English 201

Introduction to Literary Analysis

Dr. O'Dea

Fiction Analysis Essay

Due: Monday, February 14

General
The word “explication” comes from the Latin verb explicare, meaning to “unfold.” When
you explicate a work of literature, you “unfold” some of its nuances by carefully analyzing
a portion of it—by drawing out and revealing some aspect of the text’s imaginative
representation. You can analyze plot, character, setting, narrative point of view, style,
and so on. Of course, you can’t account for everything that goes on in a text, so you
should focus on one element (or perhaps a pair of very closely connected elements) that
you think enlightens an overall reading of the work.
For this paper, you will write an explication of one aspect of a short story, to be selected
from the list below. Your paper should offer:

1. a clear, carefully phrased argumentative thesis;

2. a logically developed argument supporting that thesis, based on well-chosen
evidence from the text; and
3. a conclusion explaining how your reading of the story helps us to understand it
better.

Preliminary
1. Choose one of the following stories. (You may make a case for doing another story,
but I would prefer that you stick to these).

• Nadine Gordimer, "Once Upon a Time" (89)

• Lorrie Moore, “How to Talk to Your Mother (Notes)” (109)
• John Updike, "A&P" (124)
 Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried" (314)
 Alice Walker, "Everyday Use" (354)
• T. Correghessan Boyle, "Greasy Lake" (556)
• Joyce Carol Oates, "Shopping" (705)

2. Read the story several times, annotating it as you did for the fiction annotation
project. Take special note of the questions and problems that the text seems to
present.

3. Your annotations should reveal to you a set of concerns that you have with the text—
related issues that your mind seems to be drawn to. Write about these concerns in a
"free writing" style; get them down and explain the ideas to yourself on paper. This is
a "pre-draft" that no one else will see, so don't worry about spelling or grammar. Just
 write about the ideas and concerns that seem important to you, trying to relate the
ideas to one another. This set of related ideas will become your subject.

Writing & Drafting

Once you settle on a particular idea as the subject of the paper, you’ll need to begin
shaping the essay itself. Now you must begin to consider your audience. From this
point forward, your job is to shape, mold, and craft an essay which makes clear to your
reader the ideas you want to share.

1. Construct a THESIS that indicates (a) your focus, and (b) the relation of that focus to
the story as a whole.
A thesis is a clear statement of the point you want to make about the story. Your
thesis is argumentative; it should not be an obvious point, but a thoughtful
statement indicating the complexity and depth of the story, a statement that
needs support and proof. Don’t settle for the first generalization that comes to
mind; that approach almost always leads to trite responses and poor grades. I’m
always on the lookout for the “so what?” factor in paper topics. Ask yourself:
“Could my thesis or opinion cause a reader to respond, ‘Yes, that’s true, but so
what?’ Or will my thesis illuminate for the reader some point that he or she might
not have noticed at first reading?”
Some examples of theses:
A Non-Argumentative (and Therefore Poor) Thesis: “The characters in
Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’ are Puritans.” This thesis is not an
opinion, it is a fact. Facts can’t be argued, so the paper is doomed. Here is a “so
what?” thesis if ever I heard one.
A Too-Vague (and Therefore Meaningless) Thesis: “‘Young Goodman Brown’ is
about Puritanism.” This statement is a little more argumentative than the one
above, but it fails to indicate your focus: how is the story “about” Puritanism?
What aspect(s) of Puritanism does Hawthorne emphasize? How does he
emphasize them? Why?
A Better Thesis: “In his story ‘Young Goodman Brown,’ Nathaniel Hawthorne
examines the dangers of Puritan extremism about evil. Because Goodman
Brown is oppressed by his belief in the power of the devil, he eventually allows
this belief to overpower his faith in God.” This thesis narrows the focus to
Goodman Brown’s views of evil.
Another Good Thesis: “In ‘Young Goodman Brown,’ Nathaniel Hawthorne uses
the journey motif to represent the protagonist’s gradual psychological awakening,
and his gradual decline into spiritual despair.” Here we understand that the writer
is concentrating on one aspect of the story (the journey motif) and “unfolding” a
larger idea from that aspect (psychological awakening and spiritual despair).

2. EVIDENCE: Find quotations and examples in the story that support your thesis, and
organize the rest of you paper around this evidence. In a paper based on the “Better
Thesis” above, the reader will expect concrete evidence showing (a) that Brown
originally has a strong faith in God; (b) that he has a strong belief in the devil’s
powers; (c) that he lets his recognition of evil destroy his conviction of the existence
of good; and (d) that Hawthorne ties all of these ideas clearly to Puritan religious
 tenets. With “Another Good Thesis,” the reader expects the writer (a) to examine the
stages of Brown’s journeys as they relate to his changing psychology, (b) to offer
quotations from the text that demonstrate the journey stages and Brown’s
psychology, and (c) to conclude by showing how the journeys contribute to the
story’s meaning.
3. CONCLUSION: Rather than offer a re-hash of the paper’s argument and evidence,
the conclusion should broaden the focus of the essay, and comment on the larger
importance of the reading you’ve just offered. What does a reading like yours tell us
about the element of fiction you’ve been examining, the culture(s) which produced
the works, or the short story form itself?

Other Important Advice:

1. All papers should be legibly computer printed, double-spaced, on good 8 1/2” by

11” white paper. Don’t use a worn out ink or toner cartridge.
2. Fancy or decorative fonts are irritating to read at length. Use 12 point Times or
another of the humbler fonts.
3. Save our trees: don’t bother with a title page. Instead, in the upper left-hand
corner of your first page, include the following information:
Your Name
English 201
Dr. O’Dea
Date
4. Create a page "header" that includes your last name and the appropriate page
numbers in the upper right-hand corner of succeeding pages: Jones 2, Jones 3,
and so on.
5. Give an informative title to your paper. “Explication of ‘Young Goodman Brown’”
is not enough. Give some indication of your topic: “Puritan Extremism in ‘Young
Goodman Brown’” Center this title on your first page, a few spaces below your
name block. Don’t put it in quotation marks or underline it—plain text in title
case is fine.
6. Use staples to bind your pages. Do not merely fold down the corners, or fold
your papers in half. That’s tacky.
7. Short poem and essay titles are put in “quotations marks." Only book-length
titles are underlined or italicized.
8. Use MLA citation form, including parenthetical citations and a properly formatted
List of Works Cited. Remember that parenthetical references go outside of
quotation marks and before punctuation marks: "his dying hour was gloom"
(223).
9. Somewhere in the first paragraph of your paper, mention the work(s) you are
discussing by title and author. Beware of dangling modifiers.
10. Write about texts in the present tense: “Goodman Brown goes to the forest and
thinks he sees his wife there,” NOT “GB went to the forest and thought he
saw . . .” Because you're writing about an existing text, any action you describe
is still occurring.
11. Use a spelling checker, but don't rely on it exclusively. Be sure to proofread your
paper carefully before turning it in.