Post 173: How to write a literature paper

Post 173: How to write a Literature paper

Tell students to avoid writing a literature paper that is just a summary of what they have just read. I tell students that just like their academic research paper, their literature paper also has to prove a point and then they use the elements of the novel to prove their point. They don't just summarize what they read.

Example: In the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan,  this novel focuses on the relationship between Asian American mothers and daughters.

What point does this thesis statement make? Does it prove a point or is it a summary of the novel?

Better Example: The novel, Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan discusses conflicting Asian American values vs traditional Asian values of self determination, role of women in a marriage and the right to obey family or pursue one's own happiness.

Even better example: In the novel, Joy Luck Club, the mothers represent traditional group oriented Asian culture while the daughters represent the more individualistic American culture.

Another good example: The book version of The Joy Luck Club is better than the film version of The Joy Luck Club because Reason1, Reason 2 and Reason 3.

In the second example, you are proving a socioeconomic cultural point and analyzing the difference between East and West values. In the East, you have a more collective group oriented culture while in the West, you have a more individualistic culture. 

In the third example, you also have to prove your point from a symbolism point of view rather than just declaring a summary of the novel. You use the novel to prove in what way the mothers represent the Asian way of thinking while the Americanized daughters represent the Western way of thinking and how these conflicts of values creates drama in the novel.

In the last example, you are stating your preference of liking the book version of the novel rather than the film version of the novel and then you use each to state the reason why you like the book version rather than the film version.

You can also use these literary approaches to frame your thesis statement:

Examples of Literary approaches

A. Biographical literary approach---What influence did the author's life have on his work? What influence did Gabriel Garcia Marquez's life have on his novel Love in the Time of Cholera? Biographical criticism puts heavy emphasis on the influence that the life of the author had on his or her work, looking for reflections of the author's experiences that may come through in the meaning of the author's writing. Biographical criticism usually requires that a writer do some research into the author's life and experiences. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

B. Historical literary approach--What were the historical influences on a piece of work?  How did events in China influence Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club? How did Ernest Hemingway integrate the events of WWI (World War I) into his work,  A Farewell to Arms? Historical criticism considers the work as a product of the time in which it was written. Bringing in a historical angle to a reading of a work allows the critic to discuss how the work may reflect the events that took place during the time in which the work was written. This is a critical lens that can be easily combined with others lenses, since the writer could focus on a specific aspect of events in the time period. It does require that the writer to do some research into the time period. New Historicism considers the work from a perspective similar to that of historical criticism, but is more insistent that the writer understand and acknowledge his or her own historical biases so that he or she can prevent those biases from influencing his or her reading of the text. New Historicism, like historical criticism, can be easily combined with other critical angles, and can be useful in helping a writer to avoid presentism, which is the term used to refer to writers' tendency to inappropriately measure earlier time periods by the ideals of their own time period. New Historicism will require relatively intensive research into the events, attitudes, and ideals of a time period. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

C. Feminist/Gender literary criticism---What was the role of women in Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper?  What was the role of women in Chinese society in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club?Feminist criticism looks at the work from an angle that puts emphasis on the role of women and/or gender relations. Feminists often look for themes of women's oppression, but feminist criticism is in no ways limited to women's oppression, instead also just seeking to understand the way that women are depicted and shown within works. Don't fall prey to the idea put out by some that a feminist reading must come at the expense of male characters or a male author. Feminist criticism requires some knowledge of the social role of women in the time in which a work was written. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

D. Formalist literary criticism--Analyze the form of literature--style, imagery, tone, setting, character study, plot design, --What was the overall tone of Ginsberg's poetry compared with the tone of Walt Whitman's poetry when it comes to American patriotism? (See Elements of LIterature below) (ENGL 200 Lecture)

Other Elements of Short Fiction (Formalist Criticism)

Aside from the structure, there are some other elements to keep an eye out for. Some of these will show up in the other literary forms that we will consider in this class, and others are more specific to prose fiction. Elements that tend to be more specific to prose fiction include character and setting (though they're also present in drama), which are elements that require some explanation and narrative information from the author. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

• Characters are the figures in the story who cause the action to move forward. They may have names or not; they may be human or animal or even abstractions. Two important characters to always try and identify are the figures that were pointed out above in the discussion of plot: the protagonist and antagonist. Also remember that the narrator of the story can often be considered a character in his or her (or its) own right. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

• Setting is important in terms of how it places readers into a particular world with particular assumptions; take care in identifying setting, as it will help you to figure out what differences there may be between the story's world and our own. Figuring out these likely differences can help you to distinguish between what an author might have intended to focus on versus what we as readers from a different place and time might focus on. In addition, the setting can often help to communicate elements such as tone, and can also contain elements of symbolism. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

Elements that we'll find shared with most other literary forms include:

• Point of view, which refers to the character angle from which the story is told. There are three main points of view: first person (which uses forms of “I” as its main pronoun), second person (which is marked by is use of “you”), and third person (when the author uses only forms of “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they”). Some authors will shift the point of view during the course of their stories, telling the tale from the perspectives of different characters. (ENGL 200 Lecture)
• Tone, an element that we will see in relation to the other kinds of literature we will discuss, conveys, as Muller and Williams explain, “the 'attitude' of the author in a work” (56). Tone usually will not be stated in a straightforward way, but needs to be inferred from how the author describes events or characters. (ENGL 200 Lecture)
• Symbolism, a technique through which an author gives an item or person or event a meaning outside of its usual, everyday existence. Something that is symbolic stands in for another idea or set of associations, and is meant to pull those ideas and associations into the story without directly referring to them.
• Style, the element that describes “the way a work [. . .] is written” (Muller and Williams 57). This includes choices such as sentence length, what kind of language is used, whether or not the author uses metaphor and symbolism, and so forth. Reading through the first Vonnegut piece from this week, “How to Write with Style,” will give you an idea of what is meant by this, as well as giving a good overview of how to make your own essays work, style-wise. (ENGL 200 Lecture)
• Theme, which is the main idea being discussed in the work and what is being said about that main idea. You could consider theme as being similar to the thesis required in an academic essay. While themes are not usually put forth as directly as academic thesis statements, the perform a similar function in terms of giving a particular take on subject.(ENGL 200 Lecture)

E. Psychological approach--What effect did PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) have on Ernest Hemingway's Half Hearted River? or Farewell to Arms? How did the war trauma suffered by Hemingway during WWI affect his body of work? Psychological criticism allows a writer to analyze the characters, imagery, and symbolism of a text through the lens of psychological theory. This has its benefits in that it can help a writer to explain deeper meanings of symbolism and imagery or elucidate the motivations underlying characters' motivations. However, it can be taken too far, especially in terms of interpreting symbolism: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Psychological criticism, like historical and New Historicism, can be easily combined with other lenses. It does require some research into psychological theory and cultural imagery/symbolism. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

F. Sociological/Marxism approach--Evaluates the economical, political and cultural effects on an author's work.  How did Leo Tolstoy critique the superficiality of the Russian aristocracy in Anna Karennina? Why did Leo Tolstoy consider the Russian upper classes, who were influenced by Western European French culture to be decadent? Why did Tolstoy consider the peasant way of class an authentic reflection of the Russian soul? Marxist and social criticism focus on social structures particularly as relates to class and class conflict. Just as feminism does not require the denigration of men, Marxist criticism does not require that the ruling classes necessarily be demonized, but will often focus more strongly on the interests of the working classes. This angle does require that the writer have an understanding of the social structures of the time and place in which the work was written that may be reflected in the text. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

G. Postcolonialism approach--What influence did Europe have on the literature of its colonies, and this approach would affect African literature, Middle Eastern literature, Asian literature and South American literature so when you reflect on topics from these classes, you can reflect on the influence good or bad of Europe the literature of these countries. In A Passage to India, how did E.M. Forster portray India in A Passage to India? Was India portrayed as the authentic India or was India portrayed as a colony from the European point of view? Think back to Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle where India was portrayed as inferior to Europe.  What did Rudyard Kipling mean by 'the white man's burden'? You can choose one of these approaches or angles to approach your topic. This was the literary approach used in the mindmap topic seen above 'The Image of Asians in the West as "Porcelain Asian Dolls", "Heathen Asian Hordes", and "Asian Other".

H. New Criticism---Though elements of content can be analyzed using broader cultural symbols, imagery, and metaphor/simile, they can also be analyzed through the presence of more narrowly defined cultural ideas. This is where the concept of formal critical lenses comes into play. These are ways to look at literature or any other kind of art in terms of the work's use of specific aspects of the culture in which they were created. The basic approach described so far is one generally known as New Criticism, which is a style of close reading that asks the reader to focus solely on what is present in the work itself; the reader is not to do any major research into cultural ideas that are not immediately referenced in the words or images. This is not the only critical lens used by critics, however, and there are a number of commonly used lenses that allow readers to look at a work from a particular angle. (ENGL 200 Lecture)

I. Structuralism looks at a work in the context of other works that may explore similar themes or have similar characteristics of form, and uses its findings to place the work in a structural context. Those who are familiar with Joseph Campbell's work have dealt with structuralism; Campbell's consideration of epic and romance in The Hero with a Thousand Faces emphasizes the structural similarities in the plots of a long list of myths and fairy tales. Structuralism does require that the writer have some knowledge of particular genres of literary works, and can be used to investigate broader categories such as epic poetry, or narrower ones, such as the work of a single author.