Analytical/Character analysis essay

For this paper, take your information from the short story
“The Lottery” and create a 2 to 3 page paper focusing on any
character you like. Refer to the examples below for paper set up. Remember not
to retell the story, and be sure to use direct passages from the short story to
support your ideas.

The principles laid out here will hold true for just about every
literary essay you will ever write. If you are just learning to write
full-scale essays, basic principles are not enough–you need a kind of “recipe”
that will tell you exactly what to do, step by step, just as someone learning
to cook needs to follow a recipe. At first, follow the “recipe” in
this guide. As you gain experience and confidence, you can gradually
“throw away the recipe” (or parts of it) and cook your own essays,
from scratch. Most of what you read here about literary essays will apply also
to essays you write for your other classes, but see below under “Verb
Tense” for one important difference.
A warning: writing well is extremely difficult, and requires years
of practice. Don’t be too impatient; don’t allow frustration and discouragement
to stop you. If you keep working at it, even when it doesn’t seem to be getting
better, you will eventually succeed.
Simple Schematic Outline of a
Literary Essay Written Outside of Class
I. Introduction (a.k.a. introductory paragraph)
·
Interesting opening
·
Identify author and title!
·
Thesis statement (all your major assertions, plus your conclusion,
in brief)
II. Body Paragraphs (one major assertion per paragraph)
·
BP #1 Assertion + supporting evidence
·
BP #2 Assertion + supporting evidence
·
BP #3 Assertion + supporting evidence
·
BP #4 Assertion + supporting evidence
·
Etc.
III. Conclusion (usually, but not always, a single paragraph).
Possibilities include…
·
return to the beginning
·
conclude your answer to the question
·
offer your judgment of the issues you’ve raised
·
discuss the author’s tone
·
offer an evaluation of the book, or some aspect of it, including
perhaps a brief relevant comparison with another book you’ve read
·
offer your personal reaction to the book
·
or some combination of the above.
How you write your conclusion will depend on the particular
subject, and the nature of the assignment. A paper for which you choose your
own subject may be handled differently from one in which you answer a question
set by your teacher, for example. If the assignment is to answer a specific
question, then you MUST “conclude your answer to the question” in
your last paragraph.
Sample Sketch of a Short
Character Analysis
Assignment: Write a character
analysis of Joe Shmo. In your conclusion, discuss the author’s tone; at the
end, include a brief personal reaction to the novel as a whole, and a brief
evaluation of it.
I . Introduction
Sometimes, as every mother knows, we like the wrong people. In
D.W. Jones’ novel, The Great Adventure, Joe Smith is stupid, lazy and selfish,
but despite these qualities the reader ends up sympathizing with him, perhaps
more than the author intended.
II. First Body Paragraph
We notice early in the novel that Joe is stupid. [Followed by
supporting evidence from book].
III. Second Body Paragraph
Moreover, Joe is lazy. [Followed by supporting evidence from
book].
IV. Third Body Paragraph
Worst of all, Joe is selfish. [Followed by supporting evidence
from book].
V. Conclusion
D.W. Jones would tell me that in The Great Adventure I like the wrong person. Mr. Jones clearly wants us to dislike
Joe–why else would he give him so many disagreeable qualities? And yet, the
further I moved into the story, the more I sympathized with Joe. I saw that he
was being used by the author as a foil for his hero, Tom Terrific. Tom looks
even better than he otherwise would when he is placed next to poor old Joe.
Unfortunately, I enjoyed this novel less and less, the more I read it. I became
increasingly aware of how contrived it is, both in its plot and its characters.
It is not nearly as good a book, for example, as Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Despite all his faults, Joe deserves better, and so do we.

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