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• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay Writing

Last updated on: May 21, 2023

Literary Analysis Essay - Ultimate Guide By Professionals

By: Cordon J.

Reviewed By: Rylee W.

Published on: Dec 3, 2019

A literary analysis essay specifically examines and evaluates a piece of literature or a literary work. It also understands and explains the links between the small parts to their whole information.

It is important for students to understand the meaning and the true essence of literature to write a literary essay.

One of the most difficult assignments for students is writing a literary analysis essay. It can be hard to come up with an original idea or find enough material to write about. You might think you need years of experience in order to create a good paper, but that's not true.

This blog post will show you how easy it can be when you follow the steps given here.Writing such an essay involves the breakdown of a book into small parts and understanding each part separately. It seems easy, right?

Trust us, it is not as hard as good book reports but it may also not be extremely easy. You will have to take into account different approaches and explain them in relation with the chosen literary work.

It is a common high school and college assignment and you can learn everything in this blog.

Continue reading for some useful tips with an example to write a literary analysis essay that will be on point. You can also explore our detailed article on writing an analytical essay .

On this Page

What is a Literary Analysis Essay?

A literary analysis essay is an important kind of essay that focuses on the detailed analysis of the work of literature.

The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to explain why the author has used a specific theme for his work. Or examine the characters, themes, literary devices , figurative language, and settings in the story.

This type of essay encourages students to think about how the book or the short story has been written. And why the author has created this work.

The method used in the literary analysis essay differs from other types of essays. It primarily focuses on the type of work and literature that is being analyzed.

Mostly, you will be going to break down the work into various parts. In order to develop a better understanding of the idea being discussed, each part will be discussed separately.

The essay should explain the choices of the author and point of view along with your answers and personal analysis.

How To Write A Literary Analysis Essay

So how to start a literary analysis essay? The answer to this question is quite simple.

The following sections are required to write an effective literary analysis essay. By following the guidelines given in the following sections, you will be able to craft a winning literary analysis essay.

Introduction

The aim of the introduction is to establish a context for readers. You have to give a brief on the background of the selected topic.

It should contain the name of the author of the literary work along with its title. The introduction should be effective enough to grab the reader’s attention.

In the body section, you have to retell the story that the writer has narrated. It is a good idea to create a summary as it is one of the important tips of literary analysis.

Other than that, you are required to develop ideas and disclose the observed information related to the issue. The ideal length of the body section is around 1000 words.

To write the body section, your observation should be based on evidence and your own style of writing.

It would be great if the body of your essay is divided into three paragraphs. Make a strong argument with facts related to the thesis statement in all of the paragraphs in the body section.

Start writing each paragraph with a topic sentence and use transition words when moving to the next paragraph.

Summarize the important points of your literary analysis essay in this section. It is important to compose a short and strong conclusion to help you make a final impression of your essay.

Pay attention that this section does not contain any new information. It should provide a sense of completion by restating the main idea with a short description of your arguments. End the conclusion with your supporting details.

You have to explain why the book is important. Also, elaborate on the means that the authors used to convey her/his opinion regarding the issue.

For further understanding, here is a downloadable literary analysis essay outline. This outline will help you structure and format your essay properly and earn an A easily.

DOWNLOADABLE LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY OUTLINE (PDF)

Types of Literary Analysis Essay

• Close reading - This method involves attentive reading and detailed analysis. No need for a lot of knowledge and inspiration to write an essay that shows your creative skills.
• Theoretical - In this type, you will rely on theories related to the selected topic.
• Historical - This type of essay concerns the discipline of history. Sometimes historical analysis is required to explain events in detail.
• Applied - This type involves analysis of a specific issue from a practical perspective.
• Comparative - This type of writing is based on when two or more alternatives are compared

Examples of Literary Analysis Essay

Examples are great to understand any concept, especially if it is related to writing. Below are some great literary analysis essay examples that showcase how this type of essay is written.

A ROSE FOR EMILY LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

THE GREAT GATSBY LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

If you do not have experience in writing essays, this will be a very chaotic process for you. In that case, it is very important for you to conduct good research on the topic before writing.

There are two important points that you should keep in mind when writing a literary analysis essay.

First, remember that it is very important to select a topic in which you are interested. Choose something that really inspires you. This will help you to catch the attention of a reader.

The selected topic should reflect the main idea of writing. In addition to that, it should also express your point of view as well.

Another important thing is to draft a good outline for your literary analysis essay. It will help you to define a central point and division of this into parts for further discussion.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics

Literary analysis essays are mostly based on artistic works like books, movies, paintings, and other forms of art. However, generally, students choose novels and books to write their literary essays.

Some cool, fresh, and good topics and ideas are listed below:

• Role of the Three Witches in flaming Macbeth’s ambition.
• Analyze the themes of the Play Antigone,
• Discuss Ajax as a tragic hero.
• The Judgement of Paris: Analyze the Reasons and their Consequences.
• Oedipus Rex: A Doomed Son or a Conqueror?
• Describe the Oedipus complex and Electra complex in relation to their respective myths.
• Betrayal is a common theme of Shakespearean tragedies. Discuss
• Identify and analyze the traits of history in T.S Eliot’s ‘Gerontion’.
• Analyze the theme of identity crisis in The Great Gatsby.
• Analyze the writing style of Emily Dickinson.

If you are still in doubt then there is nothing bad in getting professional writers’ help.

We at 5StarEssays.com can help you get a custom paper as per your specified requirements with our do essay for me service.

Our essay writers will help you write outstanding literary essays or any other type of essay. Such as compare and contrast essays, descriptive essays, rhetorical essays. We cover all of these.

So don’t waste your time browsing the internet and place your order now to get your well-written custom paper.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a literary analysis essay include.

A good literary analysis essay must include a proper and in-depth explanation of your ideas. They must be backed with examples and evidence from the text. Textual evidence includes summaries, paraphrased text, original work details, and direct quotes.

What are the 4 components of literary analysis?

Here are the 4 essential parts of a literary analysis essay;

No literary work is explained properly without discussing and explaining these 4 things.

How do you start a literary analysis essay?

Start your literary analysis essay with the name of the work and the title. Hook your readers by introducing the main ideas that you will discuss in your essay and engage them from the start.

How do you do a literary analysis?

In a literary analysis essay, you study the text closely, understand and interpret its meanings. And try to find out the reasons behind why the author has used certain symbols, themes, and objects in the work.

Why is literary analysis important?

It encourages the students to think beyond their existing knowledge, experiences, and belief and build empathy. This helps in improving the writing skills also.

What is the fundamental characteristic of a literary analysis essay?

Interpretation is the fundamental and important feature of a literary analysis essay. The essay is based on how well the writer explains and interprets the work.

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Cordon. is a published author and writing specialist. He has worked in the publishing industry for many years, providing writing services and digital content. His own writing career began with a focus on literature and linguistics, which he continues to pursue. Cordon is an engaging and professional individual, always looking to help others achieve their goals.

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The Subtle Art of Writing an Literary Analysis Essay

29 July, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Tomas White

When studying at school, college, or university, you get dozens of writing tasks, and a literary analysis essay is one of them. You have to study a piece of literature and write about the core idea, characters, or the author’s intentions. In some cases, it’s necessary to explore style, plot, structure, and other elements to explain how they complement or weaken each other.

Although it’s an interesting task, students often don’t have enough time or writing skills to craft a literary analysis essay excellently. Our article will help you cope with the assignment and compose a flawless paper. Discover how to craft an outline, start a literary analysis essay, and many more.

What is a Literary Analysis Essay?

Paper quality depends not only on the writer’s skills or the presence of fresh ideas in a text but also on their understanding of what is a literary analysis essay. Many students make the same mistake and compose reviews or just describe what they’ve read, but it’s not the purpose of this task. Take a look at the explanation of a literary analysis below to avoid the confusion:

Literary analysis essay definition

A literary analysis essay involves studying the text, evaluating the plot, analyzing characters, and determining devices used by the author to engage and influence readers. A novel, tale, poem, play, or another piece of literature can become the object of your research. When composing a literary analysis essay, a writer explores the text form, style, perspective, and characters.

What is the purpose of a literary analysis essay?

An excellently composed literary analysis essay demonstrates that you’ve looked at the events described in the literature piece from different perspectives. Examination of all the major elements, including a text structure, plot, author’s style, characters’ qualities, main theme, and form is an essential stage of the writing process. After you study all the important components, provide a conclusion on how they interact with each other and influence your overall impression.

How to Start a Literary Analysis Essay?

Now that you know a literary analysis essay definition, you’re ready to move further and discover the secrets of writing the paper. When reading the text, you must be very attentive. Notice the tricks the author uses to engage the reader, surprising details, and uncommon character’s features. Use these elements for your analysis.

It’s also necessary to answer a few important questions to discover the essence of the literature piece you’ve just read:

• Which parts are the most essential ones?
• What literary devices did the author use, and why did they choose them?
• Do characters change somehow?

After you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have to determine the relationships between the ideas and storyline, the characters’ behavior, and how their roles change in a piece. Conduct comprehensive research to get information about the text, its background, and the author. These materials will help you understand the writer’s intentions and ideas better.

Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Crafting a literary analysis essay outline is an efficient method to organize your materials and structure a paper. An outline will contain all the core thoughts of your research. It helps an essay writer figure out whether they’ve studied all the essential elements and mentioned all the points.

Before you design an outline, it’s necessary to write a thesis statement that shortly describes your paper’s content. Usually, it contains one sentence and presents the entire sense of the essay. Crafting an outline is the next step after composing a thesis statement. Traditionally, it consists of 3 sections:

• Introduction . This part is the most important one, as it should explain the main points of the body text and grab the reader’s attention. However, it’s not only a brief description of the essay’s content – you have to compose a catchy introduction that engages the audience. It’s necessary to use a hook to grab the reader’s attention and make them wonder what happens in the next literary analysis essay’s section. You can add a quote, an interesting fact connected with the book or the author, or write a question and promise to provide the answer in the next part.
• Body text . After you’ve composed the introduction, it’s necessary to move to the next step in your writing. Body text will contain all your statements, arguments, and important details supporting your analysis. Usually, this section has 3 paragraphs, but you can extend it depending on the task complexity and the professor’s requirements. When designing an outline, use the columns or bullet points to present the main ideas. These lists will help you figure out which details are unnecessary in your essay.
• Conclusion . Your final thoughts will shape the entire paper and influence the reader’s impression. At this point, the audience gets the overall impression of your analysis and decides whether you’re right or wrong. Name the paper’s core thoughts and write your final statement. You can write a sentence or two about the significance of the author’s idea or the impact made by the piece.

Literary Analysis Essay Examples

Check this short list of literary analysis essay example to get the idea:

• http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/midtermexamples.htm
• https://www.unm.edu/~aobermei/Eng200/sonnet95a.html

20 Literary Analysis Essay Topics

Sometimes professors allow students to pick topics themselves, and it’s a lucky ticket in the academic world. You can choose your favorite book or novel, research it, and provide excellent analysis. If you’ve written about the piece you love before or want to impress the professor, we recommend you to check our list of literary analysis essay topics for more ideas:

• Examining the structure of Kurt Vonnegut’s “ Slaughterhouse-Five. ”
• Explaining the importance of Ray Bradbury’s “ Fahrenheit 451. ”
• Analyzing the changes in Ebenezer Scrooge’s character over the course of “ A Christmas Carol. ”
• The importance of symbolism in “ Wuthering Heights .”
• Examining Ernest Hemingway’s writing style.
• The connection of plot lines in “ Froth of Days ” by Boris Vian.
• The lasting influence of “ The Catcher in the Rye .”
• Literary devices used by George Orwell in “ 1984. ”
• The use of humor in Mark Twain’s short stories.
• The impact of “ To Kill a Mockingbird .”
• Analyzing the allegory in William Golding’s “ Lord of the Flies .”
• “ Pride and Prejudice ” character analysis.
• “ Love in the Time of Cholera ”: Florentino Ariza character analysis.
• The significance of Herman Melville’s “ Moby-Dick .”
• Plot analysis of William Shakespeare’s “ Hamlet. ”
• The influence of Jack London’s life on his works.
• The analysis of Jane Eyre’s personality.
• Mysticism in Edgar Allan Poe’s novels.
• Language analysis in Haper Lee’s “ To Kill  Mockingbird .”
• Stylistic analysis of “ The Great Gatsby .”

Useful Tips for Literary Analysis Essay

A literary analysis essay requires time, patience, and attentiveness. When reading a piece, don’t be lazy to write down all the important details connected with characters, plot, author’s style, ideas, etc. You also must be very attentive to notice important elements. However, attentiveness isn’t the only thing that will help you craft a paper. Read our tips to learn how to write a literary analysis essay flawlessly and get the best grade:

1. Read carefully

Choose a cozy place for reading – it’s where no one will disturb you, and noise won’t interrupt the process. Only in this case, you’ll notice the most important details. If you pick the right environment, you’ll be able to concentrate on a story. You can choose a quiet place in a park, stay in your room, or go to a library.

2. Take notes

Do characters have specific features? What makes the writer’s style special? How does symbolism influence text comprehension? Write down all the interesting or intriguing details you notice. You can use this information in your literary analysis essay.

3. Determine literary devices

Writers use literary devices to create special effects that help readers understand their intentions, interpret their works, and analyze them. Besides, these elements often become the author’s identifying feature that helps them stand out from the crowd. Here’s the list of literary devices you have to know:

• Personification
• Alliteration
• Foreshadowing

4. Consider language style

It’s necessary to pay attention to the length of sentences, terminology, descriptions, presence of metaphors, etc. Does the writer use simple words to describe an object or go poetic? Is it easy to understand the text? Does the author use slang or conventional terms?

The writer’s style tells a lot about their piece – even more than you can imagine. Besides, the characters’ language style is one of their most important features. It helps readers understand their personalities. If your topic is connected with the character analysis, taking notes about language is a must for you.

5. Determine the narrator

Who’s telling the story? It can be told by a character or by an author watching the course of events from a distant perspective. You have to determine the role of the narrator in a story. Do they know everything about other characters? Is their role important for story development? Of course, if an author is a narrator, you won’t have to wonder whether they influence the piece somehow. If a character tells the story, the chances are that they hide some information or don’t know much about different events. In this case, some details may become evident in the end.

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Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay - Step by Step Guide

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Published on: Aug 16, 2020

Last updated on: Jul 23, 2024

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Literature is an art that can inspire, challenge, and transform us. But how do we analyze literature in a way that truly captures its essence? 

That's where a literary analysis essay comes in. 

Writing a literary analysis essay allows you to delve into the themes, characters, and symbols of a literary work. It's a chance to engage with literature on a deeper level and to discover new insights. 

In this comprehensive guide, we will take you through the process of writing a literary analysis essay, step by step. Plus, you’ll get to read some great examples to help you out!

So let’s dive in!

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What is a Literary Analysis Essay?

Literary analysis is a process of examining a literary work in detail to uncover its meaning and significance. 

It involves breaking down the various elements of a work, such as plot, character, setting, and theme. And then analyzing how they work together to create a specific effect on the reader.

In other words, literary analysis is an exercise in interpretation. The reader of a work asks questions about what the author means to say, how they are saying it, and why. 

A literary analysis essay is an essay where you explore such questions in depth and offer your own insights.

What is the Purpose of a Literary Analysis Essay?

In general, the purpose of a literary analysis essay is as follows: 

• To gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the work.
• To be able to think critically and analytically about a text. 

Content of a Literary Analysis 

A literary analysis essay delves deep into the various aspects of a literary work to examine its meaning, symbolism, themes, and more. Here are the key elements to include in your literary analysis essay:

Plot Analysis 

Plot refers to the sequence of events that make up the storyline of a literary work. It encompasses the main events, conflicts, and resolutions that drive the narrative forward. 

Elements of Plot Analysis 

The elements of a plot typically include:

• Exposition: The introduction of the story that establishes the setting, characters, and initial circumstances.
• Rising action: A set of events or actions that sets the main conflict into motion, often occurring early in the story.
• Conflict: The series of events that build tension and develop the conflict, leading to the story's climax.
• Climax: The turning point of the story, where the conflict reaches its peak and the outcome hangs in the balance.
• Falling Action: The events that occur after the climax, leading towards the resolution of the conflict.
• Resolution: The point in the story where the conflict is resolved, providing closure to the narrative.

Character Analysis 

Character analysis involves studying the role, development, and motivations of the characters in a literary work. It explores how characters contribute to the overall narrative and themes of the story.

Elements of Character Analysis 

• Identification of major and minor characters.
• Examination of their traits, behaviors, and relationships.
• Analysis of character development and changes throughout the story.
• Evaluation of the character's role in advancing the plot or conveying themes.

Symbolism and Imagery Analysis 

Symbolism and imagery analysis focuses on the use of symbols, objects, or images in a work. It analyzes and explores the use of literary devices to convey deeper meanings and evoke emotions. 

Elements of Symbolism and Imagery Analysis 

• Identification of key symbols or recurring motifs.
• Interpretation of their symbolic significance.
• Analysis of how imagery is used to create vivid mental pictures and enhance the reader's understanding and emotional experience.

Theme Analysis 

Analyzing the theme involves exploring the central ideas or messages conveyed in a literary work. It examines the underlying concepts, or messages that the author wants to convey through the story.

Elements of Theme Analysis 

• Identification of the main themes or central ideas explored in the text.
• Analysis of how the themes are developed and reinforced throughout the story.
• Exploration of the author's perspective and the intended message behind the themes.

Setting Analysis 

The Setting of a story includes the time, place, and social context in which the story takes place. Analyzing the setting involves how the setting influences the characters, plot, and overall atmosphere of the work.

Elements of Setting Analysis 

• Description and analysis of the physical, cultural, and historical aspects of the setting.
• Examination of how the setting contributes to the mood, atmosphere, and themes of the work.
• Evaluation of how the setting shapes the characters' actions and motivations.

Structure and Style Analysis 

Structure and style analysis involves studying the organization, narrative techniques, and literary devices employed by the author. It explores how the structure and style contribute to the overall impact and effectiveness of the work.

Elements of Structure and Style Analysis 

• Analysis of the narrative structure, such as the use of flashbacks, nonlinear timelines, or multiple perspectives.
• Examination of the author's writing style, including the use of language, tone, and figurative language.
• Evaluation of literary devices, such as foreshadowing, irony, or allusion, and their impact on the reader's interpretation.

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How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay?  

Writing a great literary analysis piece requires you to follow certain steps. Here's what you need to do to write a literary essay:

Preparing for Your Essay 

The pre-writing process for writing a literary analysis essay includes the following:

• Choosing a literary work to analyze
• Reading and analyzing the work
• Taking notes and organizing your thoughts
• Creating an outline for your essay

Choosing a Work to Analyze 

As a student, you would most probably be assigned a literary piece to analyze. It could be a short story, a novel, or a poem.  However, sometimes you get to choose it yourself.

In such a case, you should choose a work that you find interesting and engaging. This will make it easier to stay motivated as you analyze the work and write your essay.

Moreover, you should choose a work that has some depth and complexity. This will give you plenty of material to analyze and discuss in your essay. Finally, make sure that your choice fits within the scope of the assignment and meets the expectations of your instructor.

Reading and Analyzing 

Once you've chosen a literary work, it's time to read the work with careful attention. There are several key elements to consider when reading and analyzing a literary work:

• Plot - The sequence of events that make up the story. Analyzing the plot involves examining the structure of the story, including its exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
• Characters - The people or entities that populate the story. Analyzing characters involves examining their motivations, personalities, relationships, and development over the course of the story.

Want to learn more about character analysis? Head to our blog about how to conduct character analysis and learn easy steps with examples.

• Setting - The time, place, and environment in which the story takes place. Analyzing the setting involves examining how the atmosphere contributes to the story's overall meaning.
• Theme - The underlying message or meaning of the story. Analyzing themes involves examining the work's central ideas and how they are expressed through the various elements of the story.

Moreover, it's important to consider the following questions while analyzing:

• What is the central theme or main point the author is trying to make?
• What literary devices and techniques has the author used?
• Why did the author choose to write this particular work?
• What themes and ideas are present in the work?

These questions will help you dive deeper into the work you are writing about.

Take Notes and Gather Material 

As you read and analyze the literary work, it's important to take notes so you don't forget important details and ideas. This also helps you identify patterns and connections between different elements of the piece.

One effective way to take notes is to list important elements of the work, such as characters, setting, and theme. You can also use sticky notes, highlighters, or annotations to mark important passages and write down your ideas.

Writing Your Literary Analysis Essay 

Once you have read a piece of literature and taken notes, you have all the material you need to write an essay. Follow the simple steps below to write an effective literary analysis essay.

Create an Outline for Your Essay 

Firstly, creating an outline is necessary. This will help you to organize your thoughts and ideas and ensure that your essay flows logically and coherently.

This is what your literary essay outline would look like: 

Writing the Introduction 

Writing your essay introduction involves the three following parts:

• Begin the introductory paragraph with an engaging hook statement that captures the readers' attention. An effective hook statement can take many different forms, such as a provocative quote, an intriguing question, or a surprising fact. 

Make sure that your hook statement is relevant to the literary work you are writing about. Here are a few examples of effective hooks:

• Afterward, present the necessary background information and context about the literary work. For instance, 
• Talk about the author of the work or when and where it was written. 
• Give an overview of the work or why it is significant. 
• Provide readers with sufficient context so they can know what the work is generally about.
• Finally, end the introduction with a clear thesis statement . Your thesis statement should be a concise statement that clearly states the argument you will be making in your essay. It should be specific and debatable, and it should provide a roadmap for the rest of your essay.

For example, a thesis statement for an essay on "Hamlet" might be: 

Watch this video to learn more about writing an introduction for a literary analysis essay:

Writing the Body 

Here are the steps to follow when writing a body paragraph for a literary analysis essay:

• Start with a topic sentence: 

The topic sentence should introduce the main point or argument you will be making in the paragraph. It should be clear and concise and should indicate what the paragraph is about.

• Provide evidence: 

After you have introduced your main point, provide evidence from the text to support your analysis. This could include quotes, paraphrases, or summaries of the text.

• Explain and discuss the evidence:

Explain how the evidence supports your main point or argument or how it connects back to your thesis statement.

• Conclude the paragraph: 

End the paragraph by relating your main point to the thesis and discussing its significance. You should also use transitions to connect the paragraph to your next point or argument.

Writing the Conclusion 

The conclusion of a literary analysis essay provides closure to your analysis and reinforces your thesis statement. Here's what a conclusion includes:

• Restate your thesis statement: 

Start by restating your thesis statement in a slightly different way than in your introduction. This will remind the reader of the argument you made and the evidence you provided to support it.

• Summarize your main points: 

Briefly summarize the main points you made in your essay's body paragraphs. This will help tie everything together and provide closure to your analysis.

• Personal reflections:

The conclusion is the best place to provide some personal reflections on the literary piece. You can also explain connections between your analysis and the larger context. This could include connections to other literary works, your personal life, historical events, or contemporary issues.

• End with a strong statement: 

End your conclusion with a strong statement that leaves a lasting impression on the reader. This could be a thought-provoking question, a call to action, or a final insight into the significance of your analysis.

Finalizing your Essay

You've completed the first draft of your literary analysis essay. Congratulations!

However, it's not over just yet. You need some time to polish and improve the essay before it can be submitted. Here's what you need to do:

Proofread and Revise your Essay 

After completing your draft, you should proofread your essay. You should look out for the following aspects:

• Check for clarity: 

Make sure that your ideas are expressed clearly and logically. You should also take a look at your structure and organization. Rearrange your arguments if necessary to make them clearer.

• Check for grammar and spelling errors: 

Use spelling and grammar check tools online to identify and correct any basic errors in your essay. 

• Verify factual information:

You must have included information about the work or from within the work in your essay. Recheck and verify that it is correct and verifiable. 

• Check your formatting: 

Make sure that your essay is properly formatted according to the guidelines provided by your instructor. This includes requirements for font size, margins, spacing, and citation style.

Helpful Tips for Revising a Literary Essay 

Here are some tips below that can help you proofread and revise your essay better:

• Read your essay out loud:

Reading your essay out loud makes it easier to identify awkward phrasing, repetitive language, and other issues.

• Take a break: 

It can be helpful to step away from your essay for a little while before starting the editing process. This can help you approach your essay with fresh eyes and a clearer perspective.

• Be concise:

Remove any unnecessary words or phrases that do not add to your argument. This can help to make your essay more focused and effective.

• Let someone else proofread and get feedback: 

You could ask a friend or a teacher to read your essay and provide feedback. This way, you can get some valuable insights on what you could include or catch mistakes that you might have missed.

Literary Analysis Essay Examples 

Reading a few good examples helps to understand literary analysis essays better. So check out these examples below and read them to see what a well-written essay looks like. 

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay Example

Sample Literary Analysis Essay

Lord of the Rings Literary Analysis

The Great Gatsby Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis Example for 8th Grade

Literary Analysis Essay Topics 

Need a topic for your literary analysis essay? You can pick any aspect of any work of literature you like. Here are some example topics that will help you get inspired:

• The use of symbolism in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
• The theme of isolation in "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.
• The portrayal of social class in "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen.
• The use of magical realism in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
• The role of women in "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood.
• The use of foreshadowing in "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding.
• The portrayal of race and identity in "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison.
• The use of imagery in "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
• The theme of forgiveness in "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.
• The use of allegory in "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.

To conclude,

Writing a literary analysis essay can be a rewarding experience for any student or writer, But it's not easy. However, by following the steps you learned in this guide, you can successfully produce a well-written literary analysis essay. 

Also, you have got some examples of essays to read and topic ideas to get creative inspiration. With these resources, you have all you need to craft an engaging piece. So don't hesitate to start writing your essay and come back to this blog whenever you need.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 4 components of literary analysis.

The four main components of literary analysis are: 

• Conflict 
• Characters 
• Setting 

What is the fundamental characteristic of a literary analysis essay?

Interpretive is the fundamental characteristic of a literary analysis essay. 

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A Summary and Analysis of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813, is Jane Austen’s best-known and probably most widely studied novel. But what does the novel mean? What is it really all about? And where did that title, Pride and Prejudice , come from?

Before we attempt to answer some of these questions, it might be worth recapping the plot of Austen’s novel. So, before our analysis of Pride and Prejudice , here’s a brief plot summary.

Pride and Prejudice : plot summary

A wealthy man named Mr Bingley moves to the area, and Mrs Bennet – mother of five daughters – tells her husband to call on the eligible young bachelor. A match between Bingley and the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, is soon in the works – but a match between another rich bachelor, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, and the second-eldest Bennet daughter, Elizabeth, looks less likely.

This is because Mr Darcy’s pride – his haughty attitude towards Elizabeth Bennet and her family – sour her view towards him, while Elizabeth’s prejudice towards Mr Darcy is also a stumbling-block. After he acts in an arrogant and disdainful way towards her at a ball, she learns from a young soldier, Mr George Wickham, that Darcy apparently mistreated him.

Wickham is the son of a man who used to be Darcy’s steward or servant, and Darcy acted unkindly towards the young George. Darcy’s and Bingley’s sisters conspire to drive a wedge between Mr Bingley and Jane Bennet because they believe Bingley can find a wife from a better social station than the Bennets.

Meanwhile, Darcy also has an arrogant aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who acts as patroness to a clergyman named Mr Collins, who in turn flatters her with disgusting servility. (Mr Collins is also Mr Bennet’s nephew: since Mr and Mrs Bennet have no sons, Mr Bennet’s estate is due to pass to Mr Collins when Mr Bennet dies.)

Mr Collins is encouraged to ask one of the Bennet sisters for her hand in marriage, and he decides upon Elizabeth. She, however, turns him down, and he marries Charlotte Lucas instead.

The happy couple get together, and Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, but it’s clear he still views her and her family with some contempt because he is of a higher social status than they are. She responds by citing George Wickham’s accusations against him; she also thinks he played a part in breaking up the match between her sister, Jane, and Bingley.

However, in a later letter to her, Darcy reveals that Wickham cannot be trusted: he is a womaniser and a liar. Elizabeth visits Darcy’s home, Pemberley, while visiting the north of England with her aunt and uncle. Darcy welcomes them and introduces them to his sister.

Darcy’s words about Wickham are proved true, as the soldier elopes with Lydia, the youngest of the five Bennet sisters. Darcy tracks the two lovebirds down and persuades them to marry so Lydia is made an honest woman of. Bingley and Jane finally get engaged, and Darcy and Elizabeth overcome their ‘pride and prejudice’ and become a couple.

Pride and Prejudice : analysis

In his vast study of plot structures, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , Christopher Booker suggests that Pride and Prejudice is more straightforwardly in the ‘comedy’ genre than it may first appear to be. He points out that much of the novel turns on misunderstandings, characters misreading others’ intentions or others’ personalities, and people generally getting things wrong: the Bennets think Mr Wickham is the wronged one and Darcy the villain, but it turns out that they have this the wrong way around.

So what used to be more explicit in, say, stage comedies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – indeed, going right back to Shakespeare – is made more subtle and internalised in Austen’s novel, and rather than having her characters literally confuse one person with another (because of some absurd coincidence, wearing similar clothing, and so on), her characters find they have misread a person’s motive or misjudged their honesty, as with Mr Wickham.

This is why the title of the novel is so important: Darcy and Elizabeth’s union at the end of the novel strikes us as true because they have had to overcome their own personal flaws, which prevent a union between them, but having done so they have an honest and realistic appraisal of each other’s personality. They have, if you like, ‘seen’ each other.

We might contrast this with the various illusions and misapprehensions in the novel, or the other motivations driving people together (Mr Collins trying to woo Elizabeth simply because she’s the next Bennet sister in the list).

Is  Pride and Prejudice  a late Augustan work or a novel belonging to Romanticism? Romanticism was largely a reaction against Augustan values: order, rationalism, and the intellect were tempered if not wholly replaced by the Romantic values of freedom, emotion, and individualism.

But whether we should regard  Pride and Prejudice  as Augustan or Romantic is a question that divides critics. Terry Eagleton, in The English Novel: An Introduction , points out that Austen was not somebody who trusted wholly in the supremacy of reason, not least because her beliefs – what Eagleton calls her Tory Christian pessimism, which made her alert to the flawed nature of all human beings – would not allow her to be so. Austen is aware that human beings are imperfect and, at times, irrational.

And in this connection, it is worth pondering what Andrew H. Wright observes in Jane Austen’s Novels, a Study in Structure : that the reason Elizabeth Bennet, rather than Jane, is the real heroine of  Pride and Prejudice  is that Jane is not flawed enough. She is too perfect: something that would make her the ideal heroine for most novels, but the very reason she cannot be the protagonist of a Jane Austen novel.

Austen is too interested in the intricate and complex mixture of good and bad, as Wright points out: Austen likes the explore the flaws and foibles of her characters. Elizabeth, in being taken in by Wickham and his lies and in misjudging (or at least partly misjudging) Darcy, is flawed because both her pride  and  prejudice need tempering with a more nuanced understanding of the man she will marry.

The opening line of Pride and Prejudice is arguably the most famous opening line of any novel: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ But what is less widely known is that the tone of this opening line is clearly ironic.

Far from being Austen the detached, impartial narrator, this is actually Austen ventriloquising her characters’ thoughts – specifically, those of Mrs Bennet, whose views in the novel are often derided by Austen’s narrator – using a narrative technique which Austen did so much to pioneer.

This technique is known as free indirect speech , and it is what makes Austen’s prose so full of wit and surprise, so we always have to keep an ear out for her narrators’ arch commentary on the characters and situations being described. (The clue in this opening line is in the phrase ‘universally acknowledged’, since how many things in life really are truly universally acknowledged?)

Pride and Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions , but that eventual title, Pride and Prejudice , was a cliché even when Austen used it for her novel. The phrase is found in two important works of the 1770s, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire .

But the most important precursor to Austen’s novel by a long way is Fanny Burney’s 1782 novel Cecilia , in which that phrase, ‘pride and prejudice’, appears three times in rapid succession, with the words ‘pride’ and ‘prejudice’ capitalised: ‘The whole of this unfortunate business, said Dr Lyster, has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. […] if to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you will also owe their termination.’

Austen learned a great deal from Burney, and refined the comedy of manners which Burney had helped to pioneer several decades earlier.

Pride and Prejudice is, in the last analysis, one of the great comedies in the English language, because in its construction it takes the hallmarks of romantic comedy and refines them, making subtle and abstract what was literal and physical in earlier stage comedies.

It is also a novel about how true love needs to be founded on empirical fact: we need to know the person we’re marrying, to see them with our own eyes, rather than rely on others’ opinion or let ourselves be blinded by romantic notions and delusions.

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1 thought on “A Summary and Analysis of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice”

It’s a brilliant romantic novel, but, yes, it’s a comedy as well. Mr Collins, Lady Catherine de Bourgh and even Mrs Bennet verge on the pantomimish sometimes, and Miss Bingley is so bitchy that she’d have fitted very well into Dallas or Dynasty :-) .

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AP® English Literature

The ultimate guide to “jane eyre” for the ap® english literature free response questions.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: March 1, 2022

The 2017 AP® English Literature Free Response Questions focus on varying themes and are each structured differently. Here we discuss the third FRQ prompt which allows you to choose a particular work of literature as the focus of your essay.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is a well-known classic novel. Herein we will discuss how to determine if the given prompt is appropriate for this particular literary work and give you an idea of what to review before your exam.

Jane Eyre AP® English Lit Essay Themes

To choose a literary work to answer your prompt, it’s important to examine the themes which are outlined in the assigned essay. If the theme is not relevant or well established in a work, you will do well to choose another title to examine. The following are the main themes which you may discuss in your Jane Eyre AP® English Lit Essay.

Love Vs Personal Freedom is a major theme in this novel. Jane struggles with the pursuit of meaningful relationships. She wants desperately to be loved, but not at the expense of her own values or sense of self-worth.

Religion is another prevalent theme in the story. Jane tries to find a balance between the religion she sees and her own ideas of morality. Eventually, she rejects the concrete idea of religion via the church but remains spiritually connected to God. She decides that she doesn’t need a structured religion to live a good life as a Christian.

Social Class is the third central theme in the book. Jane is a victim of Victorian England’s social class system. Because she was raised by the aristocratic caste, she feels uncomfortable in her role as a servant. It’s an internal struggle which she has to deal with causing her to speak out against the system, and it’s treatment of people.

How to use Jane Eyre for the 2017 AP® English Literature Free Response Questions

Jane Eyre is a well-known literary work, with which you should be familiar. It may well be a viable choice for the AP® English Lit free response question. However, that is dependent on the question. Each year the 3rd FRQ is different, and the CollegeBoard supplies a list of suggested books to reference for your essay. The absence of a book from the list does not disqualify it from use, that being said; it’s important to know how to choose which book to use for the given analysis.

In preparation for your exam, it’s a good idea to read previous years’ free response questions posted on CollegeBoard. The following review is for the 2016 FRQ prompt.

2016 FRQ 3: Many works of literature contain a character who intentionally deceives others. The character’s dishonesty may be intended to either help or hurt. Such a character, for example, may choose to mislead others for personal safety, to spare someone’s feelings, or to carry out a crime.

Choose a novel or play in which a character deceives others. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the motives for that character’s deception and discuss how the deception contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

Jane Eyre is on the suggested list for this prompt for obvious reasons. The theme of deception is represented by various characters in the story. The most prominent one is Edward Rochester, who lies to hide his insane wife in his attic. A possible thesis is as follows.

In Jane Eyre , Edward Rochester lives a life based on deceit. He pursues his own type of happiness by hiding his wife, lying, and working to please only himself. However, this life of deception and selfishness is unacceptable to Jane, causing a conflict central to the story.

To support this thesis, you may point out that Rochester tried to justify his wrongdoings to Jane and seemed to have even bought into his own deceit, as seen in the following quotes.

“Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre: one of the better end; and you see I am not so. […] Then take my word for it,—I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that—not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite common-place sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life.” (1.14.61)

“Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I will get it, cost what it may.” (1.14.63-65)

However, Jane does not entirely buy into his explanations and argues that he would sully her if she allowed him to marry her, despite his ongoing marriage.

“And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?”

“I’ll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to them that are enslaved—your harem inmates amongst the rest. I’ll get admitted there, and I’ll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred.” (2.9.129-132)

To examine another possible use for Jane Eyre on your 2017 English Lit Exam we will take a look at another prompt.

2015 FRQ 3 : In literary works, cruelty often functions as a crucial motivation or a major social or political factor. Select a novel, play, or epic poem in which acts of cruelty are important to the theme. Then write a well-developed essay analyzing how cruelty functions in the work as a whole and what the cruelty reveals about the perpetrator and/or victim.

Although Jane Eyre is not on the suggested list for this particular prompt, you can still write a well-thought out essay for the nove l . Cruelty is an underlying theme throughout the story. A possible thesis is as follows. In Jane Eyre, the subject of cruelty manifests in both physical and psychological means of individuals and society. This abhorrent behavior shapes the character of Jane Eyre throughout her life, coloring the way she interacts with the world. The isolation and ostracization she experiences, early in her life, are the driving force behind her need to feel loved and accepted, later in the story.

To elaborate on this thesis and explain what it reveals about the perpetrator and/or victim, you will need to choose your examples and expand upon them. In the following quote, Jane is reminded, yet again, of her own poverty and told that she should be thankful for what little she has.

“ You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor-house.”’ You ought to be  aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor-house.’

I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear; very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.” (1.2.14-16)

In the next excerpt, Jane describes the way she was exiled even in a home filled with other children. She describes herself as something that does not fit with the household norm.

“ I was a discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathize with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scape-goat of the nursery.” (1.2.30)

Thanks to her upbringing, and the way she was looked down on for having no money, Jane has a fear of poverty.

“Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the world only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.” (1.3.63)

In the next passage, Jane explains how her isolation caused her to view school as a welcome change.

“I scarcely knew what school was; Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise; John Reed hated his school, and abused his master: but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie’s accounts of school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.” (1.3.70)

In the following quotation, you will notice that Jane’s previous experiences with unjust cruelty made her unaccepting of the idea that one should be kind in response to cruelty.

“If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again. […] I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.” (1.6.50, 52)

The experiences which Jane underwent in her childhood caused her to see her situation at Lowood in a different fashion than those people who may have come from a happy home. “Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation: that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace: as it was I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.” (1.6.14)

In the next excerpt, Jane explains that her need for approval and love supersedes her want to be morally just.

“’If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.’

No: I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don’t love me, I would rather die than live—I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen.’” (1.8.11-12)

The following passage illustrates how important a sense of family was to Jane, owing to her lack of family and love, during her childhood.

“‘ And you,’ I interrupted, ‘cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?’” (3.7.127)

In conclusion, Jane Eyre has many themes you may find helpful for the last Free Response Question on the AP® English Literature Exam. When reading the prompt and deciding on what literary work to use for your essay, remember to choose a subject where the theme outlined in the given instructions is prevalent.

In the case of Jane Eyre, love vs. personal freedom, religion, and social classes are a few of the more prominent themes discussed. However, as we saw with the 2016 prompt example, this story has many underlying themes which you may examine for your Jane Eyre AP® English Lit Essay.

For more help preparing for your AP® English Literature exam we suggest you read The Ultimate Guide to 2015 AP® English Literature FRQs . And, for writing advice for the AP® English Lit free response questions, Albert.io’s AP® English Literature section has practice free response sections with sample answers and rubrics.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Jane Austen’s Novels

Analysis of Jane Austen’s Novels

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on March 31, 2019 • ( 0 )

Jane Austen’s (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) novels—her “bits of ivory,” as she modestly and perhaps half-playfully termed them—are unrivaled for their success in combining two sorts of excellence that all too seldom coexist. Meticulously conscious of her artistry (as, for example, is Henry James), Austen is also unremittingly attentive to the realities of ordinary human existence (as is, among others, Anthony Trollope). From the first, her works unite subtlety and common sense, good humor and acute moral judgment, charm and conciseness, deftly marshaled incident and carefully rounded character.

Austen’s detractors have spoken of her as a “limited” novelist, one who, writing in an age of great men and important events, portrays small towns and petty concerns, who knows (or reveals) nothing of masculine occupations and ideas, and who reduces the range of feminine thought and deed to matrimonial scheming and social pleasantry. Though one merit of the first-rate novelist is the way his or her talent transmutes all it touches and thereby creates a distinctive and consistent world, it is true that the settings, characters, events, and ideas of Austen’s novels are more than usually homogeneous. Her tales, like her own life, are set in country villages and at rural seats from which the denizens venture forth to watering places or to London. True, her characters tend to be members of her own order, that prosperous and courteous segment of the middle class called the gentry. Unlike her novel-writing peers, Austen introduces few aristocrats into the pages of her novels, and the lower ranks, though glimpsed from time to time, are never brought forward. The happenings of her novels would not have been newsworthy in her day. She depicts society at leisure rather than on the march, and in portraying pleasures her literary preference is modest: Architectural improvement involves the remodeling of a parsonage rather than the construction of Carlton House Terrace and Regent’s Park; a ball is a gathering of country neighbors dancing to a harpsichord, not a crush at Almack’s or the duchess of Richmond’s glittering fete on the eve of Waterloo.

In focusing on the manners and morals of rural middle-class English life, particularly on the ordering dance of matrimony that gives shape to society and situation to young ladies, Austen emphasizes rather than evades reality. The microcosm she depicts is convincing because she understands, though seldom explicitly assesses, its connections to the larger order. Her characters have clear social positions but are not just social types; the genius of such comic creations as Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Woodhouse, and Miss Bates is that each is a sparkling refinement on a quality or set of qualities existing at all times and on all levels. A proof of Austen’s power (no one questions her polish) is that she succeeds in making whole communities live in the reader’s imagination with little recourse to the stock device of the mere novelist of manners: descriptive detail. If a sparely drawn likeness is to convince, every line must count. The artist must understand what is omitted as well as what is supplied.

The six novels that constitute the Austen canon did not evolve in a straightforward way. Austen was, memoirs relate, as mistrustful of her judgment as she was rapid in her composition. In the case of Pride and Prejudice, for example, readers can be grateful that when the Reverend George Austen’s letter offering the book’s first incarnation, titled “First Impressions” (1797), to a publisher met with a negative reply, she was content to put the book aside for more than a decade. Sense and Sensibility was likewise a revision of a much earlier work. If Austen was notably nonchalant about the process of getting her literary progeny into print, one publisher with whom she had dealings was yet more dilatory. In 1803, Austen had completed Northanger Abbey (then titled “Susan”) and, through her brother Henry’s agency, had sold it to Crosby and Sons for ten pounds. Having acquired the manuscript, the publisher did not think fit to make use of it, and in December, 1816, Henry Austen repurchased the novel. He made known the author’s identity, so family tradition has it, only after closing the deal. For these various reasons, the chronology of Austen’s novels can be set in different ways; here they are discussed in order of their dates of publication.

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility , Austen’s first published novel, evolved from “Elinor and Marianne,” an epistolary work completed between 1795 and 1797. The novel is generally considered her weakest, largely because, as Walton Litz convincingly argues, it strives but fails to resolve “that struggle between inherited form and fresh experience which so often marks the transitional works of a great artist.” The “inherited form” of which Litz speaks is the eighteenth century antithetical pattern suggested in the novel’s title. According to this formula, opposing qualities of temperament or mind are presented in characters (generally female, often sisters) who, despite their great differences, are sincerely attached to one another.

In Sense and Sensibility , the antithetical characters are Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, the respective embodiments of cool, collected sense and prodigal, exquisite sensibility. In the company of their mother and younger sister, these lovely young ladies have, on the death of their father and the succession to his estate of their half brother, retired in very modest circumstances to a small house in Devonshire. There the imprudent Marianne meets and melts for Willoughby, a fashionable gentleman as charming as he is unscrupulous. Having engaged the rash girl’s affections, Willoughby proceeds to trifle with them by bolting for London. When chance once again brings the Dashwood sisters into Willoughby’s circle, his manner toward Marianne is greatly altered. On hearing of his engagement to an heiress, the representative of sensibility swoons, weeps, and exhibits her grief to the utmost.

Critical Analysis of Sense and Sensibility

Meanwhile, the reasonable Elinor has been equally unlucky in love, though she bears her disappointment quite differently. Before the family’s move to Devonshire, Elinor had met and come to cherish fond feelings for her sister-in-law’s brother, Edward Ferrars, a rather tame fellow (at least in comparison with Willoughby) who returns her regard—but with a measure of unease. It soon becomes known that Ferrars’s reluctance to press his suit with Elinor stems from an early and injudicious secret engagement he had contracted with shrewd, base Lucy Steele. Elinor high-mindedly conceals her knowledge of the engagement and her feelings on the matter. Mrs. Ferrars, however, is a lady of less impressive self-control; she furiously disinherits her elder son in favor of his younger brother, whom Lucy then proceeds to ensnare. Thus Edward, free and provided with a small church living that will suffice to support a sensible sort of wife, can marry Elinor. Marianne— perhaps because she has finally exhausted her fancies and discovered her latent reason, perhaps because her creator is determined to punish the sensibility that throughout the novel has been so much more attractive than Elinor’s prudence—is also provided with a husband: the rich Colonel Brandon, who has long loved her but whom, on account of his flannel waistcoats and his advanced age of five-and-thirty, she has heretofore reckoned beyond the pale.

The great flaw of Sense and Sensibility is that the polarities presented in the persons of Elinor and Marianne are too genuinely antithetical to be plausible or dynamic portraits of human beings. Elinor has strong feelings, securely managed though they may be, and Marianne has some rational powers to supplement her overactive imagination and emotions, but the young ladies do not often show themselves to be more than mere embodiments of sense and sensibility. In her second published novel, Pride and Prejudice , Austen makes defter use of two sisters whose values are the same but whose minds and hearts function differently. This book, a complete revision of “First Impressions,” the youthful effort that had, in 1797, been offered to and summarily rejected by the publisher Cadell, is, as numerous critics have observed, a paragon of “classic” literature in which the conventions and traditions of the eighteenth century novel come to full flowering yet are freshened and transformed by Austen’s distinctive genius.

Pride and Prejudice

The title Pride and Prejudice , with its balanced alliterative abstractions, might suggest a second experiment in schematic psychology, and indeed the book does show some resemblances to Sense and Sensibility. Here again the reader encounters a pair of sisters, the elder (Jane Bennet) serene, the younger (Elizabeth) volatile. Unlike the Dashwoods, however, these ladies both demonstrate deep feelings and perceptive minds. The qualities alluded to in the title refer not to a contrast between sisters but to double defects shared by Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a wealthy and well-born young man she meets when his easygoing friend Charles Bingley leases Netherfield, the estate next to the Bennets’ Longbourn. If so rich and vital a comic masterpiece could be reduced to a formula, it might be appropriate to say that the main thread of Pride and Prejudice involves the twin correction of these faults. As Darcy learns to moderate his tradition-based view of society and to recognize individual excellence (such as Elizabeth’s, Jane’s, and their Aunt and Uncle Gardiner’s) in ranks below his own, Elizabeth becomes less dogmatic in her judgments and, in particular, more aware of the real merits of Darcy, whom she initially dismisses as a haughty, unfeeling aristocrat.

The growing accord of Elizabeth and Darcy is one of the most perfectly satisfying courtships in English literature. Their persons, minds, tastes, and even phrases convince the reader that they are two people truly made for each other; their union confers fitness on the world around them. Lionel Trilling has observed that, because of this principal match, Pride and Prejudice “permits us to conceive of morality as style.” Elizabeth and Darcy’s slow-growing love may be Pride and Prejudice ’s ideal alliance, but it is far from being the only one, and a host of finely drawn characters surround the heroine and hero. In Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley, whose early mutual attraction is temporarily suspended by Darcy and the Bingley sisters (who deplore, not without some cause, the vulgarity of the amiable Jane’s family), Austen presents a less sparkling but eminently pleasing and well-matched pair.

William Collins, the half-pompous, half-obsequious, totally asinine cousin who, because of an entail, will inherit Longbourn and displace the Bennet females after Mr. Bennet’s demise, aspires to marry Elizabeth but, when rejected, instead gains the hand of her plain and practical friend Charlotte Lucas. Aware of her suitor’s absurdities, Charlotte is nevertheless alive to the advantages of the situation he can offer. Her calculated decision to marry gives a graver ring to the irony of the novel’s famous opening sentence: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

The last of the matches made in Pride and Prejudice is yet more precariously based. A lively, charming, and amoral young officer, George Wickham, son of the former steward of Pemberley, Darcy’s estate, and source of many of Elizabeth’s prejudices against that scrupulous gentleman, first fascinates Elizabeth and then elopes with her youngest sister, the mindless, frivolous Lydia. Only through Darcy’s personal and financial intervention is Wickham persuaded to marry the ill-bred girl, who never properly understands her disgrace—a folly she shares with her mother. Mrs. Bennet, a woman deficient in good humor and good sense, is—along with her cynical, capricious husband, the ponderous Collins, and the tyrannical Lady Catherine De Bourgh—one of the great comic creations of literature. Most of these characters could have seemed odious if sketched by another pen, but so brilliant is the sunny intelligence playing over the world of Pride and Prejudice that even fools are golden.

Critical Analysis of Pride and Prejudice

Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park , begun in 1811 and finished in 1813, is the first of Austen’s novels to be a complete product of her maturity. The longest, most didactic, and least ironic of her books, it is the one critics generally have the most trouble reconciling with their prevailing ideas of the author. Although Mansfield Park was composed more or less at one stretch, its conception coincided with the final revisions of Pride and Prejudice . Indeed, the critics who offer the most satisfying studies of Mansfield Park tend to see it not as a piece of authorial bad faith or selfsuppression, a temporary anomaly, but as what Walton Litz calls a “counter-truth” to its immediate predecessor.

Pleased with and proud of Pride and Prejudice , Austen nevertheless recorded her impression of its being “rather too light, and bright, and sparkling”—in need of shade. That darkness she found wanting is supplied in Mansfield Park , which offers, as Trilling observes in his well-known essay on the novel, the antithesis to Pride and Prejudice ’s generous, humorous, spirited social vision. Mansfield Park , Trilling argues, condemns rather than forgives: “Its praise is not for social freedom but for social stasis. It takes full notice of spiritedness, vivacity, celerity, and lightness, only to reject them as having nothing to do with virtue and happiness, as being, indeed, deterrents to the good life.”

Most of the action of Mansfield Park is set within the little world comprising the estate of that name, a country place resembling in large measure Godmersham, Edward Austen Knight’s estate in Kent; but for her heroine and some interludes in which she figures, Austen dips into a milieu she has not previously frequented in her novels—the socially and financially precarious lower fringe of the middle class. Fanny Price, a frail, serious, modest girl, is one of nine children belonging to and inadequately supported by a feckless officer of marines and his lazy, self-centered wife. Mrs. Price’s meddling sister, the widowed Mrs. Norris, arranges for Fanny to be reared in “poor relation” status at Mansfield Park, the seat of kindly but crusty Sir Thomas Bertram and his languid lady, the third of the sisters. At first awed by the splendor of her surroundings, the gruffness of the baronet, and the elegance, vigor, and high spirits of the young Bertrams—Tom, Edmund, Maria, and Julia— Fanny eventually wins a valued place in the household.

During Sir Thomas’s absence to visit his property in Antigua, evidence of Fanny’s moral fineness, and the various degrees in which her cousins fall short of her excellence, is presented through a device that proves to be one of Austen’s most brilliant triumphs of plotting. Visiting the rectory at Mansfield are the younger brother and sister of the rector’s wife, Henry and Mary Crawford, witty, worldly, and wealthy. At Mary’s proposal, amateur theatricals are introduced to Mansfield Park , and in the process of this diversion the moral pollution of London’s Great World begins to corrupt the bracing country air.

Just how the staging of a play—even though it be Lovers’ Vows, a sloppy piece of romantic bathos, adultery rendered sympathetic—can be morally reprehensible is a bit unclear for most modern-day readers, especially those who realize that the Austens themselves reveled in theatricals at home. The problem as Austen presents it lies in the possible consequences of roleplaying: coming to feel the emotions and attitudes one presents on the stage or, worse yet, expressing rather than suppressing genuine but socially unacceptable feelings in the guise of mere acting. In the course of the theatricals, where Fanny, who will not act, is relegated to the role of spectator and moral chorus, Maria Bertram, engaged to a bovine local heir, vies with her sister in striving to fascinate Henry Crawford, who in turn is all too ready to charm them. Mary Crawford, though it is “her way” to find eldest sons most agreeable, has the good taste to be attracted to Edmund, the second son, who plans to enter the clergy. Mary’s vivacity, as evidenced by the theatricals, easily wins his heart.

Time passes and poor Fanny, who since childhood has adored her cousin Edmund, unintentionally interests Henry Crawford. Determined to gain the affections of this rare young woman who is indifferent to his charms, Crawford ends by succumbing to hers. He proposes. Fanny’s unworldly refusal provokes the anger of her uncle. Then, while Fanny, still in disgrace with the baronet, is away from Mansfield Park and visiting her family at Portsmouth, the debacle of which Lovers’ Vows was a harbinger comes about. The homme fatal Henry, at a loss for a woman to make love to, trains his charms on his old flirt Maria, now Mrs. Rushworth. She runs away with him; her sister, not to be outdone in bad behavior, elopes with an unsatisfactory suitor. Mary Crawford’s moral coarseness becomes evident in her casual dismissal of these catastrophes. Edmund, now a clergyman, finds solace, then love, with the cousin whose sterling character shines brightly for him now that Mary’s glitter has tarnished. Fanny gains all she could hope for in at last attaining the heart and hand of her clerical kinsman.

Austen’s next novel, Emma, might be thought of as harmonizing the two voices heard in Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park . For this book, Austen claimed to be creating “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,” an “imaginist” whose circumstances and qualities of mind make her the self-crowned queen of her country neighborhood. Austen was not entirely serious or accurate: Emma certainly has her partisans. Even those readers who do not like her tend to find her fascinating, for she is a spirited, imaginative, healthy young woman who, like Mary Crawford, has potential to do considerable harm to the fabric of society but on whom, like Elizabeth Bennet, her creator generously bestows life’s greatest blessing: union with a man whose virtues, talents, and assets are the best complement for her own.

Emma’s eventual marriage to Mr. Knightley of Donwell Abbey is the ultimate expression of one of Austen’s key assumptions, that marriage is a young woman’s supreme act of self-definition. Unlike any other Austen heroine, Emma has no pressing need to marry. As the opening sentence of the book implies, Emma’s situation makes her acceptance or rejection of a suitor an act of unencumbered will: “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twentyone years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”

Free though circumstance allows her to be, Emma has not been encouraged by her lot in life to acquire the discipline and self-knowledge that, augmenting her innate intelligence and taste, would help her to choose wisely. Brought up by a doting valetudinarian of a father and a perceptive but permissive governess, Emma has been encouraged to think too highly of herself. Far from vain about her beauty, Emma has—as Mr. Knightley, the only person who ventures to criticize her, observes— complete yet unfounded faith in her ability to judge people’s characters and arrange their lives. The course of Emma is Miss Woodhouse’s education in judgment, a process achieved through repeated mistakes and humiliations.

As the novel opens, the young mistress of Hartfield is at loose ends. Her beloved governess has just married Mr. Weston, of the neighboring property, Randalls. To fill the newly made gap in her life, Emma takes notice of Harriet Smith, a pretty, dim “natural daughter of somebody,” and a parlor-boarder at the local school. Determined to settle her protégé into the sort of life she deems suitable, Emma detaches Harriet from Robert Martin, a young farmer who has proposed to her, and embarks on a campaign to conquer for Harriet the heart of Mr. Elton, Highbury’s unmarried clergyman. Elton’s attentiveness and excessive flattery convince Emma of her plan’s success but at the same time show the reader what Emma is aghast to learn at the end of book 1: that Elton scorns the nobody and has designs on the heiress herself.

With the arrival of three new personages in Highbury, book 2 widens Emma’s opportunities for misconception. The first newcomer is Jane Fairfax, an elegant and accomplished connection of the Bates family and a girl whose prospective fate, the “governess trade,” shows how unreliable the situations of well-bred young ladies without fortunes or husbands tend to be. Next to arrive is the suave Mr. Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston’s grown son, who has been adopted by wealthy relations of his mother and who has been long remiss in paying a visit to Highbury. Finally, Mr. Elton brings home a bride, the former Augusta Hawkins of Bristol, a pretentious and impertinent creature possessed of an independent fortune, a well-married sister, and a boundless fund of self-congratulation. Emma mistakenly flatters herself that the dashing Frank Churchill is in love with her and then settles on him as a husband for Harriet; she suspects the reserved Miss Fairfax, whose cultivation she rightly perceives as a reproach to her own untrained talents, of a clandestine relationship with a married man. She despises Mrs. Elton, as would any person of sense, but fails to see that the vulgar woman’s offensiveness is an exaggerated version of her own officiousness and snobbery.

Thus the potential consequences of Emma’s misplaced faith in her judgment intensify, and the evidence of her fallibility mounts. Thoroughly embarrassed to learn that Frank Churchill, with whom she has shared all her hypotheses regarding Jane Fairfax, has long been secretly engaged to that woman, Emma suffers the deathblow to her smug self-esteem when Harriet announces that the gentleman whose feelings she hopes to have aroused is not, as Emma supposes, Churchill but the squire of Donwell. Emma’s moment of truth is devastating and complete, its importance marked by one of Jane Austen’s rare uses of figurative language: “It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!” Perhaps the greatest evidence of Emma’s being a favorite of fortune is that Mr. Knightley feels the same as she does on this matter. Chastened by her series of bad judgments, paired with a gentleman who for years has loved and respected her enough to correct her and whom she can love and respect in return, Emma participates in the minuet of marriage with which Austen concludes the book, the other couples so united being Miss Fairfax and Mr. Churchill and Harriet Smith (ductile enough to form four attachments in a year) and Robert Martin (stalwart enough to persist in his original feeling).

Emma Woodhouse’s gradual education, which parallels the reader’s growing awareness of what a menace to the social order her circumstances, abilities, and weaknesses combine to make her, is one of Austen’s finest pieces of plotting. The depiction of character is likewise superb. Among a gallery of memorable and distinctive characters are Mr. Woodhouse; Miss Bates, the streamof- consciousness talker who inadvertently provokes Emma’s famous rudeness on Box Hill; and the wonderfully detestable Mrs. Elton, with her self-contradictions and her fractured Italian, her endless allusions to Selina, Mr. Suckling, Maple Grove, and the barouche landau. Life at Hartfield, Donwell, and Highbury is portrayed with complexity and economy. Every word, expression, opinion, and activity—whether sketching a portrait, selecting a dancing partner, or planning a strawberrypicking party—becomes a gesture of self-revelation. Emma demonstrates how, in Austen’s hands, the novel of manners can become a statement of moral philosophy.

Critical Analysis of Jane Austen’s Emma

Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey was published in a four-volume unit with Persuasion in 1818, after Austen’s death, but the manuscript had been completed much earlier, in 1803. Austen wrote a preface for Northanger Abbey but did not do the sort of revising that had transformed “Elinor and Marianne” and “First Impressions” into Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice . The published form of Northanger Abbey can therefore be seen as the earliest of the six novels. It is also, with the possible exception of Sense and Sensibility , the most “literary.” Northanger Abbey , like some of Austen’s juvenile burlesques, confronts the conventions of the gothic novel or tale of terror. The incidents of her novel have been shown to parallel, with ironic difference, the principal lines of gothic romance, particularly as practiced by Ann Radcliffe, whose most famous works, The Romance of the Forest (1791) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), had appeared several years before Austen began work on her burlesque.

Like Emma, Northanger Abbey is centrally concerned with tracing the growth of a young woman’s mind and the cultivation of her judgment. In this less sophisticated work, however, the author accomplishes her goal through a rather schematic contrast. As an enthusiastic reader of tales of terror, Catherine Morland has gothic expectations of life despite a background most unsuitable for a heroine. Like the gothic heroines she admires, Catherine commences adventuring early in the novel. She is not, however, shipped to Venice or Dalmatia; rather, she is taken to Bath for a six-week stay. Her hosts are serenely amiable English folk, her pastimes the ordinary round of spa pleasures; the young man whose acquaintance she makes, Henry Tilney, is a witty clergyman rather than a misanthropic monk or dissolute rake. Toward this delightful, if far from gothic, young man, Catherine’s feelings are early inclined. In turn, he, his sister, and even his father, the haughty, imperious General Tilney, are favorably disposed toward her. With the highest expectations, Catherine sets out to accompany them to their seat, the Abbey of the novel’s title (which, like that of Persuasion, was selected not by the author but by Henry Austen, who handled the posthumous publication).

At Northanger, Catherine’s education in the difference between literature and life continues. Despite its monastic origins, the Abbey proves a comfortable and well-maintained dwelling. When Catherine, like one of Radcliffe’s protagonists, finds a mysterious document in a chest and spends a restless night wondering what lurid tale it might chronicle, she is again disappointed: “If the evidence of her sight might be trusted she held a washing- bill in her hand.” Although Catherine’s experience does not confirm the truth of Radcliffe’s sensational horrors, it does not prove the world a straightforward, safe, cozy place. Catherine has already seen something of falseness and selfish vulgarity in the persons of Isabella Thorpe and her brother John, acquaintances formed at Bath. At Northanger, she learns that, though the general may not be the wife murderer she has fancied him, he is quite as cruel as she could imagine. On learning that Catherine is not the great heiress he has mistakenly supposed her to be, the furious general packs her off in disgrace and discomfort in a public coach.

With this proof that the world of fact can be as treacherous as that of fiction, Catherine returns, sadder and wiser, to the bosom of her family. She has not long to droop, however, for Henry Tilney, on hearing of his father’s bad behavior, hurries after her and makes Catherine the proposal that he has long felt inclined to offer and that his father has until recently promoted. The approval of Catherine’s parents is immediate, and the general is not overlong in coming to countenance the match. “To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well,” observes the facetious narrator, striking a literary pose even in the novel’s last sentence, “and . . . I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.”

Persuasion , many readers believe, signals Austen’s literary move out of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. This novel, quite different from those that preceded it, draws not on the tradition of the novelists of the 1790’s but on that of the lionized poets of the new century’s second decade, Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. For the first time, Austen clearly seems the child of her time, susceptible to the charms of natural rather than improved landscapes, fields, and sea cliffs rather than gardens and shrubberies. The wistful, melancholy beauty of autumn that pervades the book is likewise romantic. The gaiety, vitality, and sparkling wit of Pride and Prejudice and Emma are muted. The stable social order represented by the great estate in Mansfield Park has become fluid in Persuasion : Here the principal country house, Kellynch Hall, must be let because the indigenous family cannot afford to inhabit it.

Most important, Persuasion ’s heroine is unique in Jane Austen’s gallery. Anne Elliott, uprooted from her ancestral home, spiritually isolated from her selfish and small-minded father and sisters, separated from the man she loves by a long-standing estrangement, is every bit as “alienated” as such later nineteenth century heroines as Esther Summerson, Jane Eyre, and Becky Sharp. Anne’s story is very much the product of Austen’s middle age. At twenty-seven, Anne is the only Austen heroine to be past her first youth. Furthermore, she is in no need of education. Her one great mistake—overriding the impulse of her heart and yielding to the persuasion of her friend Lady Russell in rejecting the proposal of Frederick Wentworth, a sanguine young naval officer with his fortune still to make and his character to prove—is some eight years in the past, and she clearly recognizes it for the error it was.

Persuasion is the story of how Anne and Frederick (now the eminent Captain) Wentworth rekindle the embers of their love. Chance throws them together when the vain, foolish Sir Walter Elliott, obliged to economize or rent his estate, resolves to move his household to Bath, where he can cut a fine figure at less cost, and leases Kellynch to Admiral and Mrs. Croft, who turn out to be the brother-in-law and sister of Captain Wentworth. Initially cool to his former love—or, rather, able to see the diminution of her beauty because he is unable to forgive her rejection—the captain flirts with the Musgrove girls; they are sisters to the husband of Anne’s younger sister Mary and blooming belles with the youth and vigor Anne lacks. The captain’s old appreciation of Anne’s merits—her clear insight, kindness, high-mindedness, and modesty—soon reasserts itself, but not before fate and the captain’s impetuosity have all but forced another engagement on him. Being “jumped down” from the Cobb at Lyme Regis, Louisa Musgrove misses his arms and falls unconscious on the pavement. Obliged by honor to declare himself hers if she should wish it, Wentworth is finally spared this self-sacrifice when the susceptible young lady and the sensitive Captain Benwick fall in love. Having discovered the intensity of his devotion to Anne by being on the point of having to abjure it, Wentworth hurries to Bath, there to declare his attachment in what is surely the most powerful engagement scene in the Austen canon.

Though the story of Persuasion belongs to Anne Elliott and Frederick Wentworth, Austen’s skill at evoking characters is everywhere noticeable. As Elizabeth Jenkins observes, all of the supporting characters present different facets of the love theme. The heartless marital calculations of Mr. Elliott, Elizabeth Elliott, and Mrs. Clay, the domestic comforts of the senior Musgroves and the Crofts, and the half-fractious, half-amiable ménage of Charles and Mary Musgrove all permit the reader to discern more clearly how rare and true is the love Anne Elliott and her captain have come so close to losing. The mature, deeply grateful commitment they are able to make to each other is, if not the most charming, surely the most profound in the Austen world.

Major works Short fiction: MinorWorks, 1954 (volume 6 of the Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen;R.W. Chapman, editor). Nonfiction: Jane Austen’s Letters to Her Sister Cassandra and Others, 1932 (R. W. Chapman, editor). Children’s literature: The History of England, wr. 1791 (published with Charles Dickens’s A Child’s History of England as Two Histories of England, 2006); Catherine, 1818; Lesley Castle, 1922; Three Sisters, 1933. Miscellaneous: Love and Freindship, and Other Early Works, 1922.

Bibliography Austen, Jane. Jane Austen’s Letters to Her Sister Cassandra and Others. Edited by R. W. Chapman. 2 vols. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1932. Brown, Julie Prewit. Jane Austen’s Novels. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. Copeland, Edward, and Juliet McMaster, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Galperin, William H. The Historical Austen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Halperin, John. The Life of Jane Austen. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. Lambdin, Laura Cooner, and Robert Thomas Lambdin, eds. A Companion to Jane Austen Studies. New York: Greenwood Press, 2000. Lane, Maggie. Jane Austen’s England. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: A Family Record. London: British Library, 1989. Lynch, Deidre, ed. Janeites: Austen’s Disciples and Devotees. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. Mooneyham, Laura G. Romance, Language, and Education in Jane Austen’s Novels. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Nokes, David. Jane Austen: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. Selwyn, David. Jane Austen and Leisure. London: Hambledon Press, 1999. Todd, Janet M. The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: ALife. New York: Knopf, 1998. Source :  Rollyson, Carl. Critical Survey Of Long Fiction . 4th ed. New Jersey: Salem Press, 2010

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Jane Eyre Characters with Analysis

August 25, 2024

This article will provide a comprehensive list of characters in Charlotte Bront ë ’s Jane Eyre . Though Jane and Mr. Rochester are the two gothic spires of this text, there is a whole host of characters who populate the manors and moors. If you need it, here’s a summary of the text to help you out as well as the 7 Best Quotes in Jane Eyre with Analysis . 

While you can certainly use Project Gutenberg’s searchable Jane Eyre , I continue to recommend the Oxford World Classics text for its helpful endnotes and footnotes. 

Major Characters in Jane Eyre with Analysis

Jane eyre .

As the protagonist and narrator, Jane’s interior life is the whole point of the novel. Remember – Jane Eyre is an “autobiography” written from a future where Jane and Mr. Rochester are happily married (with at least one son). That is not to say that the events of the novel are unimportant. However, far more important is how Jane understands these events as shaping her present self. Indeed, Jane Eyre was revolutionary precisely because of this focus on the private, emotional development of its main character. (The literary critic Daniel Burt calls Charlotte Bront ë “ the first historian of private consciousness. ”)  

We first meet Jane, she is ten years old girl and in the care (if it can be called that) of her aunt, Mrs. Reed. We find out later that Jane’s father was a poor clergyman who married a woman from a wealthy family. Jane’s maternal grandfather was so irritated with his daughter’s choice of husband that he cut them off financially. When Jane’s mother and father both catch typhus and die, Jane is left in the care of Mr. Reed, her mother’s brother (who dies soon after). 

Jane Eyre Characters (Continued)

Though Mrs. Reed has three children – Eliza, John, and Georgiana – they shun their cousin Jane. Of the three, the fourteen-year-old John is particularly cruel. When Jane stands up for herself against John’s bullying, Mrs. Reed throws Jane in the “red-room.” Jane thinks she sees a ghost and is terrified. She begs to be released, but Mrs. Reed pushes her back into the room, where Jane subsequently faints. 

In response to her “disobedience,” Mrs. Reed sends Jane off to Lowood academy, where Jane will spend the next eight years – six as a student and two as a teacher. Eventually, Jane bores of Lowood and advertises her services as a governess. Within a few weeks, Jane is off to Thornfield Hall to take care of Adele, a young French girl in the care of Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester. 

When Jane finally meets her boss, Mr. Rochester, she is (justifiably) wary. He seems an angry, tempestuous man. ( Their subsequent romance has not aged well. ) Though it takes time, Jane eventually confesses her love to Mr. Rochester, who reciprocates. Things go pear-shaped when they try to marry. [Spoiler alert!] Unbeknownst to Jane, Mr. Rochester is already married to Bertha Mason, an insane woman that he keeps imprisoned in on the third floor of Thornfield Hall. 

Such is Mr. Rochester’s passion for Jane that he suggests that they move to France and live as husband and wife away from the prying, prudish eyes of English high society. Though Jane is tempted, she refuses to be led astray by her feelings for Mr. Rochester. She has no intention of being a rich man’s mistress. In an impressive act of will, Jane leaves Thornfield without telling anyone.

She makes it as far as “Whitcross.” After paying for her travel, Jane has no money – she then accidentally forgets her suitcase in the coach. Penniless and possessionless, Jane begs for food and sleeps outside. After three days of this, near death, she knocks on the door of a house and is taken in by Mary, Diana, and St. John Rivers. Through a series of unlikely events, Jane 1) inherits a fortune, 2) finds out that Mary, Diana, and St. John are her cousins, and 3) decides to split her inheritance equally with them. ( I’ve written a chapter-by-chapter summary here. )

Her financial future secured, Jane turns her eyes to the future. St. John has taken a shine to Jane and proposes marriage (and a missionary existence in India). Though Jane is enamored with St. John’s intellect and Christian faith, she refuses to marry someone she doesn’t love . Like her rejection of Mr. Rochester earlier in the novel, Jane manages to resist the seductive allure of giving her existence over to another’s will.

Having rejected St. John, Jane turns her thoughts back to Mr. Rochester (it’s been a year since she left him). She returns to Thornfield to find it burned to the ground. When Jane asks around, she finds out that Bertha Mason set the house on fire and subsequently killed herself. Mr. Rochester managed to save all the servants but was blinded and maimed in the fire. Jane goes to him immediately, rekindles their romance, and marries him within the month. 

At the end of the book, Jane reflects on her path and feels that her success is a result of her having stayed true to her own inner compass instead of submitting to the will of others. 

Mr. Rochester 

Mr. Edward Faifax Rochester is Jane’s boss (suitor, and (eventually) husband). Much has been made of Mr. Rochester’s brooding, Gothic vibes, but his main narrative purpose is to prompt Jane to trust herself. Remember, Mr. Rochester asks Jane to marry him under very false pretenses. It’s not until Jane is kneeling at the altar with him that she finds out that Mr. Rochester has been married for fifteen years to a crazy lady he keeps on the third floor of his mansion. 

Mr. Rochester’s subsequent proposal – that they move to southern France and live as man and wife – is tempting. While Jane loves Mr. Rochester, her Christian faith will not let her live as a man’s mistress, crazy wife or not. The intensity of Jane’s feelings for Mr. Rochester makes her decision to leave him more poignant. 

Jane’s rejection of Mr. Rochester also allows for him to become a better (more Christian) person. His eventual blinding and maiming strip him of his arrogance and haughtiness. By the time Jane returns, he is a humble, middle-aged man, finally ready for the love of a nineteen-year-old girl.  

St. John Rivers 

Like Mr. Rochester, St. John exists as a sort of test for Jane’s self-determination. The brother of Maria and Diana, St. John is driven to be a missionary. He proposes marriage to Jane because he sees in her a worthy helpmeet for his missionary life. (While he not-so-secretly burns for the wealthy Rosamund Oliver, he knows that missionary life would be a poor fit for her.) 

Jane is very nearly convinced by St. John’s religious fervor. Though he is presumptuous and aloof, she understands the allure of giving over her will to such a force. If she were to marry St. John, Jane would cease to suffer from the burden of self-determination. Ultimately, Jane cannot betray her belief in the value of romantic love. She rejects St. John’s conventional understanding of Christian duty in favor of finding her own way in the world. On the last page of the book, we find out that St. John is ailing in India and will soon die. 

Bertha Mason

Though she doesn’t speak a single line in the text, there’s no doubt that Bertha Mason is a major character in Jane Eyre . Like her mother before her, Bertha suffers from “congenital madness.” Mr. Rochester implies that his marriage to Bertha was rushed by both families. The Rochesters wanted the Masons’ wealth and the Masons wanted someone to take Bertha off their hands. 

We find out that the strange laughter Jane hears from the servants’ quarters is Bertha (though Mr. Rochester blames Grace Poole). Though Grace is supposed to keep watch over her, Bertha escapes whenever Grace hits the gin too hard. On one occasion, she tries to burn Mr. Rochester in his bed. In another, she sneaks into Jane’s room and tears Jane’s bridal veil in half.

Mrs. Reed takes Jane in when her parents die of typhus. Though she is Jane’s aunt, there is no love lost between the two. Indeed, the only reason that Mrs. Reed bothers with Jane is because she promised her late husband that she would take care of her. Mrs. Reed is consistently unkind to Jane and keeps her away from her own children, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. 

A few years after Mrs. Reed sends Jane to Lowood, one of Jane’s uncles comes searching for her. It turns out that this uncle has made a fortune and would like Jane to be his heir. In an act of particular spitefulness, Mrs. Reed tells him that Jane died at Lowood. We find out later that Mrs. Reed couldn’t bear the thought of Jane’s conditions improving.  After her son, John, dies (implied to be suicide), Mrs. Reed has a stroke from which she does not recover. 

Minor Characters in Jane Eyre with Analysis 

Helen burns.

When Jane arrives at Lowood, she befriends Helen Burns. While an excellent student, Helen is frequently punished by the teachers for being “slatternly.” Like many of the characters in Jane Eyre , Helen exists to highlight Jane’s unique refusal to conform. Helen accepts every punishment she receives without protest, believing that this world is merely preamble to the next. Helen dies of consumption soon after Jane’s arrival at Lowood. 

Mrs. Fairfax

Distantly related to Mr. Rochester, Mrs. Fairfax manages Thornfield Hall. It is she who hires Jane as governess. 

Blanche Ingram

Before Mr. Rochester can admit that he loves Jane, he courts Blanche Ingram to make Jane jealous. Because Jane finds Blanche so thoroughly boring, Mr. Rochester’s interest in her lowers Jane’s opinion of him. In a testament to her shallowness, Blanche’s interest in Mr. Rochester wanes when she comes to believe that his fortune is smaller than expected. 

Mary and Diana Rivers

Sisters of St. John, they welcome Jane into their home after she flees from Thornfield. When Jane discovers that they are her cousins, she shares her inheritance with them and invites them to return from London to live at their ancestral home. 

Rosamund Oliver

Rosamund is the wealthy woman who St. John is in love with. She also funds the school that Jane works at while in Morton. While Rosamund’s father makes it clear that he would accept St. John as a son-in-law, St. John refuses, knowing that Rosamund would never consent to being a missionary. 

Adèle Varens

Adèle is the ten-year-old French girl who Jane teaches at Thornfield. Though her paternity is unclear, Mr. Rochester might be her father. 

Celine Varens

The French opera dancer with whom Mr. Rochester has an affair, she claims that Adèle is Mr. Rochester’s daughter. Mr. Rochester ends his affair with Celine after he learns that she has been unfaithful and is only interested in his money. 

Georgiana, John, and Eliza Reed

After bullying Jane in the first four chapters of the text, we don’t hear much from Georgiana, John, and Eliza until Mrs. Reed has a stroke. When Jane returns to care for her aunt, we are reintroduced to her cousins. John has led a dissolute life and killed himself over gambling debts, Georgiana is a beautiful, if vapid, society lady, and Eliza has become a stern woman destined for the nunnery. 

Bessie 

One of Mrs. Reed’s servants, Bessie is one of the only people who is (sorta) kind to Jane during her childhood. Before Jane leaves for Thornfield, Bessie comes to visit Jane and tell her news of Mrs. Reed and her cousins. She later marries the Reeds’ coachman.

Mr. Lloyd is the apothecary who visits Jane after her fainting spell in the red-room. A kind man, he recommends to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent to school. When the headmaster of Lowood (Mr. Brocklehurst) claims that Jane is a liar, it is Mr. Lloyd who attests to Jane’s good character. 

Miss Temple

Miss Temple is the only teacher at Lowood who is kind to Jane. When Miss Temple marries and leaves Lowood, Jane realizes she too wants to set out on adventures. 

Mr. Brocklehurst

As the headmaster of Lowood, Mr. Brocklehurst is responsible for the atrocious conditions at the school. A strict, tyrannical Christian, he keeps Jane and the other girls on the brink of starvation so that they can better focus on God. 

Grace Poole

Grace Poole is Bertha’s caretaker at Thornfield. Whenever something weird happens, Mr. Rochester blames Grace Poole. We find out later that Grace keeps a bottle of gin in her room. Bertha escapes whenever Grace gets drunk. 

Richard Mason

Richard is Bertha’s brother. When he comes to visit Thornfield, Bertha attacks him, nearly killing him. Upon hearing that Mr. Rochester plans on marrying Jane, he comes to the wedding and exposes his bigamy. 

Jane’s long-lost uncle, he leaves Jane 20,000 pounds in his will. 

Wrapping Up – Jane Eyre Characters and Analysis

While Charlotte Bront ë ’s Jane Eyre is focused on the moral and ethical development of its eponymous narrator, the text also provides a detailed depiction of the various strata of Victorian society. From governesses to coachmen, nobles to beggars, Jane Eyre weaves a rich tapestry of characters and classes. 

If you’ve found this article useful or interesting, you can also check out my summaries and analyses of 1984 , Frankenstein , The Great Gatsby , Hamlet , The Crucible , Beloved, Brave New World , The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , and Macbeth . 

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Devon holds a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing & International Relations, an MFA in Poetry, and a PhD in Comparative Literature. For nearly a decade, he served as an assistant professor in the First-Year Seminar Program at Whitman College. Devon is a former Fulbright Scholar as well as a Writing & Composition Instructor of Record at the University of Iowa and Poetry Instructor of Record at the University of Montana. Most recently, Devon’s work has been published in Fugue , Bennington Review , and TYPO , among others. 

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Jane Eyre: Introduction

Jane eyre: plot summary, jane eyre: detailed summary & analysis, jane eyre: themes, jane eyre: quotes, jane eyre: characters, jane eyre: symbols, jane eyre: literary devices, jane eyre: quizzes, jane eyre: theme wheel, brief biography of charlotte brontë.

Historical Context of Jane Eyre

Other books related to jane eyre.

• Full Title: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
• When Written: 1847
• Literary Period: Victorian
• Genre: Victorian novel. Jane Eyre combines Gothic mystery, a romantic marriage plot, and a coming-of-age story.
• Setting: Northern England in the early 1800s.
• Climax: Jane telepathically hears Rochester's voice calling out to her.
• Point of View: First person. Jane recounts her story ten years after its ending.

Extra Credit for Jane Eyre

Bells and Brontës: The Brontës became a literary powerhouse when Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all wrote successful first novels. Each sister published under a masculine-sounding pseudonym based on their initials. Charlotte Brontë became "Currer Bell"; Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights (1845-46) as "Ellis Bell", and Anne Brontë published Agnes Gray (1847) as "Acton Bell." Women could enter the marketplace as writers and novelists, but many writers, including the Brontës and Mary Anne Evans ("George Eliot"), used male pseudonyms to keep from being dismissed as unimportant.

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450+ Literary Analysis Topics Ideas & Title Examples for Inspiration

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Finding that ideal literary analysis topic can be as complex as the literature you're studying. But fear not! Backed by our experience, we’ve gathered some good literary analysis essay topics worth your attention. 

In this blog article, we will tell you how to choose a great title and drop inspirational ideas for your literature analysis. So, sit back, relax, and let us guide you through the best literary analysis topics.

What Are Literary Analysis Topics?

Literary analysis topics are the types of analytical essay topics that deal with examining any work of literature. It might be a novel, a short story, or even literary criticism. You can select any of these topics to write a literary analysis on. 

Topics for literary analysis might focus on various elements of the literature you are supposed to study. For instance, you may explore the following things:

• Literary devices
• Structure and style

Essentially, your task is to unleash the hidden meanings and interpret the messages conveyed in the literary works.

>> Learn more: How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay

Features of Good Literary Analysis Topics

Before we move on to the literature essay topics, let’s talk about what makes a title stand out. Good literary analysis topics should:

• Be related to the literature
• Provide an opportunity for further exploration of the work as a whole.
• Raise interesting questions and allow for different interpretations.
• Inspire readers to think about the topic in more detail.

Choosing the right topic is very important. If you need extra help from experts, rely on our team of academic professionals. Say ‘ do my essay for me ’ and get an authentic essay crafted in line with your needs.

How to Choose a Literary Analysis Topic?

Are you staring at a blank page and don’t even know what literary analysis essay topic to choose? We know that feeling. It can be as challenging as finding a perfect rhyme in a sonnet, but no worries! Below we've got some easy steps to help you select a great literary analysis topic:

• Read and reflect Start by immersing yourself in the text. As you read, keep an eye on themes, characters, and symbols that catch your attention.
• Ask questions This is where your inner Sherlock should come out! Question everything about the book. Why does a character behave a certain way? What's the significance of that recurring symbol? These queries are the seeds of your literary analysis.
• Find connections Look for links in the text – between characters, themes, or even the historical context. These connections often make for a compelling literary analysis essay title example.
• Keep it focused Remember, you're writing an essay , not a book! So, zoom in. Instead of tackling a broad topic like "Imagery in To Kill a Mockingbird," focus on something more specific, like "The use of bird imagery in To Kill a Mockingbird."
• Find a new angle If you're choosing a popular book, find a fresh angle. Instead of going with the crowd, create your own path. A unique perspective will make your analysis stand out.

Powered up by these guidelines, you are sure to find an excellent literary analysis essay idea. Now, let’s see what literary analysis titles and writing prompts we have prepared for you.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics List

If you are not sure how to get started, look at the list of essay titles below. Here, we’ve selected top literary essay topics and prompts to kickstart your journey into literature. Let’s begin with some basic themes and literary elements:

• Symbolism in Emily Dickinson's poetry.
• Women’s portrayal in Pride and Prejudice.
• Orwell's use of dystopia in 1984.
• Time in Slaughterhouse-Five.
• Death's representation in Edgar Allan Poe’s works.
• Mystery and suspense in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series.
• Symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye.
• Portrayal of masculinity in Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea.
• Handling of grief in Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.
• Solitude in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
• Role of supernatural elements in Macbeth.
• American Dream in Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby.
• Postcolonial themes in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.
• The role of setting in A Tale of Two Cities.
• Juxtaposition of civilization and savagery in Golding's Lord of the Flies.

Good Literary Analysis Essay Topics

If you're searching for that spark of inspiration, look no further. Choose a title idea from the collection of literary analysis essay prompts we added below:

• Jane Austen's social satire in Sense and Sensibility.
• Use of stream-of-consciousness in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.
• Survival in Yann Martel's Life of Pi.
• Love in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary.
• Illusion versus reality in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Ambition's consequences in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
• Power in George Orwell's Animal Farm.
• Role of nature in Jack London's Call of the Wild.
• Innocence in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
• J.D. Salinger's use of first-person narrative in Catcher in the Rye.
• Conflict of individual versus society in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
• Isolation in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis.
• Friendship in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.
• Social class in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.
• Gender roles in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

Interesting Literary Analysis Topics

Are you looking for something more mind-blowing? Consider these interesting literary analysis essay topics ideas to shake things up a bit:

• Irony in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• Satire in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
• Perspective shifts in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
• Justice in Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman .
• Power dynamics in Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men.
• Fear in Stephen King's The Shining.
• Identity crisis in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.
• Spiritual growth in Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha.
• Betrayal in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.
• Symbolism in Toni Morrison's Beloved.
• Freedom in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
• Class struggle in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
• Portrayal of war in Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
• Obsession in Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray .
• Romanticism in J.M Barrie's Peter Pan.

Unique Literary Analysis Essay Topics

When it comes to a literary analysis paper, standing out from the crowd can make all the difference. If you're looking to bring a touch of uniqueness to your writing, consider one of these these distinctive literary analysis prompts:

• Magical realism in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
• Portrayal of rebellion in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 .
• Maternal relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club.
• Existentialism in Albert Camus' The Stranger.
• Deceit in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
• Quest for identity in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
• Treatment of time in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.
• Pride in Sophocles' Antigone.
• Role of memory in Toni Morrison's Beloved.
• Perspective and truth in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.
• Portrayal of destiny in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
• Madness in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.
• Courage and survival in Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.
• Role of society in George Orwell's 1984 .
• Youth and age in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye .

Best Literature Essay Topics

Are you ready to take your analysis to the next level? Take a look at these top-notch literary topics for essays, each one carefully crafted for an A+ analysis essay :

• Challenging societal norms in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.
• Portrayal of love in Pablo Neruda's poetry.
• Loss and grief in Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.
• Paradox in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.
• Representation of animals in Jack London's The Call of the Wild.
• Disillusionment in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.
• Trauma and healing in Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns.
• Use of language in James Joyce's Ulysses.
• Quest for identity in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
• Portrayal of family in August Wilson's Fences.
• Loyalty in Homer's Iliad .
• Portrayal of survival in Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
• Duality in Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
• Isolation in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
• Influence of society in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.

Easy Literary Analysis Title Examples

If you are a novice or prefer simple literary analysis essay ideas, this list is for you.

• Uncovering themes in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• The symbolism in Lord of the Flies.
• Understanding character development in Great Expectations.
• Love and relationships in Pride and Prejudice.
• The role of setting in Wuthering Heights.
• Morality in Moby Dick.
• Exploring imagery in The Great Gatsby .
• Power dynamics in Animal Farm.
• Social critique in Brave New World.
• Conflict in Romeo and Juliet .
• Identity and culture in The Namesake.
• Supernatural elements in Macbeth .
• The quest for freedom in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• Aging and time in The Old Man and the Sea.
• Survival in Life of Pi.

Topics for Literary Analysis in Different Genre

Exploring different genres can add a whole new dimension to your literary analysis. Whether it's the captivating world-building of fantasy or the futuristic visions of science fiction, each genre offers a bunch of literary analysis ideas for any taste. Check out the following literary analysis essay topics sorted by genre:

• Utopian ideals in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine.
• Symbols and motifs in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
• Suspense in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.
• Love in Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook.
• Representation of war in Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth.
• Humanity in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Courage in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
• Justice in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series.
• Conflict in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
• Time in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.
• Portrayal of technology in William Gibson's Neuromancer.
• Good versus evil in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
• Clues in Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
• Portrayal of passion in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
• Use of historical detail in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall.

American Literature Essay Topics

American literature has produced some of the most iconic works in history. Take a glance at these essay topics for American literature analysis essay topics to get motivated:

• Racial tensions in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
• Transcendentalism in Walden.
• Role of women in The Scarlet Letter .
• Slavery and freedom in Beloved.
• The meaning of home in Langston Hughes' poetry.
• Masculinity and honor in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
• Individualism in On the Road.
• Illusion versus reality in Death of a Salesman.
• Navigating adolescence in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
• Tragic hero in A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Consequences of power in The Crucible .
• Love and loss in The Fault in Our Stars.
• Identity in Invisible Man.
• Nature and the self in Leaves of Grass.
• Religion and faith in The Poisonwood Bible.

English Literature Essay Topics

If you are a British literature enthusiast, don’t skip this list. Below, we have collected the most trending literary analysis title examples in English literature:

• Class struggle in Dickens' Oliver Twist.
• Mysticism in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
• Misogyny in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
• Role of weather in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
• Satire of Victorian Era in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.
• Subversion of romance in Jane Austen's Emma.
• Landscape and memory in Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.
• War and its effects in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
• Power and corruption in George Orwell's Animal Farm.
• Maturation in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre .
• Religious doubt in Graham Greene's The End of the Affair.
• Time and consciousness in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse.
• Subconscious in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.
• Rebellion against society in Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.

Literary Analysis Topics for Students

We've carefully curated literary analysis essay topics suitable for students at different levels of education. From high school to college, there's something for everyone. We've categorized these topics for a literary analysis essay according to academic level to help you find what fits your needs best. Are you ready to dive in? Get prepared to discover literary analysis title ideas that will make your writing process an absolute pleasure.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics for Middle School Students 

• Understanding friendship in The Outsiders.
• Lessons about tolerance in Wonder.
• Courage and bravery in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
• The importance of individuality in A Wrinkle in Time.
• Family and identity in The Giver.
• The theme of adventure in Treasure Island.
• Life lessons in Charlotte’s Web.
• Overcoming obstacles in Bridge to Terabithia.
• The impact of rumors in The Watsons Go to Birmingham.
• Symbolism in Tuck Everlasting.
• The significance of heritage in Esperanza Rising.
• Power of persistence in Hatchet.
• Examining the hero's journey in Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief.
• Struggles with fairness in The Westing Game.
• The role of honesty in The Secret Garden.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics for High School Students

• Tragic love in Romeo and Juliet.
• Prejudice and racism in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• The dangers of ambition in Macbeth.
• The importance of friendship in The Outsiders.
• Symbolism in The Great Gatsby.
• Coming of age in The Catcher in the Rye.
• Man versus nature in Moby Dick.
• Power and corruption in Animal Farm.
• Morality in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• The impact of war in All Quiet on the Western Front.
• Human nature in Lord of the Flies.
• The role of the American dream in Death of a Salesman.
• Heroism in Beowulf.
• Innocence and experience in Catch-22.
• Dystopian society in Fahrenheit 451.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics for College Students

• Irony and satire in Pride and Prejudice.
• Freedom in A Doll's House.
• Role of madness in Hamlet.
• Colonialism and its impacts in Heart of Darkness.
• Alienation and isolation in The Metamorphosis.
• Tragedy and fate in Oedipus Rex.
• Exploring human consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway.
• Modernism in Ulysses.
• Language and power in 1984.
• Identity and society in Invisible Man.
• Existentialism in Waiting for Godot.
• Feminism and gender roles in The Yellow Wallpaper.
• Justice and judgment in Crime and Punishment.
• The influence of society on individuals in A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Role of memory in Remembrance of Things Past.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics in Poetry

Poetry has a unique way of touching our hearts and minds. Poem analysis can reveal hidden meanings behind the verses. If you're searching for literary analysis essay topics with a focus on poetry, check out some pointers in the sections below.

Romeo and Juliet Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Fate and destiny in Romeo and Juliet.
• Masculinity and its influence on the characters' actions.
• The impact of family feuds on individual choices in Romeo and Juliet.
• Concept of time in Romeo and Juliet.
• Understanding love at first sight through Romeo and Juliet.
• The juxtaposition of love and violence in the play.
• Secret identities and deception in Romeo and Juliet.
• The influence of peer pressure on the events of Romeo and Juliet.
• Contrasting views of love: Exploring the perspectives of Romeo, Juliet, and other characters.
• Dreams and omens in Romeo and Juliet.

Hamlet Literary Analysis Essay Topics Ideas

• Hamlet's madness: Genuine condition or clever ruse?
• Revenge and its destructive consequences.
• Role of women: Analyzing the characters of Gertrude and Ophelia.
• Appearance versus reality: The dichotomy of disguise and deceit.
• Hamlet's soliloquies: A window into his psyche and moral dilemmas.
• The tragic flaw of Hamlet.
• The ghost of King Hamlet: Its role and significance.
• Corruption and decay in Hamlet's kingdom.
• Father-son relationships in Hamlet.
• Morality and ethical decision-making in Hamlet.

Macbeth Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Supernatural elements in Macbeth.
• Moral decline of Macbeth throughout the play.
• Lady Macbeth's role in Macbeth's ambition and actions.
• Guilt and its consequences in Macbeth.
• The power of prophecy and its impact on Macbeth's decisions.
• Role of sleep and sleeplessness in the play.
• The symbolism of blood in Macbeth.
• Disorder and chaos in Macbeth.
• The transformation of Lady Macbeth's character over the course of the play.
• The portrayal of kingship and tyranny in Macbeth.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics Ideas & Prompts

Still can’t find a topic? Scroll down to spot more fantastic literary analysis writing prompts and ideas, categorized by popular works. Whether you're analyzing character development, theme, or narrative style, you will definitely recognize some good literary analysis topics ideas.

Frankenstein Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Role of nature in shaping the characters of Frankenstein.
• Dangers of unchecked ambition in Frankenstein.
• Impact of isolation on Victor Frankenstein and his creature.
• Women in Frankenstein's world.
• Creator and creation in Frankenstein.
• Creature’s desire for companionship.
• Frankenstein as a critique of enlightenment ideals.
• Concept of 'otherness' in Frankenstein.
• Knowledge and ignorance in Frankenstein.
• Comparing Victor Frankenstein and his creature.

Beowulf Literary Analysis Essay Prompts

• Christian and pagan elements in Beowulf.
• Lineage and ancestry in Beowulf.
• The symbolism of monsters in Beowulf.
• The representation of kingship in Beowulf.
• Fame and reputation.
• Treasure and gift-giving in Beowulf.
• Loyalty in the world of Beowulf.
• Good versus evil in Beowulf.
• Beowulf's three battles: A comparative analysis.

The Great Gatsby Literary Analysis Topics

• Destructive power of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.
• Social classes in The Great Gatsby.
• Motif of the 'green light' in The Great Gatsby.
• Illusion versus reality in The Great Gatsby.
• Time and the past in The Great Gatsby.
• The role of geography and setting.
• The portrayal of love and desire.
• Significance of Gatsby's parties in the novel.
• Symbolism of the 'Valley of Ashes' in The Great Gatsby.
• Nick Carraway as an unreliable narrator.

Fahrenheit 451 Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Censorship and its impact on society in Fahrenheit 451.
• Technology in Fahrenheit 451's dystopian society.
• Symbolism of fire.
• Motif of mirrors in Fahrenheit 451.
• Individuality versus conformity in Fahrenheit 451.
• Portrayal of reading and books in Fahrenheit 451.
• Mechanical hound and its role.
• The impact of isolation and disconnection in Fahrenheit 451.
• Happiness and fulfillment represented in the book.
• Symbolism of the phoenix in Fahrenheit 451.

Othello Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• The impact of jealousy on the characters of Othello.
• Race and racism in Othello.
• Manipulation and its role in this play.
• Representation of women in Othello.
• Appearance versus reality in Othello.
• Reputation and honor in this play.
• Impact of insecurities on the character of Othello.
• Role Desdemona's handkerchief plays.
• Motif of animals in Othello.
• Friendship and betrayal as represented in this play.

The Catcher In The Rye Literary Analysis Topics

• How does Salinger represent teen angst in Catcher in the Rye?
• Role of Phoebe in Holden Caulfield's life.
• Analysis of Holden's perception of adulthood.
• Symbolic meaning of the Museum of Natural History.
• Red hunting hat as a symbol of isolation.
• Salinger's portrayal of mental illness through Holden.
• Relevance of the carrousel scene at the end of this novel.
• Language and narrative style in Catcher in the Rye.
• Understanding Holden's relationships with other characters.
• How does this title relate to Holden's personality and actions?

The Crucible Literary Analysis Topics

• Fear and hysteria as represented in The Crucible.
• Power dynamics in Salem's society.
• John Proctor's character development throughout this play.
• Abigail Williams' motivations.
• Analysis of Arthur Miller's use of historical events.
• Symbolism of the witch trials.
• Religion and how it is represented in The Crucible.
• Comparing the characters: Elizabeth Proctor vs. Abigail Williams.
• Suspicion and paranoia in this play.
• Relevance of The Crucible in today's society.

1984 Literary Essay Topics

• George Orwell's depiction of totalitarianism.
• Concept of Newspeak.
• Surveillance and control in 1984.
• Winston's rebellion against the Party.
• Symbolism of the glass paperweight.
• Analysis of the Party's manipulation of history.
• Role of Big Brother in this novel.
• ulia's character and her contrast to Winston.
• Significance of Room 101.
• Doublethink and its influence on citizens' mentality.

The Story of an Hour Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Mrs. Mallard's freedom and confinement.
• Irony in The Story of an Hour.
• Theme of time in this short story.
• Heart and it symbolism.
• Portrayal of marriage in The Story of an Hour.
• Significance of the open window.
• Railroad and its role in this story.
• How does Mrs. Mallard's reaction reflect societal norms?
• Analysis of Louise's transformation.
• Representation of life and death.

The Cask of Amontillado Literary Analysis Ideas

• Revenge in The Cask of Amontillado.
• Significance of setting in this story.
• Symbolism of the cask.
• Montresor as an unreliable narrator.
• Concept of pride in this story.
• Foreshadowing in The Cask of Amontillado.
• Contrast between Montresor and Fortunato.
• Motif of disguise and deception.
• Exploring the concept of madness.
• How does the catacomb setting contribute to the story's tone?

Pride and Prejudice Literary Analysis Prompts

• First impressions in Pride and Prejudice.
• Jane Austen's portrayal of marriage and social status.
• The theme of pride in this novel.
• Understanding the character of Mr. Darcy.
• Significance of the title in understanding this novel.
• Contrasting characters of Elizabeth and Jane.
• Letters and their role in Pride and Prejudice.
• Social hierarchy and class in this novel.
• Theme of family in Pride and Prejudice.
• Lydia and her impact on the plot.

Kafka’s Metamorphosis Literary Analysis Title Examples

• Exploring Gregor Samsa's transformation.
• Kafka’s portrayal of family relationships.
• Symbolism of the apple in Metamorphosis.
• How does Kafka depict the human condition?
• Understanding Grete's role in this story.
• Kafka's commentary on work and responsibility.
• Gregor's room as a symbol of his inner state.
• Role of dehumanization in Metamorphosis.
• Kafka's style in conveying existentialist themes.
• Understanding the character of Mr. Samsa.

Topics for Literary Analysis of The Odyssey

• Role of hospitality in ancient Greek society.
• Examination of Odysseus as a hero.
• Vengeance in The Odyssey.
• Significance of the Underworld.
• Role of gods and goddesses in the plot.
• Women characters in The Odyssey.
• Understanding Telemachus' character arc.
• Significance of Ithaca in Odysseus’ journey.
• Analysis of deception.
• Circe: Character analysis .

The Old Man and the Sea Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Perseverance in Hemingway's novel.
• Analyzing Santiago's relationship with the sea.
• Significance of Santiago's dreams about lions.
• Hemingway's portrayal of friendship and camaraderie.
• Symbolism of the marlin.
• The sea and its significance in Santiago's journey.
• Heroism as depicted in this novel.
• Role of nature and its depiction.
• Santiago's hand injury and its symbolic meaning.
• Defeat and its role in shaping Santiago’s character.

Jane Eyre Literary Analysis Topics

• Gothic elements in Jane Eyre.
• Concept of the madwoman in the attic.
• Religion in Jane's life and development.
• Portrayal of women's independence in the novel.
• Significance of Thornfield Hall.
• Motif of fire and ice in Jane Eyre.
• Examining the character of Mr. Rochester.
• Understanding the role of Adele in this novel.
• Analyzing forgiveness.
• Jane’s quest for self-identity and belonging.

The Scarlet Letter Literary Topics for Essays

• Sin and guilt and how they are depicted.
• Symbolism of the scarlet letter 'A'.
• Understanding Hester Prynne's character development.
• Role of Pearl as a symbol.
• Exploration of hypocrisy.
• Examination of the Puritan society.
• Roger Chillingworth as a character.
• Role of secrets and hidden identities.
• Significance of the forest and the town.
• Portrayal of women in The Scarlet Letter.

Of Mice and Men Literary Analysis Essay Ideas

• Lennie's dream and its impact on this story.
• How does Steinbeck present George and Lennie's friendship?
• Decoding symbolism in Of Mice and Men.
• Loneliness in this novel.
• Analyzing Steinbeck's portrayal of the American Dream.
• Unraveling Curley's wife's character.
• A critical look at attitudes towards women.
• Analysis of power dynamics in Of Mice and Men.
• Steinbeck’s depiction of life during the Great Depression.
• Understanding the tragic end: Was there an alternative?

Lord of the Flies Literary Analysis Titles

• Loss of innocence in Lord of the Flies.
• Power struggle: Analyzing leadership styles of Jack and Ralph.
• Deconstructing the symbol of 'beast' in the novel.
• Golding’s portrayal of the thin veneer of civilization.
• Survival instincts in Lord of the Flies.
• Motif of the conch shell in this novel.
• Exploring fear and its implications.
• Golding's view on human nature.
• A critical look at the novel's ending.
• Understanding the novel’s allegorical elements.

To Kill a Mockingbird Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Racial injustice in this novel.
• How does Scout's perspective shape the narrative?
• Harper Lee's portrayal of small-town life in the South.
• Moral education in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Understanding Boo Radley's impact on this story.
• Symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Analysis of Atticus Finch's parenting style.
• Class structure in Maycomb County.
• Gender roles in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Bravery in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics & Title Ideas by Themes

Are you interested in how the good is represented in literature. Or, want to explore the dark side of human nature? No matter what theme you’re analyzing, these literary analysis topics will surely help you get your gears turning.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics on Education

• Exploring education's impact in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Jane Eyre's education and its effects on her life.
• Learning and wisdom in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
• Views on education in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
• Education’s role in the development of Huck Finn.
• Value of practical knowledge in Moby-Dick.
• Understanding Malvolio’s wisdom in Twelfth Night.
• How The Great Gatsby criticizes education in the 1920s.
• Education as liberation in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
• Women's education in Pride and Prejudice.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics on Religion 

• Understanding religious allegory in Lord of the Flies.
• Christian symbolism in The Chronicles of Narnia.
• Religion’s impact on communities in The Poisonwood Bible.
• Religious imagery in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
• Criticism of the church in The Canterbury Tales.
• Dystopian views of religion in Brave New World.
• How The Scarlet Letter deals with religion and sin.
• Portrayal of religious hypocrisy in Huckleberry Finn.
• Religious aspects in Paradise Lost.
• Comparing religious symbolism in Moby Dick and Billy Budd.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics on Race

• Discussing racial prejudices in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Understanding racial disparities in The Color Purple.
• Representation of race in Othello.
• Racial discrimination in Nella Larsen's Passing.
• Concept of race in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• Racial dynamics in Go Set a Watchman.
• Racial identity in The Bluest Eye.
• Race and identity in Invisible Man.
• Racial politics in James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain.
• Racial tensions in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.

War and Peace Literary Analysis Essay Topics

• Understanding war's impact in All Quiet on the Western Front.
• Depiction of warfare in War and Peace.
• Post-war society in The Sun Also Rises.
• Effects of war on Mrs. Dalloway.
• Concept of peace in A Separate Peace.
• Interpreting war in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.
• Post-war life in The Catcher in the Rye.
• Pacifist messages in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.
• Consequences of war in A Farewell to Arms.
• Portrayal of war in The Red Badge of Courage.

Literary Analysis Topics on Justice and Judgment

• Concept of justice in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Justice and injustice in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations.
• Judgment in Jane Austen’s Emma.
• Analyzing justice in George Orwell's 1984.
• Exploring judgment in Pride and Prejudice.
• Justice in A Tale of Two Cities.
• Critique of justice in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
• Judgment in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
• Justice in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.
• Portrayal of justice in The Merchant of Venice.

Literary Analysis Ideas About Good and Evil

• Good and evil in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
• Good vs evil in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
• Struggle between good and evil in Moby-Dick.
• Dichotomy of good and evil in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Conflict of good and evil in The Lord of the Rings.
• Good and evil in Golding's Lord of the Flies.
• Representation of good and evil in Heart of Darkness.
• Exploration of good and evil in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
• How Bram Stoker’s Dracula deals with good and evil.
• Examining the balance of good and evil in Macbeth.

Bottom Line on Literary Analysis Essay Topics

When you're dealing with a literary analysis paper, it can be overwhelming to come up with unique topics. The trick is finding the perfect topic that you will be excited to work with. These literary analysis ideas should help get you started in the right direction. From time-tested classics to more modern works, we focused on different themes so you can pick the one you like.

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This training helps teachers to prepare their students to be successful on the SBAC Informational/Explanatory performance task.

STAAR® Institute: Science SCR (North of Dallas)

This STAAR® Institute will provide science educators with strategies to teach short constructed responses.

STAAR® Institute: Science SCR (South DFW)

Staar® institute: social studies scr (north dfw).

This STAAR® Institute will provide social studies educators with strategies to teach short constructed responses.

STAAR® Institute: Social Studies SCR (South DFW)

Three-day staar® institute (north of dallas).

This STAAR® Institute will guide educators (6-12) in teaching literary, nonliterary (SCR, ECR), and argumentation (ECR). Opt to attend 1-, 2-, or all 3 days.

Three-Day STAAR® Institute (South of Dallas)

Two-day staar® institute (south of dallas).

This STAAR® Institute will provide educators of grades 3-5 with strategies to teach short and extended constructed responses.

A Tale of Two Cities

This curriculum unit was developed to offer teachers a sample plan that introduces students to the work of Charles Dickens.

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

Although some object to the language and actions chosen by the characters, our students have accepted them as appropriate in the context of the story.

Analytical Response to Literature for English Language Learners (ELL)

This type of instruction is also known as EL, LEP, ESL, ESOL, ELD, EB, and ENL.

Analytical Response to Literature, 4th ed.

This curriculum guide is designed to offer tested and proven ideas to teach students how to write literary short constructed response, paragraphs, and essays.

Animal Dreams

This curriculum unit includes tested and proven materials for teaching this novel to high school students.

Argumentation Teacher's Guide (6-12)

This guide begins with obtaining facts, looking at both sides, creating a debatable thesis, and providing logic in an organized and rational manner.

Argumentation for English Language Learners (ELL)

This curriculum unit contains a recommended format as we have found that Beloved is not a book to be read quickly or easily without ongoing discussion in class.

Biblical Allusions: Christian Scriptures

This curriculum guide covers six major figures in the Christian Scriptures: Lazarus, Mary, Judas, Gabriel, Peter, and Jesus.

Bless Me, Ultima

This guide begins by providing information about the Catholic church and biblical and mythological references students need to know to understand this novel.

A Journey Through Expository Writing: Student Consumable Workbook

The workbook allows students to practice skills, strategies, and the writing process deepening their ability and their knowledge of expository writing.

Argumentation Poster

This poster provides a visual representation of the terms used in argumentation and where they belong within the ratio of concrete detail and commentary.

Chants Poster for Elementary

This poster displays the chants for Topic Sentence, Concrete Detail, Commentary, and Concluding Sentence.

Chants Poster for Secondary

Concrete Details Poster (Elementary)

This poster helps elementary students gather concrete details.

Concrete Details Poster (Secondary)

This poster helps secondary students gather concrete details.

Expository - Math and Science Terms Poster

This poster displays similar expository terms for math and science.

Expository - Social Studies Terms Poster

This poster displays similar expository terms for social studies.

Expository Poster

This poster helps students understand how expository writing differs from literary analysis.

Expository Terms Poster

This poster displays terms for expository.

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