal, he is immediately repulsed by his creation and runs away. Why? Is there something wrong with his creation, something wrong with his goal in the first place, or something wrong with Victor himself? The book doesn’t give us a clear answer, but seems to invite us to interpret this problem.
If nothing immediately strikes you as interesting or no patterns or problems jump out at you, don’t worry. Just start making a list of whatever you remember from your reading regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you now. Consider a character’s peculiar behavior or comments, the unusual way the narrator describes an event, or the author’s placement of an action in an odd context. (Step 5 will cover some further elements of fiction that you might find useful at this stage as well.)
There’s a good chance that some of these intriguing moments and oddities will relate to other points in the story, eventually revealing some kind of pattern and giving you potential topics for your paper. Also keep in mind that if you found something peculiar in the story you’re writing about, chances are good that other people will have been perplexed by these moments in the story as well and will be interested to see how you make sense of it all. It's even a good idea to test your ideas out on a friend, a classmate, or an instructor since talking about your ideas will help you develop them and push them beyond obvious interpretations of the story. And it's only by pushing those ideas that we can write a paper that raises interesting issues or problems and that offers creative interpretations related to those issues. As your ideas become more sophisticated, your analysis will likely make the story more meaningful and more rewarding for the rest of us.
3. SELECT A TOPIC WITH A LOT OF EVIDENCE.
If you’re selecting from a number of possible topics, narrow down your list by identifying how much evidence or how many specific details you could use to investigate each potential issue. Do this step just off the top of your head. Keep in mind that persuasive papers rely on ample evidence and that having a lot of details to choose from can also make your paper easier to write.
It might be helpful at this point to jot down all the events or elements of the story that have some bearing on the two or three topics that seem most promising. This can give you a more visual sense of how much evidence you will have to work with on each potential topic. It’s on this activity that having a good knowledge of your story will come in handy and save you a lot of time. Don’t launch into a topic without considering all the options first because you may end up with a topic that seemed promising initially but that only leads to a dead end.