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What is Literary Journalism: a Guide with Examples

Literary journalism is a genre created with the help of a reporter’s inner voice and employing a writing style based on literary techniques. The journalists working in the genre of literary journalism must be able to use the whole literary arsenal: epithets, impersonations, comparisons, allegories, etc. Thus, literary journalism is similar to fiction. At the same time, it remains journalism , which is the opposite of fiction as it tells a true story. The journalist’s task here is not only to inform us about specific events but also to affect our feelings (mainly aesthetic ones) and explore the details that ordinary journalism overlooks.

Characteristics of literary journalism

Modern journalism is constantly changing, but not all changes are good for it (take fake news proliferating thanks to social media , for instance). Contemporary literary journalism differs from its historic predecessor in the following:

Literary journalism almost completely lost its unity with literature
Journalists have stopped relying on the literary features of the language and style
There are fewer and fewer articles in the genre of literary journalism in modern editions
Contemporary media has lost the need in literary journalism
The habits of media consumers today are not sophisticated enough for a revival of literary journalism

The most prominent works of literary journalism

With all this, it’s no surprise that we need to go back in time to find worthy examples of literary journalism. Fortunately, it wasn’t until the 1970-s that literary journalism came to an end, so here are 4 great works of the genre that are worth every minute of your attention.

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

Mark Twain studied journalism from the age of 12 and until the end of his life. It brought him his first glory and a pseudonym and made him a writer. In 1867, Twain (as a correspondent of the newspaper Daily Alta California , San Francisco) went on a sea voyage to Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt. His reports and travel records turned into the book The Innocents Abroad , which made him famous all over the world.

In some sense, American journalism came out of letters that served as an important source of information about life in the colonies. The newspaper has long been characterized by an epistolary subjectivity, and Twain’s book recalls the times when no one thought that neutrality would one day become one of the hallmarks of the “right” journalism.

Of course, Twain’s travel around the Old World was a journey not only through geography but also through the history that Twain resolutely refused to worship. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes not too much, but the more valuable are the lyrical and sublime notes that sound when Twain-the-narrator is truly captivated by something.

John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946)

John Hersey was a war correspondent and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his debut story A Bell for Adano . As a reporter of The New Yorker , he was one of the first journalists from the USA who came to Hiroshima to describe the consequences of the atomic bombing.

Starting with where two doctors, two priests, a seamstress, and a plant employee were and what they were doing at exactly 08:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima, Hersey describes the year they lived after that. Hersey’s uniform and detached tone seems to be the only appropriate medium in relation to what one would call indescribable and inexpressible. Without allowing himself sentimentality, admiring horrors, or obvious partiality, he doesn’t miss any of the details that add up to a horrible and magnificent picture.

Hiroshima became a sensation due to the formidable brevity of the author’s prose, which tried to give the reader the most explicit (and the most complete) idea of what happened for the first time in mankind’s history

Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood” (1965)

Truman Capote turned to journalism as a young writer looking for a new form of self-expression. He read an article about the murder of the family of a farmer Herbert Clutter in Holcomb City (Kansas) in the newspaper and went there to collect the material. His original idea was to write about how a brutal murder influenced the life of the quiet backwoods. The killers were caught, and Capote decided to use their confessions in his book. He finished it only after the killers were hanged. This way, the six-year story got the finale.

In Cold Blood was published in “The New Yorker” in 1965. Next year it was released as a book that became the benchmark of true crime and a super bestseller. “In Cold Blood” includes:

A stylistic brilliance.
Inexorable footsteps of doom destroying both innocent and guilty.
The horror hidden in a person and waiting for a chance to break out.

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

Tomas Wolfe is one of the key figures of literary journalism. Mainly due to his creative and, so to speak, production efforts, “the new journalism” became an essential part of American culture and drew close attention (both critical and academic).

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test became one of the hallmarks of this type of journalism with its focus on aesthetic expressiveness (along with documentary authenticity). This is a story about the writer Ken Kesey and his friends and associates’ community, “Merry Pranksters”, who spread the idea of the benefits of expanding consciousness.

Wolfe decided to plunge into the “subjective reality” of the characters and their adventures. To convey them to the reader, he had to “squeeze” the English language: Wolfe changes prose to poetry , dives into the stream of consciousness, and mocks the traditional punctuation. In general, he does just about everything to make a crazy carnival come to life on the pages of his book (without actually participating in it). Compare that with gonzo journalism by Hunter S. Thompson , the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which draws upon some similar themes.

The book’s main part is devoted to the journey of the “pranksters” on a psychedelic propaganda bus and the “acid tests” themselves, which were actually parties where a lot of people took LSD. Wolfe had to use different sources of information to reconstruct these events, and it’s hard to believe that he didn’t experience any of them himself. Yet, no matter how bright his book shines and how much freedom it shows, Wolfe makes it clear that he’s talking about a doomed project and an ending era.

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Literary journalism is another essay form that is best reserved for intermediate and advanced level courses, but it can be incorporated into introductory and composition courses. Literary journalism is the creative nonfiction form that comes closest to newspaper and magazine writing. It is fact-driven and requires research and, often, interviews.

Literary journalism is sometimes called “immersion journalism” because it requires a closer, more active relationship to the subject and to the people the literary journalist is exploring. Like journalistic writing, the literary journalism piece should be well-researched, focus on a brief period of time, and concentrate on what is happening outside of the writer’s small circle of personal experience and feelings.

An Example and Discussion of a Literary Journalism

The following excerpt from George Orwell is a good example of literary journalism. Orwell wrote about the colonial regime in Marrakech. His father was a colonial officer, so Orwell was confronted with the reality of empire from an early age, and that experience is reflected in his literary journalism piece, Marrakech :

Orwell isn’t writing a reflective, personal essay about his travels through Marrakech. Neither is he writing a memoir about what it was like to be the son of a colonial officer, nor how that experience shaped his adult life. He writes in a descriptive way about the Jewish quarters in Marrakech, about the invisibility of the “natives,” and about the way citizenship doesn’t ensure equality under a colonial regime.

Generating Ideas for Literary Journalism

One way to incorporate literary journalism into an introductory or intermediate level course is simply to have students write personal essays first. Then the students can go back and research the facts behind the personal experiences related in their essays. They can incorporate historical data, interviews, or broaden the range of their personal essay by exploring the cultural or political issues hinted at in their personal essays.

If a student writes, in passing, about the first presidential candidate they were eligible to vote for, then they can include facts and figures around that particular election, as well as research other events that were current at that time, for example. As with other essay forms, students should find topics that are important to them.

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9 Amazing Literary Journalism Articles

Read part ii here ..

I don’t know if anyone is interested, but I am studying a journalism class at university and at the moment, we are learning about literary journalism.

Literary journalism is a a type of creative non-fiction. It is still an article and presents the facts of a case or the news of the day, but it does so through the utilisation of narrative techniques. The most common type of literary journalism, and arguably the most famous, is investigative features, but others include news features, profiles, backgrounders, human interest pieces, lifestyle features and even travel stories.

I’ve been doing a lot of research into investigative features and they have kept me up all night long, reading. I’ve collected a few fascinating stories for anyone who is interested. These articles don’t just look at the facts, they delve deeper into an underlying, often hidden, story.

Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered by Michelle Dean for Buzzfeed

Despite the juvenile title of the piece, this article made waves when it was published last year and had people taking Buzzfeed a little more seriously that the website is used to. It explores what just might be the longest recorded case of Munchhausen by proxy and the degree someone would go to in order to escape child abuse. The article is gripping and terribly sad, but also one of the best pieces of literary journalism I have ever read.

Read it here .

A Murder Untold: Unravelling the ultimate political conspiracy by David Grann for The New Yorker

This article is simply insane and is focused on the most intricate political conspiracy of the past decade. In 2009, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, a Guatemalan attorney, was murdered and, before his death, recorded a video saying that if he were murdered, the President of Guatemala and several other high profile people would be responsible. You think the JFK murder was a crazy conspiracy? Once you read this article, you’ll be rethinking that.

Ghost Boat by Eric Reidy for Medium

This is an open investigation about the mysterious disappearance of 243 refugees in the Mediterranean ocean. The article is written in ten parts with no definitive answer. It’s incredibly heartbreaking, but an amazing piece of journalism as so many people – experts, students, amateurs – came together to find answers.It also shows that, when it comes to refugees, people just don’t care and seem to value one life over another.

Trial by Twitter by Holly Millea for Elle

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Reading this article broke my heart and made me want to wake up my ten-year-old brother and make him promise not to ever sneak out of the house late at night. With examples of the Twitter accounts of three 16-year-old best friends, what is revealed is the disappearance and murder of a young girl at the hands of her two best friends. Chilling and unforgettable. You’ll be looking at your friends in a different way after reading this.

Framed: She Was The PTA Mom Everyone Knew. Who Would Want to Harm Her? by Christopher Goffard for L.A. Times

This article is insane, top to bottom. It centres on the apparent framing of a PTA mother. The police discovered enough drugs in her car to send her to prison for years, but the cop who questioned her believed her story. Who would want to frame a beloved PTA mother who never hurt anyone? What follows is a strange yet highly entertaining tale of revenge and the lengths people will go to for a perceived threat.

‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen by Noreen Malone for The New Yorker

This article is breathtaking in Malone’s sensitive reporting. Reading the pain these women went through is only part of the story – it is also about how our society refused to believe them and allowed such a thing to happen in the first place. Painful, poignant and mind-blowing.

Whatsoever Things Are True by Matthew Shaer for Atavist

This articles follow the incredible story about two men who were separately convicted then exonerated for a double murder in 1982, but years apart. The story has many twists and turns and Shaer investigated the case for almost an entire year. Such a strange story, presented cleverly.

Troll Detective: Who Set Jessica Chambers on Fire? The internet is trying to find out by Katie Baker for Buzzfeed

Such a sad story about a young woman who was murdered by being set on fire in her car. At the time this article was written, the police had absolutely no suspects and the internet took to this case in a frenzy. Amateur sleuths and Facebook groups harassed Jessica’s mother, father and friends in an effort to find who murdered this young woman. Compelling and heartbreaking. Another great article from Buzzfeed.

The Price of Nice Nails by Sarah Maslin Nir for The New York Times

The article is about something I have never thought of and, frankly, taken for granted: the employee environment and exploitation of manicurists. They are underpaid and subjected to racial bias. A very interesting piece that will have you questioning yourself the next time you need to fill your nails.

What do you think about these articles? Is there a compelling piece of literary journalism you love and think I should read? Let me know!!

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS POST, PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING ME A KO-FI TIP!

Writing big posts like this takes a lot of time and effort and requires a huge amount of research. I primarily blog as a hobby and would never demand compensation for my work, because it’s something I genuinely love doing – having lovely people like you read and/or comment on my posts is as much thanks as I need! That being said, I am going to leave my ko-fi button here, in case anyone feels like supporting me further – but please do not feel obliged .

Narrative News

December 22, 2017, want to read some of the best literary journalism of 2017 we’ve got you covered, a weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure.

Kari Howard

From "Seven Days of Heroin": Terri was arrested on outstanding warrants; she was roused as she slept with her boyfriend under an overpass. Liz Dufour/The Cincinnati Enquirer

Yes, it’s the time of year to look back on the good things that happened this year (and try to forget the bad, if only for a little while). First off: John McPhee wrote a book that gives lesser beings like us tips about the writing process. That has to be worth at least a little smile, right? And I’m also grateful for some wonderful literary journalism this year, including four of the stories listed below in the “What I’m reading online” category. Finally, it’s been a delight to be editing Storyboard this year — dream job, indeed. Here’s to more dreams coming true in 2018 for all of us.

The cover story that materialized from Tullis' pitch.

The Pitch: a veteran freelancer on pitching The New York Times Magazine and more. This is another installment of Katia Savchuk’s great (and useful) series called “The Pitch.” Here she talks to freelancer Paul Tullis, who has been on both sides of the pitching equation, as an editor and a reporter. From the reporter’s side, he says, “I have sold narrative feature pitches in two sentences, but it’s rare. It makes sense to say if you can’t get your idea across in three paragraphs, you need to work on your idea. That said, if it’s an obscure topic, you might need a paragraph just of background to let people know it’s actually important.”

The soundtrack: “Both Sides Now,” by Kate Wolf. This is my favorite version of the Joni Mitchell song. Her deeper voice and impeccable timing bring a new richness to a familiar song. (If you don’t know her version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” it’s a revelation.)

One Great Sentence

“We were taken to the ‘Oh, My God, Corner,’ a position near the escalator. People arriving see the long line and say “Oh, my God!” and it’s an elf’s job to calm them down and explain that it will take no longer than an hour to see Santa.”

David Sedaris, “SantaLand Diaries” from “Holidays on Ice.” Read why we think it’s great.

The author John McPhee Department of Communications, Princeton University

“Draft No. 4”: the legendary John McPhee’s “master class in the writer’s craft.” Former Los Angeles Times Book Editor David Ulin has written a lovely essay on why this book by one of the gods of literary journalism is so good. In it, he includes some great lessons from McPhee, like this one: “A piece of writing,” he insists, “has to start somewhere, go somewhere, and sit down when it gets there. You do that by building what you hope is an unarguable structure. Beginning, middle, end.” And this: “What, he began to wonder, about a double profile, involving two figures who are connected but at the same time distinct? ‘In the resonance between the two sides, added dimension might develop. Maybe I would twice meet myself coming the other way. Or four times. Who could tell what might happen? In any case, one plus one should add up to more than two.'”

The soundtrack: “Suspended from Class,” by Camera Obscura. This is one of my favorite underrated bands. This song popped into my head after I read the publisher’s line about “a master class in the writer’s craft.” The song begins with this line, “You’re such a beautiful writer/That’s not all you are.” But my favorite line is from the chorus: “I should be suspended from class/I don’t know my elbow from my ass.”

What I’m reading online: I spent some time this month looking back on some top-notch work of the past 12 months. I’m going to list three of my favorites that we spotlighted on Storyboard, and one I wish we had.

How to Get Away With Murder in Small Town India, by Ellen Barry. I absolutely loved this story, the final piece The New York Times correspondent did as she left New Delhi for London. The writing is spectacular, using first person to unparalleled effect. In this Annotation Tuesday!, Barry says, “If you are using the first person, you almost by necessity need to be a character. Being a rich white person in rural India, or any place that poor, is a strange, uncomfortable feeling much of the time. So I suppose I wanted to explore that.”

The Detective of Northern Oddities, by Christopher Solomon. This piece for Outside magazine is another story that features standout writing (and humor) to draw readers into a serious subject, this time climate change and the sinister effects it may be having on wildlife. It’s about a scientist in Alaska who spends her days “slicing open furry dead animals,” and it features what may be my favorite line in a story this year: “A big pair of garden shears sat on the counter, as foreboding as Chekhov’s gun on the mantel.” Read Allison Eck’s annotation for the inside scoop on how he wrote and reported the story.

Seven Days of Heroin, by the Cincinnati Enquirer staff. I’m still blown away by both the concept and execution of this piece. Sixty staffers reported even the tiniest details of one week in the opioid crisis in Cincinnati, and in a stunning feat of editing, a rich narrative emerged. This shows you don’t have to be one of the “big” newspapers to do standout work on a national issue; you just need a great idea and the commitment to use a large portion of your staff in a show of reporting force. In our Notable Narrative, lead reporter Terry DeMio says, ‘We just wanted to show people: This is what a heroin epidemic looks like.”

A Most American Terrorist: the Making of Dylann Roof, by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. This tremendous profile of the young man who killed nine African Americans at a church in Charleston, S.C., features one of the best ledes of the year: “Sitting beside the church, drinking from a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, he thought he had to go in and shoot them.” The writing (and the reporting) is stellar throughout the story, though, as Ghansah follows a trail leading back from that terrible moment to his childhood. This is an example, like Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” where a reporter captures the essence of a person without interviewing him.

If you want to chat about storytelling (or music), I’m Storyboard editor Kari Howard, and you can reach me at [email protected] . Or you can find me at @karihow on Twitter.

Most popular articles from Nieman Storyboard

The intersection of “breaking bad,” marty robbins and “el paso”, “telling true stories: is it worth it” by tom junod, interview with ed kashi: taking it beyond the media.

What Is Literary Journalism?

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Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting with narrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction. This form of writing can also be called narrative journalism or new journalism . The term literary journalism is sometimes used interchangeably with creative nonfiction ; more often, however, it is regarded as one type of creative nonfiction.

In his ground-breaking anthology The Literary Journalists , Norman Sims observed that literary journalism "demands immersion in complex, difficult subjects. The voice of the writer surfaces to show that an author is at work."

Highly regarded literary journalists in the U.S. today include John McPhee , Jane Kramer, Mark Singer, and Richard Rhodes. Some notable literary journalists of the past include Stephen Crane, Henry Mayhew , Jack London , George Orwell , and Tom Wolfe.

Characteristics of Literary Journalism

There is not exactly a concrete formula that writers use to craft literary journalism, as there is for other genres, but according to Sims, a few somewhat flexible rules and common features define literary journalism. "Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion reporting, complicated structures, character development, symbolism , voice , a focus on ordinary people ... and accuracy.

"Literary journalists recognize the need for a consciousness on the page through which the objects in view are filtered. A list of characteristics can be an easier way to define literary journalism than a formal definition or a set of rules. Well, there are some rules, but Mark Kramer used the term 'breakable rules' in an anthology we edited. Among those rules, Kramer included:

Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects' worlds...
Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor...
Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.
Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers' sequential reactions.

... Journalism ties itself to the actual, the confirmed, that which is not simply imagined. ... Literary journalists have adhered to the rules of accuracy—or mostly so—precisely because their work cannot be labeled as journalism if details and characters are imaginary."

Why Literary Journalism Is Not Fiction or Journalism

The term "literary journalism" suggests ties to fiction and journalism, but according to Jan Whitt, literary journalism does not fit neatly into any other category of writing. "Literary journalism is not fiction—the people are real and the events occurred—nor is it journalism in a traditional sense.

"There is interpretation, a personal point of view, and (often) experimentation with structure and chronology. Another essential element of literary journalism is its focus. Rather than emphasizing institutions, literary journalism explores the lives of those who are affected by those institutions."

The Role of the Reader

Because creative nonfiction is so nuanced, the burden of interpreting literary journalism falls on readers. John McPhee, quoted by Sims in "The Art of Literary Journalism," elaborates: "Through dialogue , words, the presentation of the scene, you can turn over the material to the reader. The reader is ninety-some percent of what's creative in creative writing. A writer simply gets things started."

Literary Journalism and the Truth

Literary journalists face a complicated challenge. They must deliver facts and comment on current events in ways that speak to much larger big picture truths about culture, politics, and other major facets of life; literary journalists are, if anything, more tied to authenticity than other journalists. Literary journalism exists for a reason: to start conversations.

Literary Journalism as Nonfiction Prose

Rose Wilder talks about literary journalism as nonfiction prose—informational writing that flows and develops organically like a story—and the strategies that effective writers of this genre employ in The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary journalist. "As defined by Thomas B. Connery, literary journalism is 'nonfiction printed prose whose verifiable content is shaped and transformed into a story or sketch by use of narrative and rhetorical techniques generally associated with fiction.'

"Through these stories and sketches, authors 'make a statement, or provide an interpretation, about the people and culture depicted.' Norman Sims adds to this definition by suggesting the genre itself allows readers to 'behold others' lives, often set within far clearer contexts than we can bring to our own.'

"He goes on to suggest, 'There is something intrinsically political—and strongly democratic—about literary journalism—something pluralistic, pro-individual, anti-cant, and anti-elite.' Further, as John E. Hartsock points out, the bulk of work that has been considered literary journalism is composed 'largely by professional journalists or those writers whose industrial means of production is to be found in the newspaper and magazine press, thus making them at least for the interim de facto journalists.'"

She concludes, "Common to many definitions of literary journalism is that the work itself should contain some kind of higher truth; the stories themselves may be said to be emblematic of a larger truth."

Background of Literary Journalism

This distinct version of journalism owes its beginnings to the likes of Benjamin Franklin, William Hazlitt, Joseph Pulitzer, and others. "[Benjamin] Franklin's Silence Dogood essays marked his entrance into literary journalism," begins Carla Mulford. "Silence, the persona Franklin adopted, speaks to the form that literary journalism should take—that it should be situated in the ordinary world—even though her background was not typically found in newspaper writing."

Literary journalism as it is now was decades in the making, and it is very much intertwined with the New Journalism movement of the late 20th century. Arthur Krystal speaks to the critical role that essayist William Hazlitt played in refining the genre: "A hundred and fifty years before the New Journalists of the 1960s rubbed our noses in their egos, [William] Hazlitt put himself into his work with a candor that would have been unthinkable a few generations earlier."

Robert Boynton clarifies the relationship between literary journalism and new journalism, two terms that were once separate but are now often used interchangeably. "The phrase 'New Journalism' first appeared in an American context in the 1880s when it was used to describe the blend of sensationalism and crusading journalism—muckraking on behalf of immigrants and the poor—one found in the New York World and other papers... Although it was historically unrelated to [Joseph] Pulitzer's New Journalism, the genre of writing that Lincoln Steffens called 'literary journalism' shared many of its goals."

Boynton goes on to compare literary journalism with editorial policy. "As the city editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser in the 1890s, Steffens made literary journalism—artfully told narrative stories about subjects of concern to the masses—into editorial policy, insisting that the basic goals of the artist and the journalist (subjectivity, honesty, empathy) were the same."

Boynton, Robert S. The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007.
Krystal, Arthur. "Slang-Whanger." The New Yorker, 11 May 2009.
Lane, Rose Wilder. The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Journalist . Edited by Amy Mattson Lauters, University of Missouri Press, 2007.
Mulford, Carla. “Benjamin Franklin and Transatlantic Literary Journalism.” Transatlantic Literary Studies, 1660-1830 , edited by Eve Tavor Bannet and Susan Manning, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 75–90.
Sims, Norman. True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism . 1st ed., Northwestern University Press, 2008.
Sims, Norman. “The Art of Literary Journalism.” Literary Journalism , edited by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer, Ballantine Books, 1995.
Sims, Norman. The Literary Journalists . Ballantine Books, 1984.
Whitt, Jan. Women in American Journalism: A New History . University of Illinois Press, 2008.
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An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction
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Epilogues Explained
Definition and Examples of Science Writing
Definition and Examples of Allusion
What is Conceit?
Definition and Examples of Sarcasm
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A Definition of the Literary Term, Cacophony
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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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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:

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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:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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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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What is Literary Journalism?

In this article, a journalist explains what is literary journalism and its key conventions.

Literary journalism is a type of writing that uses narrative techniques that are more typical of novels, short stories and other forms of fiction. However, similar to traditional news reporting, it is presenting a factual story to a public audience.

It is also known as creative nonfiction, immersion journalism, narrative journalism and new journalism.

The last of those terms, ‘new journalism’ came about during the 1960s and 70s, when the writings of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson, George Plimpton, and Truman Capote, and gonzo journalism , reached the public sphere.

Before reading on, check out our guide to the best journalism tools .

Defining Literary Journalism

Recognizing literary journalism, criticism of literary journalism, the role of literary journalism today, resources for journalists, what is the meaning of literary journalism, why is literary journalism important, what is the difference between literary journalism and other journalism.

Norman Sim’s seminal anthology, The Literary Journalists , included the work of some of those writers. It also tried to define just what a literary journalist is. Within its opening passage, it read:

“The literary journalists are marvelous observers whose meticulous attention to detail is wedded to the tools and techniques of the fiction writer. Like reporters, they are fact gatherers whose material is the real world.

“Like fiction writers, they are consummate storytellers who endow their stories with a narrative structure and a distinctive voice.”

Although the history of literary journalism goes back much further than 1960s, it was then when writers such as Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote and Gay Talese exposed this style to the masses.

Their work was renowned for its immersive qualities and its ability to build a plot and narrative. Instead of sticking to journalistic formulas, they wrote in their own voice and in a stylistic narrative that was uniquely theirs.

This writing style was not typical of the newspaper articles of the day.

Although their long-form stories and in-depth research was more suited to literature than newspapers, the likes of Esquire and The New Yorker did publish their work with great success.

New Journalism Not Being New

The differences from the common journalism of the 1960s were notable, hence why their work went under an umbrella category known as ‘new journalism’.

That being said, this style was not new at all, with literary journalism already being written in both North America and further afield.

John S. Bak, founding President of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, points to how journalism evolved in different regions, yet when it comes to this form of writing, there are still overlapping traits. He wrote:

“Since journalism in America and in Europe evolved from different traditions, it is only natural that their literary journalism should have done so as well. But the picture of a U.S.-led literary journalism and a European-produced literary reportage is not as clearly demarcated as one would think or hope.”

Literary journalism takes the qualities of both literature and reporting and melds them into something unique. According to the aforementioned Sims, there are some common features that the best literary nonfiction writers employ. He said:

“Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion reporting, complicated structures, character development, symbolism, voice, a focus on ordinary people… and accuracy.”

Editor, Mark Kramer echoes these characteristics in his ‘breakable rules’ for literary journalists, which he penned for Harvard University. His rules are as follows.

Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects’ worlds and in background research.
Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor with readers and with sources.
Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.
Literary journalists write in “intimate voice,” informal, frank, human and ironic.
Style counts, and tends to be plain and spare.
Literary journalists write from a disengaged and mobile stance, from which they tell stories and also turn and address readers directly.
Structure counts, mixing primary narrative with tales and digressions to amplify and reframe events.
Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers’ sequential reactions.

As said above though, these are all ‘breakable rules’.

The difficulty in defining this type of writing was also touched upon in the 2012 anthology, Global ‘‘Literary Journalism: Exploring the Journalistic Imagination’ by Keeble and Tulloch.

They stated: “On a value-free level, we might argue that, rather than a stable genre or family of genres, literary journalism defines a field where different traditions and practices of writing intersect”.

However, when defining literary journalism and literary reportage, Keeble and Tulloch’s definition does work well: “‘The defining mark of literary journalism is the personality of the writer, the individual and intimate voice of a whole, candid person . . . speaking simply in his or her own right”.

Much of the criticism relating to literary journalism relates to its prioritizing style and narrative technique, over reportage.

As Josh Roiland of the University of Maine puts it, “literary journalism has experienced a resurgence in recent years, and like all popular movements it has sustained a backlash from those who believe it fetishizes narrative at the expense of research and reporting.”

Author and academic, D.G. Myers, shared another critique of the genre, calling it out for ‘pretention’.

He wrote: “Apparently, literary journalism is fancy journalism, highbrow journalism. It is journalism plus fine writing. It is journalism with literary pretensions. But here’s the thing about literary pretensions. They are pretentious. They are phoney. Good writers don’t brag about writing literature, which is a title of honor.”

He also points out how the stylistic methods used are a mixture of travel writing and historical record, rather than plain journalism. He added:

“(Literary journalism) is history because it undertakes to determine what happened in a past, travel writing because it depends upon first-hand observation in addition to documented evidence.”

Liz Fakazis wrote for Britannica on the subject of literary journalism and its critics. She wrote: “(Literary journalism) ignited a debate over how much like a novel or short story a journalistic piece could be before it began violating journalism’s commitment to truth and facts.”

Overall, most of these critiques appear to come from a similar point of view.

That is that the personal essay style of writing that embodies literary journalism is too far removed from the values of news reporting in its most puritanical form. For instance, some argue that this type of reporting does not put enough emphasis on objectivity.

Fakazis further discussed this in her Britannica piece, pointing toward the evolution of truth within journalism as a reason and justification for this type of writing . She wrote:

“(Literary journalists) works challenged the ideology of objectivity and its related practices that had come to govern the profession. The (literary journalists) argued that objectivity does not guarantee truth and that so-called “objective” stories can be more misleading than stories told from a clearly presented personal point of view.

“Mainstream news reporters echoed the New Journalists’ arguments as they began doubting the ability of “objective” journalism to arrive at truth—especially after more traditional reporting failed to convey the complex truth of events such as McCarthyism in the 1950s, the Vietnam War in the 1960s and ’70s, and the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.”

The fact that objectivity was removed as a guiding principle of the Society of Professional Journalists (replaced with fairness and accuracy) in 1996 further pushes this argument.

As is discussed in a ThoughtCo article by academic Richard Nordquist , although narrative nonfiction is obliged to report the facts, it is also required to share the bigger picture and this can be even more important. He wrote:

“Literary journalists face a complicated challenge. They must deliver facts and comment on current events in ways that speak to much larger big picture truths about culture, politics, and other major facets of life; literary journalists are, if anything, more tied to authenticity than other journalists. Literary journalism exists for a reason: to start conversations.

Ultimately, literary journalism is a type of reportage that requires time, commitment and deep knowledge of the craft. It’s not something that you’ll read in a tabloid or online often, but it’s rewarding for the writer and readers.

What Is Advocacy Journalism?

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11 Best Journalism Tools For Busy Professionals

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What Is Gonzo Journalism? Explained

FAQs About literary journalism

Literary journalism is a genre of journalistic work that consists of writing that embraces narrative techniques while presenting a factual story.

Literary journalism contextualizes a story and presents more than just the plain facts, which at times do not give a rounded view of the going-on being reported on.

The key difference is the writing style. Literary journalism takes on narrative techniques that are more typical of novels, short stories, and other forms of literature. Meanwhile, traditional journalism reports the facts and sticks to formulas, such as the inverted pyramid, which is designed for sharing news efficiently.

Literary Journalism I

Learn the basics of nonfiction writing — which offers rich, detailed, and vivid portraits of real events — as you read the best examples of the genre, and begin your own works.

What you can learn.

Define what literary journalism is and how it differs from standard reportage
Read examples from contemporary masters like Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and Gay Talese
Develop skills of strong fiction writing to apply to writing about true events
Start your own literary journalism project and get input from peers and the instructor

About this course:

Fall 2024 schedule.

Enrollment limited to 15 students; early enrollment advised. Visitors not permitted. Internet access required.

Internet access required to retrieve course materials.

Winter 2025 Schedule

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12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays

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Page ID 40514

Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

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The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.

While reading these examples, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the essay's thesis statement, and how do you know it is the thesis statement?
What is the main idea or topic sentence of each body paragraph, and how does it relate back to the thesis statement?
Where and how does each essay use evidence (quotes or paraphrase from the literature)?
What are some of the literary devices or structures the essays analyze or discuss?
How does each author structure their conclusion, and how does their conclusion differ from their introduction?

Example 1: Poetry

Victoria Morillo

Instructor Heather Ringo

3 August 2022

How Nguyen’s Structure Solidifies the Impact of Sexual Violence in “The Study”

Stripped of innocence, your body taken from you. No matter how much you try to block out the instance in which these two things occurred, memories surface and come back to haunt you. How does a person, a young boy , cope with an event that forever changes his life? Hieu Minh Nguyen deconstructs this very way in which an act of sexual violence affects a survivor. In his poem, “The Study,” the poem's speaker recounts the year in which his molestation took place, describing how his memory filters in and out. Throughout the poem, Nguyen writes in free verse, permitting a structural liberation to become the foundation for his message to shine through. While he moves the readers with this poignant narrative, Nguyen effectively conveys the resulting internal struggles of feeling alone and unseen.

The speaker recalls his experience with such painful memory through the use of specific punctuation choices. Just by looking at the poem, we see that the first period doesn’t appear until line 14. It finally comes after the speaker reveals to his readers the possible, central purpose for writing this poem: the speaker's molestation. In the first half, the poem makes use of commas, em dashes, and colons, which lends itself to the idea of the speaker stringing along all of these details to make sense of this time in his life. If reading the poem following the conventions of punctuation, a sense of urgency is present here, as well. This is exemplified by the lack of periods to finalize a thought; and instead, Nguyen uses other punctuation marks to connect them. Serving as another connector of thoughts, the two em dashes give emphasis to the role memory plays when the speaker discusses how “no one [had] a face” during that time (Nguyen 9-11). He speaks in this urgent manner until the 14th line, and when he finally gets it off his chest, the pace of the poem changes, as does the more frequent use of the period. This stream-of-consciousness-like section when juxtaposed with the latter half of the poem, causes readers to slow down and pay attention to the details. It also splits the poem in two: a section that talks of the fogginess of memory then transitions into one that remembers it all.

In tandem with the fluctuating nature of memory, the utilization of line breaks and word choice help reflect the damage the molestation has had. Within the first couple of lines of the poem, the poem demands the readers’ attention when the line breaks from “floating” to “dead” as the speaker describes his memory of Little Billy (Nguyen 1-4). This line break averts the readers’ expectation of the direction of the narrative and immediately shifts the tone of the poem. The break also speaks to the effect his trauma has ingrained in him and how “[f]or the longest time,” his only memory of that year revolves around an image of a boy’s death. In a way, the speaker sees himself in Little Billy; or perhaps, he’s representative of the tragic death of his boyhood, how the speaker felt so “dead” after enduring such a traumatic experience, even referring to himself as a “ghost” that he tries to evict from his conscience (Nguyen 24). The feeling that a part of him has died is solidified at the very end of the poem when the speaker describes himself as a nine-year-old boy who’s been “fossilized,” forever changed by this act (Nguyen 29). By choosing words associated with permanence and death, the speaker tries to recreate the atmosphere (for which he felt trapped in) in order for readers to understand the loneliness that came as a result of his trauma. With the assistance of line breaks, more attention is drawn to the speaker's words, intensifying their importance, and demanding to be felt by the readers.

Most importantly, the speaker expresses eloquently, and so heartbreakingly, about the effect sexual violence has on a person. Perhaps what seems to be the most frustrating are the people who fail to believe survivors of these types of crimes. This is evident when he describes “how angry” the tenants were when they filled the pool with cement (Nguyen 4). They seem to represent how people in the speaker's life were dismissive of his assault and who viewed his tragedy as a nuisance of some sorts. This sentiment is bookended when he says, “They say, give us details , so I give them my body. / They say, give us proof , so I give them my body,” (Nguyen 25-26). The repetition of these two lines reinforces the feeling many feel in these scenarios, as they’re often left to deal with trying to make people believe them, or to even see them.

It’s important to recognize how the structure of this poem gives the speaker space to express the pain he’s had to carry for so long. As a characteristic of free verse, the poem doesn’t follow any structured rhyme scheme or meter; which in turn, allows him to not have any constraints in telling his story the way he wants to. The speaker has the freedom to display his experience in a way that evades predictability and engenders authenticity of a story very personal to him. As readers, we abandon anticipating the next rhyme, and instead focus our attention to the other ways, like his punctuation or word choice, in which he effectively tells his story. The speaker recognizes that some part of him no longer belongs to himself, but by writing “The Study,” he shows other survivors that they’re not alone and encourages hope that eventually, they will be freed from the shackles of sexual violence.

Works Cited

Nguyen, Hieu Minh. “The Study” Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets, Coffee House Press, 2018, https://poets.org/poem/study-0 .

Example 2: Fiction

Todd Goodwin

Professor Stan Matyshak

Advanced Expository Writing

Sept. 17, 20—

Poe’s “Usher”: A Mirror of the Fall of the House of Humanity

Right from the outset of the grim story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe enmeshes us in a dark, gloomy, hopeless world, alienating his characters and the reader from any sort of physical or psychological norm where such values as hope and happiness could possibly exist. He fatalistically tells the story of how a man (the narrator) comes from the outside world of hope, religion, and everyday society and tries to bring some kind of redeeming happiness to his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, who not only has physically and psychologically wasted away but is entrapped in a dilapidated house of ever-looming terror with an emaciated and deranged twin sister. Roderick Usher embodies the wasting away of what once was vibrant and alive, and his house of “insufferable gloom” (273), which contains his morbid sister, seems to mirror or reflect this fear of death and annihilation that he most horribly endures. A close reading of the story reveals that Poe uses mirror images, or reflections, to contribute to the fatalistic theme of “Usher”: each reflection serves to intensify an already prevalent tone of hopelessness, darkness, and fatalism.

It could be argued that the house of Roderick Usher is a “house of mirrors,” whose unpleasant and grim reflections create a dark and hopeless setting. For example, the narrator first approaches “the melancholy house of Usher on a dark and soundless day,” and finds a building which causes him a “sense of insufferable gloom,” which “pervades his spirit and causes an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an undiscerned dreariness of thought” (273). The narrator then optimistically states: “I reflected that a mere different arrangement of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” (274). But the narrator then sees the reflection of the house in the tarn and experiences a “shudder even more thrilling than before” (274). Thus the reader begins to realize that the narrator cannot change or stop the impending doom that will befall the house of Usher, and maybe humanity. The story cleverly plays with the word reflection : the narrator sees a physical reflection that leads him to a mental reflection about Usher’s surroundings.

The narrator’s disillusionment by such grim reflection continues in the story. For example, he describes Roderick Usher’s face as distinct with signs of old strength but lost vigor: the remains of what used to be. He describes the house as a once happy and vibrant place, which, like Roderick, lost its vitality. Also, the narrator describes Usher’s hair as growing wild on his rather obtrusive head, which directly mirrors the eerie moss and straw covering the outside of the house. The narrator continually longs to see these bleak reflections as a dream, for he states: “Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building” (276). He does not want to face the reality that Usher and his home are doomed to fall, regardless of what he does.

Although there are almost countless examples of these mirror images, two others stand out as important. First, Roderick and his sister, Madeline, are twins. The narrator aptly states just as he and Roderick are entombing Madeline that there is “a striking similitude between brother and sister” (288). Indeed, they are mirror images of each other. Madeline is fading away psychologically and physically, and Roderick is not too far behind! The reflection of “doom” that these two share helps intensify and symbolize the hopelessness of the entire situation; thus, they further develop the fatalistic theme. Second, in the climactic scene where Madeline has been mistakenly entombed alive, there is a pairing of images and sounds as the narrator tries to calm Roderick by reading him a romance story. Events in the story simultaneously unfold with events of the sister escaping her tomb. In the story, the hero breaks out of the coffin. Then, in the story, the dragon’s shriek as he is slain parallels Madeline’s shriek. Finally, the story tells of the clangor of a shield, matched by the sister’s clanging along a metal passageway. As the suspense reaches its climax, Roderick shrieks his last words to his “friend,” the narrator: “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door” (296).

Roderick, who slowly falls into insanity, ironically calls the narrator the “Madman.” We are left to reflect on what Poe means by this ironic twist. Poe’s bleak and dark imagery, and his use of mirror reflections, seem only to intensify the hopelessness of “Usher.” We can plausibly conclude that, indeed, the narrator is the “Madman,” for he comes from everyday society, which is a place where hope and faith exist. Poe would probably argue that such a place is opposite to the world of Usher because a world where death is inevitable could not possibly hold such positive values. Therefore, just as Roderick mirrors his sister, the reflection in the tarn mirrors the dilapidation of the house, and the story mirrors the final actions before the death of Usher. “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflects Poe’s view that humanity is hopelessly doomed.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 1839. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library . 1995. Web. 1 July 2012. < http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoeFall.html >.

Example 3: Poetry

Amy Chisnell

Professor Laura Neary

Writing and Literature

April 17, 20—

Don’t Listen to the Egg!: A Close Reading of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.” (Carroll 164)

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass , Humpty Dumpty confidently translates (to a not so confident Alice) the complicated language of the poem “Jabberwocky.” The words of the poem, though nonsense, aptly tell the story of the slaying of the Jabberwock. Upon finding “Jabberwocky” on a table in the looking-glass room, Alice is confused by the strange words. She is quite certain that “ somebody killed something ,” but she does not understand much more than that. When later she encounters Humpty Dumpty, she seizes the opportunity at having the knowledgeable egg interpret—or translate—the poem. Since Humpty Dumpty professes to be able to “make a word work” for him, he is quick to agree. Thus he acts like a New Critic who interprets the poem by performing a close reading of it. Through Humpty’s interpretation of the first stanza, however, we see the poem’s deeper comment concerning the practice of interpreting poetry and literature in general—that strict analytical translation destroys the beauty of a poem. In fact, Humpty Dumpty commits the “heresy of paraphrase,” for he fails to understand that meaning cannot be separated from the form or structure of the literary work.

Of the 71 words found in “Jabberwocky,” 43 have no known meaning. They are simply nonsense. Yet through this nonsensical language, the poem manages not only to tell a story but also gives the reader a sense of setting and characterization. One feels, rather than concretely knows, that the setting is dark, wooded, and frightening. The characters, such as the Jubjub bird, the Bandersnatch, and the doomed Jabberwock, also appear in the reader’s head, even though they will not be found in the local zoo. Even though most of the words are not real, the reader is able to understand what goes on because he or she is given free license to imagine what the words denote and connote. Simply, the poem’s nonsense words are the meaning.

Therefore, when Humpty interprets “Jabberwocky” for Alice, he is not doing her any favors, for he actually misreads the poem. Although the poem in its original is constructed from nonsense words, by the time Humpty is done interpreting it, it truly does not make any sense. The first stanza of the original poem is as follows:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

An the mome raths outgrabe. (Carroll 164)

If we replace, however, the nonsense words of “Jabberwocky” with Humpty’s translated words, the effect would be something like this:

’Twas four o’clock in the afternoon, and the lithe and slimy badger-lizard-corkscrew creatures

Did go round and round and make holes in the grass-plot round the sun-dial:

All flimsy and miserable were the shabby-looking birds

with mop feathers,

And the lost green pigs bellowed-sneezed-whistled.

By translating the poem in such a way, Humpty removes the charm or essence—and the beauty, grace, and rhythm—from the poem. The poetry is sacrificed for meaning. Humpty Dumpty commits the heresy of paraphrase. As Cleanth Brooks argues, “The structure of a poem resembles that of a ballet or musical composition. It is a pattern of resolutions and balances and harmonizations” (203). When the poem is left as nonsense, the reader can easily imagine what a “slithy tove” might be, but when Humpty tells us what it is, he takes that imaginative license away from the reader. The beauty (if that is the proper word) of “Jabberwocky” is in not knowing what the words mean, and yet understanding. By translating the poem, Humpty takes that privilege from the reader. In addition, Humpty fails to recognize that meaning cannot be separated from the structure itself: the nonsense poem reflects this literally—it means “nothing” and achieves this meaning by using “nonsense” words.

Furthermore, the nonsense words Carroll chooses to use in “Jabberwocky” have a magical effect upon the reader; the shadowy sound of the words create the atmosphere, which may be described as a trance-like mood. When Alice first reads the poem, she says it seems to fill her head “with ideas.” The strange-sounding words in the original poem do give one ideas. Why is this? Even though the reader has never heard these words before, he or she is instantly aware of the murky, mysterious mood they set. In other words, diction operates not on the denotative level (the dictionary meaning) but on the connotative level (the emotion(s) they evoke). Thus “Jabberwocky” creates a shadowy mood, and the nonsense words are instrumental in creating this mood. Carroll could not have simply used any nonsense words.

For example, let us change the “dark,” “ominous” words of the first stanza to “lighter,” more “comic” words:

’Twas mearly, and the churly pells

Did bimble and ringle in the tink;

All timpy were the brimbledimps,

And the bip plips outlink.

Shifting the sounds of the words from dark to light merely takes a shift in thought. To create a specific mood using nonsense words, one must create new words from old words that convey the desired mood. In “Jabberwocky,” Carroll mixes “slimy,” a grim idea, “lithe,” a pliable image, to get a new adjective: “slithy” (a portmanteau word). In this translation, brighter words were used to get a lighter effect. “Mearly” is a combination of “morning” and “early,” and “ringle” is a blend of “ring” and "dingle.” The point is that “Jabberwocky’s” nonsense words are created specifically to convey this shadowy or mysterious mood and are integral to the “meaning.”

Consequently, Humpty’s rendering of the poem leaves the reader with a completely different feeling than does the original poem, which provided us with a sense of ethereal mystery, of a dark and foreign land with exotic creatures and fantastic settings. The mysteriousness is destroyed by Humpty’s literal paraphrase of the creatures and the setting; by doing so, he has taken the beauty away from the poem in his attempt to understand it. He has committed the heresy of paraphrase: “If we allow ourselves to be misled by it [this heresy], we distort the relation of the poem to its ‘truth’… we split the poem between its ‘form’ and its ‘content’” (Brooks 201). Humpty Dumpty’s ultimate demise might be seen to symbolize the heretical split between form and content: as a literary creation, Humpty Dumpty is an egg, a well-wrought urn of nonsense. His fall from the wall cracks him and separates the contents from the container, and not even all the King’s men can put the scrambled egg back together again!

Through the odd characters of a little girl and a foolish egg, “Jabberwocky” suggests a bit of sage advice about reading poetry, advice that the New Critics built their theories on. The importance lies not solely within strict analytical translation or interpretation, but in the overall effect of the imagery and word choice that evokes a meaning inseparable from those literary devices. As Archibald MacLeish so aptly writes: “A poem should not mean / But be.” Sometimes it takes a little nonsense to show us the sense in something.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry . 1942. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1956. Print.

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. Alice in Wonderland . 2nd ed. Ed. Donald J. Gray. New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

MacLeish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry . Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 385–86. Print.

Attribution

Sample Essay 1 received permission from Victoria Morillo to publish, licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International ( CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 )
Sample Essays 2 and 3 adapted from Cordell, Ryan and John Pennington. "2.5: Student Sample Papers" from Creating Literary Analysis. 2012. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported ( CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 )

Personal Reportage: Eyewitness to the World

Cindy Skaggs

Building Blocks for Writers

Writing about current events with literary style.

As much as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has impacted the lives of nearly everyone on the planet, it has also given writers a unique moment in history about which to write. In the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, the world is experiencing political unrest, protests and riots, bombings, police brutality, civil rights challenges, voting challenges, international conflict, and the most divided political world in more than a century.

We are living history. The world is on fire, and writers are eyewitnesses to the world. We can’t turn on the news, the Internet, or even meme threads on Reddit without seeing reference to some shocking new event that impacts ourselves and our world.

No one should recognize the opportunity in the chaos more than writers. Newspapers and journals are filled with opinion pieces and personal essays, but those are only the tip of the creative nonfiction iceberg.

Creative nonfiction and personal reportage in times of crisis.

Creative nonfiction (CNF) encompasses a broad range of nonfiction, but is explained concisely, as the editor’s of Creative Nonfiction Magazine say, “True stories, well told.”

CNF uses the same literary devices as fiction to tell a true story. I often call this life writing, because it’s about our true life, but the key is to make the story less academic — less journalistic — and more creative. Essentially, to tell it as a story rather than a dry report.

Examples of CNF include personal essays, autobiography, memoir, lyric essays, literary journalism, humor, spiritual essays, travel, nature, environmental writing, and so-on, as my uncle would say, because the genre is both hard to define and hard to tie into a neat little bow.

Infinite possibility is the joy of creative nonfiction.

The personal essay, a primary CNF form, has been around since Montaigne, but a more recent example is Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood . Capote once called his work a nonfiction novel. While some suggest that Capote’s work is a true crime book, in fact, what he wrote was more literary as he noted:

“It seemed to me that journalism, reportage, could be forced to yield a serious new art form” (Plimpton par. 3).

Personal reportage owes much of its modern birth to Capote and what he saw as a melding of journalism and literature, which provided a window into the events in Holcomb, KS, but also a reflection on the human condition.

“When I first formed my theories concerning the nonfiction novel, many people … felt that what I proposed, a narrative form that employed all the techniques of fictional art but was nevertheless immaculately factual, was little more than a literary solution for fatigued novelists suffering from ‘failure of imagination.’ Personally, I felt that this attitude represented a ‘failure of imagination’ on their part” (Plimpton par. 7).

Oftentimes, personal reportage focuses on current events in which the writer has personal involvement, which opens up like a window into a new world for the reader. Rather than concise writing, such as one reads in the Sunday news, however, personal reportage uses storytelling techniques often wielded in fiction writing. To further develop the concept of personal reportage, writer and essayist Philip Gerard said

“The best nonfiction writers are first-rate reporters, reliable eyewitnesses focused on the world, not themselves, and relentless researchers with the imagination to understand the implications of their discoveries” ( Miller and Paola 117).

This is the form used by Gloria Steinem in her 1963 “A Bunny’s Tale.” Steinem, a staunch feminist, immersed herself as a cocktail waitress in the Playboy Club in the early sixties. This immersive journalism is still hailed as a groundbreaking expose, “fresh and relevant as ever” (Mills par. 1). She didn’t simply report the story, she became a primary element in the story, and was able to shine a light on a hidden world that reflected the human condition.

The Five “Eyes” of Inquiry.

In the world of global intelligence, Five Eyes (FVEY) are the intelligence services of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, but in the world of personal reportage, the five “I’s” of inquiry include immersion, interviews, the Internet, information, and imagination.

A key caveat is that personal reportage requires fact-based inquiry, so while creative nonfiction uses fictional skillsets, the facts remain facts.

Interviewing is a skillset every writer should master. Develop a list of questions prior to the actual interview. Make them open-ended, rather than simple yes or no questions, and write them down, because no matter the amount of preparation, even the best researcher will forget a question when depending on the fallible human brain.

When it comes time for the actual interview, be it over email, the phone, Internet, or in-person, writers should work hard to develop a relationship with the interview subject — this isn’t a cross-examination — so start with simple questions designed to put the subject at ease. Leave long pauses that give the subject time to fill the quiet with additional information. Really listen to what they say and ask follow-up questions. Save the tougher questions for the end of the interview, so if the subject objects — as they inevitably will — the writer still has answers to the earlier questions with which to work.

Immersion can work in the same way it did for Steinem. The writer immerses themselves into the story, but immersion can also mean research, where the writer buries themselves in an overabundance of information from personal interviews, personal experience, research into historical and public records, documents both legal and personal like diaries or letters, and as much primary source data as can be collected via publications and research databases.

Information is key to any story, and the best place to seek and find information is the library. Yes, the Internet is an unlimited source of everything, including information, but the Internet is also a colossal time-suck with unlimited DISinformation. Do preliminary Internet research to build basic knowledge, visit court archives, geneology sites, the census bureau, and newspaper databases, but then avail yourself of a research librarian.

I worked for severals years in the public library system, and I lived for the patron who asked real research questions rather than the ubiquitous “where’s the bathroom” or “do you have such-and-such DVD?”

Librarians are a wealth of information and know better than anyone how to manipulate the research databases to find the right keywords and eventually the best source documents. Develop a relationship with the librarians in your community, college, or university library. Introduce yourself, and once you’ve established a relationship, continue to work with the same librarian. This relationship eliminates the need to reintroduce yourself and your research topic at each instance, but it also puts a bug in the ear of the librarian, who will note any new books or articles on the topic of interest.

The final “I” is imagination. After filling the empty page with as much factual information as possible, writers can give their imaginations free-rein. Keep in mind that imagination is used in the presentation of the information, but the information remains inviolable. The facts, then, are woven inextricably into the larger narrative story.

Imagination and literary devices build story.

In the same way that fiction writers use literary devices, CNF writers can and should add depth to the writing using literary devices considering beginnings and endings ; theme, symbol, and metaphor ; plot; characterization; setting; and the whole writer’s toolbox of craft devices.

In the book Tell It Slant , writers Brenda and Suzanne Paola tell the story of a writer whose essay discusses “how swimming and swimming pools have defined her and held her milestones” and noted that the smell of chlorine turned up “again and again” (119–120). They continue:

“The essay goes on to use the touchstone of chlorine — odorless, changing forever what it contacts — as a metaphor for all the invisible ways life touches and changes us” ( Miller and Paola 120).

Begin with the little things

Starting an essay of any sort requires consideration, and is a challenge for many CNF writers. In print journalism, writers start with the lede.

“A lede is the first sentence or opening paragraph of a news story that immediately grabs the reader’s attention. This introductory section provides a statement, establishes a scenario, or sets up a question that the body of the news article will address by supplying the relevant supporting information” (Masterclass par. 2).

This works well in a journalism form that attempts to provide the most vital information first, but personal reportage is a journey for the reader and the writer, so where to begin is not a small thing.

While discussing how Virginia Woolf opens her essay “The Death of a Moth,” essayist Dinty Moore recommends starting small rather than with a lede.

“Woolf quite deliberately employs one of the most effective ways of anchoring a reader into an essay. She chooses something small, tangible, something with which we are all familiar [a moth], as her initial subject” rather than starting with “a gloomy pronouncements about death being inevitable” ( Moore 43).

Final thoughts.

As I tell my undergraduate students, no two people think alike. Don’t assume the reader is tracking with the way your mind works. Instead, show the thought process on the page, so in the end, both reader and writer are changed by the journey.

“In the best nonfiction, it seems to me, you’re always made aware that you are being engaged with a supple mind at work. The story line or plot in nonfiction consists of the twists and turns of a thought process working itself out… There is nothing more exciting,” he says later, “than to follow a live, candid mind thinking on the page, exploring uncharted waters” ( Lopate 43).

As the world continues to burn, both figuratively and literally, writers become the primary source for future history. They represent a reflective and analytical viewpoint that is often absent in bare-bones reporting. In the current chaotic place in history, writers are eyewitnesses to the world. Do it well.

Prompts for developing your personal reportage.

Focus on the little things. Just as Virginia Woolf started her essay with an intense focus on a moth, choose a “little thing” in your environment or in the environment of your essay. Consider what you “see,” but also what you hear, smell, taste, or touch. As noted in the use of the smell of chlorine as a metaphor for the invisible things that touch us, consider what these small things can symbolize. Brainstorm for 5–10 minutes on all the “little details” that you recall.
Focus on place . Whether your reportage is from your own life or the reported life of someone else, spend time brainstorming about the location. Consider events, people, or things (props or metaphors from above) that you associate with that place. If you’re interviewing, consider asking them questions about place. All the sensory details. In this way, place can become a unifying element to your essay. Brainstorm for 5–10 minutes on place.
Focus on perspective . We see the world through the lens of our own experience, but by shifting the perspective, we can identify new depth of understanding that’s unattainable from our one-dimensional lens. Step back and tell the story from an outside perspective, either that of another person in the story or a distancing “you.” Brainstorm for 5–10 minutes on what this story looks like from another point of view.
Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood . Vintage International Books, 1965.
Lopate, Philip. To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction . Free Press, 2013.
MasterClass. “How to Write a Lede in Journalism.” Masterclass.com , 4 December 2019, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-lede-in-journalism .
Miller, Brenda, and Suzanne Paola. Tell It Slant . McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Mills, Nicolaus. “Gloria Steinem’s ‘A Bunny’s Tale’ — 50 Years Later.” The Guardian , 26 May 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/26/gloria-steinem-bunny-tale-still-relevant-today .
Moore, Dinty. Crafting the Personal Essay : A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction. Writer’s Digest Books, 2010.
Plimpton, George. “The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel.” The New York Times , 16 January 1966, http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/97/12/28/home/capote-interview.html .
This post includes affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Cindy Skaggs grew up on stories of mob bosses, horse thieves, cold-blooded killers, and the last honest man. Those mostly true stories gave her a lifelong love of storytelling that enables her writing addiction. She is the author of seven published romantic suspense novels, including The Untouchables series for Entangled Publishing, plus the Team Fear series.

Cindy is a writer, public speaker, college professor, and military veteran who holds an Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Fiction) and Master of Arts in Creative Writing (Creative Nonfiction). She is an advocate for military and veteran issues, mom to two humans, and a reluctant wrangler of too many critters. Find more at www.CSkaggs.com .

Written by Cindy Skaggs

Writer 🖊 | Veteran | Professor | Complex and flawed human | Booklist https://www.cskaggs.com/books.html and newsletter signup → https://www.cskaggs.com

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Free Journalism Essay Examples & Topics

A journalism essay is a type of paper that combines personal records and reports. Besides news and facts, it should contain a story. An angle that creates a unique narrative of the events you are describing is crucial. However, let’s start with the definition.

No matter how often people hear about journalism, they still might get confused about what it is. It is an act of informative writing about news stories. It can be digital and non-digital, print and non-print. Journalists strive to present information in an interesting way while staying true to the source.

If you have seen journalistic article examples, you know there are two types. News can cover “hard stories”, meaning world events and politics, and “softer stories” about celebrities, science, etc. Journalism as a profession is multidimensional in nature. It can include texts, photography, interviews, and more. Content varies between different categories, such as literary reportage and yellow journalism.

Here, our experts have combined tips about how to write a good journalistic essay. We gathered information that will be useful for starting research and completing it. Moreover, you will find journalism topic ideas. You can use them for inspiration or to practice. Finally, underneath the article you will discover some stellar journalistic essay examples written by other students.

In this section, you’ll find tips that can help you start writing. However, nothing is more vital than choosing an appropriate journalism essay topic beforehand.

Before picking the subject, ask yourself several questions:

What themes do I want to explore?
What will my story be about?
What points do I want to make?
What is my attitude towards the topic?

Answering these questions can allow you to improve your storytelling. What’s more, look for one that can allow you to write intimately. Personal touches and views will influence your paper immensely. With all that in mind, try our free topic generator to get more ideas.

To write an outstanding journalistic essay, you should try these tips:

Gather facts and references first.

Collect all the information you may need for your paper. For a story in journalism, you may be required to interview people or visit a location. Most importantly, you’ll have to research online. Also, you can read stories written by other people on the Internet to gain a better perspective.

Organize your ideas and arguments before writing.

A good story is always organized. The structure of a journalistic should represent an inverted pyramid. The most crucial facts appear on the top, less important details go further, and extra information stays on the bottom. You can reflect in your writing. Organize all your arguments before writing, sticking to a logical structure.

Rely on storytelling.

The story should become the main focus of your work. The writing should serve it and grab the reader’s attention from the start. Think about storytelling techniques that can keep your reader interested till the very end.

Work on your style and language.

Another essential technique to keep your work both logical and engaging is to write in short sentences. If you search for any journalistic writing examples, you’ll see that’s how journalists write. The main goal of your paper is to deliver a clear and strong message. So, working on your style is going to help you further this agenda.

There are so many journalism topics you can write about, and it can sometimes be challenging to stick to one. If you are still unsure what to describe and explore in your paper, this section can help you make this choice.

Here are some original journalism topic ideas:

The way race impacts the news in different states in the US.
Super Bowl as a phenomenon is more important than the game.
Why people refuse to believe in climate change.
How have sports changed international politics?
Is creative writing in high school an essential subject?
How vital is transparency in broadcast journalism?
Is media responsible for the Covid-19 crisis in the US?
Journalism as a profession can help change the world.
A privacy issue between British journalism and the royal family.
Are social media and blogging the future of journalism?
The role of religion and race in Hollywood.
Why has the Chinese economy risen so much over the past decade?
How can media help in battling poverty in developing countries?
Can music be used as political propaganda?
Connections between social media and depression.
Should mobile phones be allowed in educational institutions?
Has the Internet impacted the way how newspapers and articles are written?
Should fake news be banned on social media?
What are the biggest challenges of investigative journalism?
Can reality television be viewed as a type of journalism?
How can athletes impact social awareness?

Thank you for reading the article! We hope you will find it helpful. Do not hesitate to share this article or a list of journalism essay examples with others. Good luck with your assignment!

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How to Write a Literary Analysis: 6 Tips for the Perfect Essay

by Kaelyn Barron | 2 comments

Sometimes, you’ll want to read a book just for the pleasure of being entertained and taken to a different time or place, and see the world through the eyes of another.

Other times, however, like when you’re in your English Literature class or reading a classic, you’ll have to dig past the surface and look beyond the words on the page to understand the author’s message.

To do this, you can conduct your own literary analysis, and examine how the author uses various literary devices and techniques to artfully tell their story while delivering a larger message.

What Is a Literary Analysis?

The purpose of a literary analysis is to examine and deconstruct a work of literature to evaluate how the writer uses literary components to convey ideas.

A literary analysis is not a summary; it reaches past basic comprehension and facts. Often, this type of analysis will argue the theme, message, or purpose of a work by analyzing the writer’s use of literary devices and narrative techniques.

How to Write a Literary Analysis

These 4 steps will help prepare you to write an in-depth literary analysis that offers new insight to both old and modern classics.

1. Read the text and identify literary devices.

As you conduct your literary analysis, you should first read through the text, keeping an eye on key elements that could serve as clues to larger, underlying themes.

The following is a checklist of the literary and narrative devices you should take note of while reading. (If possible, marking the text with a pencil can be very helpful.)

Point of view: First, examine the point of view from which the story is told. Who is the narrator? Is it a character from the story, or an unknown, all-knowing figure? Do they have something at stake? Do you find them to be a reliable narrator? The answers to these questions can help shape your argument.
Recurring symbols : Things like colors, rivers, and seasons may not seem significant at first glance, but together, and especially if they appear more than once, they can signify a deeper message. (Just look at this analysis of Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” as an example.) Our guide to symbolism explains some of the most common symbols in literature. If you come across these in a text, highlight or circle them. These symbols can also be part of an extended metaphors, so it’s helpful to keep track of them and look for any possible connections.
Character motivation : The main character’s motivation is extremely important when it comes to advancing the plot. Ask yourself what the character wants, and what’s keeping them from getting it. Why is that thing important to them? Could it carry any deeper significance that its face value?
Tone : Evaluate the writer’s tone . Do the words convey an anxious, ominous, or hopeful tone? Is it sad, witty, or whimsical? There are lots of ways to describe tone, and your assessment of this literary device can add important insight to your overall analysis.
Diction : The author’s word choice, or diction , can also influence the piece’s tone. Do any words seem peculiar? Do you think the author chose that word over other synonyms for a reason? When a word stands out to you, ask yourself why it matters that this particular word was chosen over others.
Imagery: What types of images does the author paint? This can be done explicitly through vivid descriptions, or implicitly through sensory details, or words that evoke the feelings of a place, emotion, or idea.
Story structure : How is the story structured, and what impact does this have on the story? Is it told in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? What about the characters, setting, and their relation to the narrative?
Themes : As you’re taking note of the literary elements outlined above, you’ll likely see certain patterns start to emerge. These patterns represent underlying themes . For example, in The Great Gatsby , recurring images, symbols, and even character motivations point to themes of excess, material wealth, and lost values.
Characters : Your entire essay might actually be a character analysis, depending on your topic. However, you can also cite characterization as a supporting element to your main argument. For example, a specific character, major or minor, might embody an ideal, which contributes to a larger theme.

2. Develop your thesis.

If you’re writing an essay for your literature class, you’ll likely be given a prompt or question to answer with your essay.

If you’re not assigned a topic, you’ll have to think of one yourself. You may find it helpful to develop questions in order to get started.

The answer to this question is known as your thesis . In order to serve as the foundation for your analysis, your thesis needs to meet several conditions. It must be:

Arguable : Your thesis should reflect your opinion or interpretation, not a fact. For example, “ The Grapes of Wrath is about a family’s migration from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California” is not a good thesis, because that’s a simple fact. However, “ Frankenstein is actually a feminist novel that rejects patriarchy” is an arguable interpretation, and we can argue for or against that statement with supporting evidence.
Supported through textual evidence : While your thesis shouldn’t be an objective fact, you should still be able to support it with textual evidence and details.

3. Create an outline.

Once you have your thesis, it’s time to make a plan for how you’ll prove your argument. Look back at your notes about the literary and narrative devices above. These will serve as your supporting evidence.

Which elements will help you make the most compelling argument for your thesis? You might choose, for example, to build your argument around imagery, symbolism, and diction.

You can dedicate a section to each of these elements and cite evidence directly from the text to explain why and how they support your thesis.

Create an outline to organize your thoughts, so when it’s time to start writing, you won’t forget where you were going with those points.

4. Cite the evidence.

When you’re making your argument, it’s important that you have concrete evidence from the text to support your claims.

When you can, provide direct quotes and other concrete details. For example, if you’re using symbolism as supporting evidence for why Frankenstein is a feminist text, you should be able to cite passages that illustrate the claim.

5. Write your body paragraphs.

Using your outline and notes from the text, you can now start writing your literary analysis. However, may find it helpful to leave room for your introduction and start by writing the body paragraphs, which contain your main arguments.

You’ll already have all the points and supporting details you need in your outline, so you can jump right in, rather than trying to think of the perfect opening line to your essay.

This strategy can also be beneficial because as you develop your arguments, you may generate new ideas or slightly adjust your thesis.

6. Write your introduction and conclusion.

Once you’ve fleshed out your body paragraphs and written a compelling argument, you can write your introductory paragraph (using the thesis statement you developed earlier), as well as your conclusion, which should neatly tie up your argument and leave your readers with some final insights.

Types of Literary Criticism

When you’re analyzing literature, there are numerous lenses through which you can examine the work. For example, common types of literary criticism include ethical, feminist, historic, and social criticism.

This means that your analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of the work will be through one of those lenses.

Analyzing Literature

The best works of literature are filled with hints that will lead you to a bigger picture, and discovering those clues and how they fit together is what makes reading so fun.

Whether you want to ace your next English essay or refine your critical thinking skills, understanding how to analyze literature will lead you to a more fulfilling reading experience.

Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:

Symbolism: Common Examples in Life and Literature
The Last Line of The Great Gatsby, Explained
Extended Metaphors Explained: Definition, Purpose, and Examples from Literature
17 of the Most Common Literary Devices Every Reader and Writer Should Know

As a blog writer for TCK Publishing, Kaelyn loves crafting fun and helpful content for writers, readers, and creative minds alike. She has a degree in International Affairs with a minor in Italian Studies, but her true passion has always been writing. Working remotely allows her to do even more of the things she loves, like traveling, cooking, and spending time with her family.

We read a critic generously when they tackle a difficult topic, so one doesn’t judge Barron overly harshly for a seemingly shallow understanding of the subject. The article is useful as a starting point, giving us a chance to consider why so much of the content is ultimately indefensible. This blog has proven a genuinely valuable teaching resource. My students learn a great deal by exploring how this article manages to fall so far short of the promise in its title. Were her approach more thoughtful and erudite, such a rich opportunity to critically engage with literary theory would be denied Barron’s audience.

Hi Gregory, I’m sorry you found the article shallow. I intended it to be an overview for students, to walk them through the process of writing a solid literary analysis essay. What about the content do you find indefensible?

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Example of an Insightful Literary Analysis Essay

Student writing Insightful Literary Analysis Essay

DESCRIPTION Student writing Insightful Literary Analysis Essay
SOURCE Wavebreakmedia / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Get a sense of what to do right with this literary analysis essay example. A literary analysis is more than a book report ; it goes deeper into the text, examining the themes, literary devices, characters, and more. To write a great literary analysis essay, you need a good thesis and a good grasp of the novel , story, poem, or other literary work you’re discussing. You also need examples for inspiration.

Sample Literary Analysis Essay for Middle School or High School

At the middle school level, a literary analysis essay can be as short as one page. For high schoolers, the essay may become much longer as they progress. Often, this type of essay will focus on a specific area of literary analysis , such as character development or imagery within a text. Students can sometimes choose the story, novel, or book series they wish to write about, and they learn to use quotes from the text to support their thesis statements.

This sample essay focuses on the character development of Laura in the book By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The thesis statement for this literary analysis essay is, “When her eldest sister loses her sight, Laura must suddenly take on the role of the oldest child in the family and grow in maturity.”

Literary Analysis of By the Shores of Silver Lake

In By the Shores of Silver Lake , Laura Ingalls Wilder focuses on the theme of coming of age, especially as it relates to her main character, Laura. Although this theme runs throughout the novel, it’s especially apparent as Laura’s role in the family changes. The novel begins with Laura’s older sister, Mary, losing her sight due to scarlet fever. This directly affects Laura, who must go from being a middle child to suddenly assuming the role of the oldest and acting as Mary’s eyes. It’s a role she has had no experience with, and as she learns to accept it and grow to meet her responsibilities, she begins to leave childhood behind.

In previous novels in the “Little House” series, Laura and Mary have a typical sibling relationship. Mary is the oldest and is often placed in charge of Laura, such as when Pa and Ma go to town and leave them alone together in the chapter “Keeping House” in On the Banks of Plum Creek . The two sometimes fight, and Laura plainly resents Mary’s bossiness while at the same time looking up to her sister. This relationship changes at the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake , which opens with a simple description of Mary’s rapidly fading eyesight and eventual blindness.

Throughout the first chapters, the reader sees the impact of Mary’s blindness on the family’s daily life. Mary can no longer see to care for herself, and as the family sets out on a journey to their new homestead in South Dakota, Laura’s responsibilities increase. She must guide Mary carefully at the depot as they board the train. In the boarding house, she must cut Mary’s meat for her at dinner and help her find her silverware and food. In the wagon that takes them farther west, she must sit on the uncomfortable end of a board seat to give Mary the safer spot in the middle. At the age of 12, Laura must suddenly make countless small adjustments to show she is responsible for Mary’s safety and well-being.

Even more significantly, Laura must “see out loud” for Mary, as is described in the chapter “Riding the Cars”: “On that dreadful morning when Mary could not see even sunshine full in her eyes, Pa had said that Laura must see for her.” Being Mary’s eyes is perhaps one of the most essential duties Laura takes on. She is not only responsible for Mary’s safety and practical needs, but she must also share her outlook on the world in a way that allows Mary to experience it too. This is no light burden, although Laura carries it well.

By the end of the novel, Laura has taken on the role of eldest. She even takes over Mary’s dream of becoming a school teacher. Laura swears to Mary that she will study hard and become a teacher so she can help finance Mary’s college education. She no longer has the option of sitting back and allowing her sister to lead. Instead, she must literally guide her sister from place to place. She must offer direction with her vision and words, and she must provide a means for her sister to achieve her dreams. Although Laura is only 13 at the end of the novel, she has grown significantly in maturity due to her changing role within the family.

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DESCRIPTION Literary Analysis Essay Example
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Why This Essay Is Successful

There are several qualities that make this an insightful literary analysis essay:

Clear thesis statement - The thesis statement is clear and each point in the essay relates back to it.
Supporting evidence - The details from the text, including quotes and specific examples, help to prove the thesis.
Good introduction - The introduction clearly establishes the literary text being discussed and the thesis that will be proven in the essay.
Strong conclusion - The conclusion restates the thesis and uses parallel structure to give the essay a sense of importance and finality.
Transitions - Each paragraph in this essay begins or ends with a transition , allowing the words to flow smoothly from one section to the next.

Remember Your Style

As you write your essay don’t forget to document your sources and use the proper style guide. Whether you’re writing an essay in MLA style or a different style, you’ll find that proper formatting will help you get a better grade on any literary essay.

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