Paper #1—Summary and Central Idea

Read Chapter One in Analyzing Short Stories. Then write a one paragraph paper
summarizing the plot and stating the central idea of one of the following stories: “A&P”
by John Updike or “The Astronomer’s Wife” by Kay Boyle. . This paper should not
exceed 150 words.

Guidelines:

A. Literary analysis should be written in the present tense.

B. A title that you can use for your paper is the following:
An Analysis of “Insert Name of Story”
C. Remember that titles of short stories are set off by quotation marks and are not
underlined.
D. Double space between the title and text of your paper.
E. Indent the first line of each paragraph in the paper.
F. Remember to summarize the main events of the story without going into too
much detail or quoting dialogue since the maximum length is 150 words.

Central Idea

G. The central idea statement should be the last sentence of your paragraph and
should not be underlined or set apart in any way.
H. The central idea or theme of a story is an author’s comment, usually implied, on
the subject of his narrative. Interpretation is the process of deriving some
generalization about life from the specifics of the story.

1. The central idea should be expressed in the form of a statement with a

subject and predicate. It is insufficient to say that the theme of a story is
“loyalty” or “motherhood.” Theme must be a statement ABOUT the
subject: e.g. “Motherhood sometimes has more frustrations than rewards,”
or “Loyalty to country often inspires heroic self-sacrifice.”
2. The central idea statement should be a generalization which avoids using
the names of characters.
3. Avoid a statement that reduces the theme to some familiar maxim or
saying. NO CLICHES!
4. Be careful not to make the generalization larger than is justified by the
details of the story. For instance, “All men are rats” or “Women can’t be
trusted” would be examples of overgeneralizations.
5. Remember, there is no one way to express the central idea of a story (but
some statements are definitely better than others).
6. Also remember, the best stories have multiple levels of meaning, and
stories require MORE THAN ONE READING before the central idea
becomes clear.