Literary Analysis Assignment | Online Assignment
This will be a literary analysis on 5 stories by J.D. Salinger
English 1A – Tamara Fritzchle –Literary Analysis
THE BASICS:
- This is a 3-5-page literary analysis of Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
- This is not a book report. You are analyzing the novel and explaining what you think Salinger is telling his audience through one of the literary lenses.
- Analyze 3-5 of the stories.
- What is a recurring theme in these stories?
- Find out who Salinger is and introduce him to your audience.
- Analyze the treatment of one of the following themes or motifs in order to conclude about the meaning the text intends to impart: gender roles; landscape; sentimentality and/or romanticism; mythology; feminism: art. If you have another idea, run it by me for approval.
- Use 2-3 secondary articles you found during your research that backs up and/or further explains your analysis (you can use any of the video’s and/or articles from our class or if you found something from our library or other reliable source), cite all the sources you use (for a quotation, paraphrase, or summary), and include them in the works cited page in MLA style.
- Cite the novel.
- Avoid logical fallacies.
Successful papers will demonstrate powerful reading and analytical skill, close attention to the primary text, good judgment selecting and using secondary sources, original thinking, clarity of thought and purpose, and commitment in the defense of your argument. They will consider the novel and how it creates context around the themes and passages you discuss.
ESSAY STRUCTURE: Your first paragraph is your introduction. Introduce Salinger and the novel. Make your thesis the last sentence in your introduction. Prove your thesis in the body. Body paragraphs should open with a topic sentence that supports your thesis. A body paragraph should prove its topic sentence with evidence and examples. Your concluding paragraph should not simply repeat the body; it should go with your introduction and body, but take a step out somehow.
TITLE: Title your paper to help your reader anticipate your subject. A good title is one that cannot be used for every paper on your topic; it goes with your paper exactly.
GENERATING IDEAS:
- Research: Reread the novel and your notes on the novel. Brainstorm topics. Select and read secondary sources.
- Planning: Write a working thesis and topic sentences. Next, mine your sources for support or evidence and also for counterarguments against your thesis, which will help you expose the weaknesses of the other point of view. A well-written thesis will suggest the organization of the essay.
ANALYSIS OF NOVEL:
- What is Salinger’s purpose for telling these nine stories?
- Are Salinger’s life experiences retold through his stories?
- Does Salinger place a modern touch on slant on the story? (language, tone, events)
- This is a novel, there are other areas to talk about, like scenes, characters, etc.
- Pick one literary lens to help you analyze the stories you are analyzing.
- Quotes and paraphrases are great, but your voice is the one I want to hear.
Below are some idea’s you can use as a starting point for your analysis.
What kind of novel is Nine Stories? What genre, form, purpose, intended audience, and message. Pick one of the lenses below to look at the stories. How can you interpret the stories through the:
- Reader Response lens
- Feminism lens
- Psychoanalytical lens
- New Historicism lens
- Marxism lens
Some questions to answer in the essay.
- Who is J.D. Salinger?
- Does Salinger’s life experiences reflect in his writing?
- What was happening in America during the time frame these stories take place?
- Does Salinger’s writing meet the definition of literature?
- Are any characters connected between the different stories? If so, in what way?
| These are only questions to help you get started thinking about the novel and how you might analyze it. Can you think of any other questions that you can ask and answer within your analysis? | |
| If you have other ideas, try them out and see if they work for you. | |
Here’s how you can lose points.
- Analyzing less then the required 3 minimum of stories and using less then the required articles – 3 points
- Writing less than the minimum required pages – 5 points per absent required page count.
- Missing in-text MLA citation references – 1 to 10 points
- Missing MLA Works Cited page – 5 points
- Inappropriate title (titling your essay with the ‘type’ of paper, see above *) – 3 points
- Numerous typos, misspellings, grammatical errors (that results in a major distraction from the topic)– 1-10 points
- Incorrectly formatted text or Works Cited page – 5-10 points
Failure to use third person point of view exclu
