A Guide to Writing the Literary Analysis Essay
I. INTRODUCTION: the first paragraph in your essay. It begins creatively in order to catch your reader’s interest, provides essential background about the literary work, and prepares the reader for your major thesis. The introduction must include the author and title of the work as well as an explanation of the theme to be discussed. Other essential background may include setting, an introduction of main characters, etc. The major thesis goes in this paragraph usually at the end. Because the major thesis sometimes sounds tacked on, make special attempts to link it to the sentence that precedes it by building on a key word or idea.
A) Creative Opening/Hook: the beginning sentences of the introduction that catch the reader’s interest. Ways of beginning creatively include the following:
1) A startling fact or bit of information
 Example: Nearly two hundred citizens were arrested as witches during the Salem witch scare of 1692. Eventually nineteen were hanged, and another was pressed to death (Marks 65).
2) A snatch of dialogue between two characters
 Example: “It is another thing. You [Frederic Henry] cannot know about it unless you have it.”
“ Well,” I said. “If I ever get it I will tell you [priest].” (Hemingway 72).
With these words, the priest in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms sends the hero, Frederic, in search of the ambiguous “it” in his life.
3) A meaningful quotation (from the book you are analyzing or another source)
 Example: “To be, or not to be, that is the question” {3.1.57}. This familiar statement expresses the young prince’s moral dilemma in William
Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
4) A universal idea
 Example: The terrifying scenes a soldier experiences on the front probably follow him throughout his life—if he manages to survive the war.
5) A rich,