This essay simply asks you to turn your attention to N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season (2015) as your “evidence”, as we ask what sociopolitical arguments, ideas, and opinions, and it is our job to understand what they are. Literary analysis essays therefore function exactly like standard argumentative or opinion essays, except that the “evidence” you use is the piece of literature itself.
It is less about your opinion on a subject, and more about what the novel is trying to tell us. In order to leverage your skill in interacting with research, you will also include at least one academic source. Note that you don’t have to agree with it! Just practice engaging academic conversation around a text.
Start with a specific moment or two that you find interesting, shocking, weird, alarming, exciting, confusing, etc., and think about why you find those moments compelling
Or, consider a specific theme that you want to identify and analyze, such as racial politics in the novel, gender identity, the portrayal of sexuality, parenthood or childhood, etc., and narrow your focus from there
For this essay, once your craft your thesis statement — your “argument” about what message Jemisin is making through the text — you should choose 2-4 very specific examples of plot or key moments in the story that support your thesis. These are your body paragraphs, your evidence, your research.
Bonus: Thesis Statement Reminders
Present a specific point-of-view with enough detail that you will have to defend it!
Non-example: In Get Out, Jordan Peele reveals how evil racism is.
A non-example because 1) yes…obviously 2) this doesn’t offer you much to really analyze, its too broad
Example: In Get Out, Peele incisively critiques white feminism in Alison Williams’s unsettling portrayal of Rose.
This gives me a more specific angle to direct both my evidence (my essay will focus on Rose) and analysis (critical attention to the ways white women enact and enable racism)
Remember that it’s fine for thesis statements to be 2 sentences, if splitting the sentence will help you be clear
Requirements
You have the basic elements of the essay: intro, thesis, body paragraphs & a conclusion
Your thesis is strong, specific, thoughtful, and clear
The sections (body paragraphs) center around specific moments in the novel, and your have at least 4 quotes from the text that illuminate your argument and analysis
You interact to some extent with an additional source — either from the resource list or something of your own choosing (Only one needed, but more than that is fine too
Sample Outline for Literary Analysis
Introduction:
Introduce Jemisin, The Fifth Season
Introduce the “lens” you’ll be talking about
In a thesis statement: argue how TFS and the lens work together to create what you’ll be analyzing!
Body Para 1
Topic Sentence: Main point of paragraph + judgment/claim (What are you trying to say is happening?) EX: Throughout Jemisin’s novel, Syenite frequently experiences hand pains which recall her traumatic experiences as Damaya and reveal Jemisin’s conversation about the long-lasting effects of trauma.
A sentence or two contextualizing the stakes you have just set up in that topic sentence. Maybe I would elaborate on Damaya/Syenite’s hand injury, discuss when/the settings of when she experiences this pain
Introduce my examples! In this paragraph I would use quotes from the book! EX: Syenite’s old hand injury often resurfaces in moments of extreme distress regarding her powers and the potential to have them take over. In a tense exchange with a Guardian, Syenite, “…[remembers the sound of ripping tendons. The palm of her hand stings sharply” (Jemisin 288). This reveals the way that trauma resides with Syenite from her experiences of pain as Damaya.
Following any quotation/paraphrase/summary: take 2 sentences of analysis to connect the quote back to the thesis. EX: This illuminates the intensely bodily form that trauma plays within Jemisin’s novel. It seems as though the reminders of pain are just below the surface of Syenite’s memory and reemerge when she is experiencing similar treatment when she was a child, when she was physically hurt for being an orogen.
Cite again if I have another quotation that I want to include relating to this topic! Here, I might introduce my Secondary Source, Toni Morrison, that will help give me more language to talk about trauma
Analysis again!
Concluding sentence: Summarize what has happened in this paragraph + transition into the next: how does this paragraph allow you to build to the next one?
Body Paragraphs: follow this throughout!
Concluding Paragraph:
Topic Sentence: Re-introduce the topic for the reader
Rephrase the thesis, but with some different language (maybe it’s more forward thinking this time?)
Synthesize the main points of each body paragraph into a cohesive narrative that gives the “how to’s” of the argument
Final sentence: Leave the reader with some parting words / a last impression
