FIRST: SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS:

When writing about literature, you follow the same basic conventions required of any formal expository essay. That is, you...

• State a thesis in your introduction and tell how you are going to proceed.

• Develop that thesis by giving supporting reasons and evidence in the body of the essay (In this case it will be references to characters, their actions, what they say, lines of poetry, etc.).

• However, your introduction should always include a statement of the theme of the work as you see it, and the theme must always be a complete sentence. For instance, do not say that the theme is ambition or the ravages which revenge can wreak on the avenger. Here, you might say that the author is writing about ambition, but your theme statement expresses what you think your author is saying ABOUT ambition or whatever. Rather, say,

·         In Macbeth, Shakespeare shows that ambition, if not checked, can lead to personal ruin. And   In "The Cask of Amontillado," Poe demonstrates that revenge can have a corrosive effect on the avenger.  NEVER PUT YOUR THEME SENTENCE IN QUOTES.

• construct your thoughts around an outline and then be sure that your outline is indicated by correct topic sentences and fully developed paragraphs (in formal essays, paragraphs are usually 100-200 words long)

• your readers, as they read,  should be able to "reconstruct" the plan or outline which you presumably followed

• conclude with a summary of your main points and a restatement of the thesis and theme

• ON NO ACCOUNT are you merely to tell the plot or action of the work, and you are to avoid plot rendition for its own sake. You refer to plot merely to prove your points (see below).

• you are writing for a literate reader WHO KNOWS THE PLOT OF THE STORY OR PLAY AND THE CONTENT OF THE POEM

• cite and document any quotes, using MLA form.

SECOND: A FEW CONVENTIONS OF WHICH YOU SHOULD BE AWARE::

• In the introduction to your essay, mention the title of the work and the author's full name:

In "The Tell-tale Heart," Edgar Allan Poe presents a narrator who is rational but insane.

• The title of a story or poem is set off with quotation marks; the title of a play is underlined or italicized. A good way to remember is that LONG works are usually underlined or italicized while SHORT works are in quotations marks. The chapter of a book is short whereas the whole book is long.

story: "The Storm"
poem: "Ballad of Birmingham"
play: A Doll's House or A Doll's House
novel: The English Patient or The English Patient

• The first time you refer to an author, use his or her full name. Thereafter, use only his or her last name:

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman paints a portrait of a woman who is losing her mind. In order to make the narrator's disorientation more vivid, Gilman tells the story from the first person point of view.

• Note that a comma or period is placed inside the quotation marks; a semicolon or colon is placed after the quotation marks:

In "The Storm," Calixta encounters a former lover.
Kate Chopin is making a controversial point in "The Storm."
Kate Chopin has created an ambiguous ending for "The Storm"; this leaves the interpretation of the story up to the reader.
Not many events occur in "The Storm": a thunderstorm, an affair, and a homecoming are the extent of the plot.

• Avoid using wordy or grammatically incorrect opening lines:

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-tale Heart," he tells a fascinating story.
In this sentence, "he" doesn't refer to anyone; and if you use the author's name, you don't need "he," too. Try it this way:
In "The Tell-tale Heart," Edgar Allan Poe tells a fascinating story.
But there's still a problem: This opening sentence doesn't tell your reader what your essay is about. It's filler, without real content. Get to your point quickly and directly, perhaps like this:
Contrary to popular belief, the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-tale Heart" is not insane. He is evil.

• Unless you have been asked to write a personal essay, avoid using the first person ("I") and the second person ("you") in your essays. Most college essays are supposed to preserve a formal tone, and using "I" and "you" gives the essay too casual a tone. Instead of saying,
  I think Poe's narrator is evil, rather than insane, instead try,  Poe's narrator is evil, rather than insane. (Note that this makes you sound more authoritative, as well.) And instead of saying,  If you look closely at Poe's narrator, you will see that he is evil, rather than insane, try A close reading reveals that Poe's narrator is evil, rather than insane. In other words, ALWAYS avoid "you" or "your."

• ALWAYS WRITE IN THE PRESENT TENSE: for example, In "The Cask of Amontillado," Monstresor murders Fortunato." (not murdered). "In Hamlet, the chief character attempts to kill Claudius because Hamlet's father has so instructed him."  "In 'The Raven,' the poem's speaker imagines that a bird enters his room."

THIRD: A SAMPLE POEM FOLLOWED BY A SHORT SAMPLE ESSAY:

                                 Death of the Ball Turret Gunner (Randall Jarrell)  1945

                                 From my mother's sleep, I feel into the state

                                 And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

                                 Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

                                 I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

                                 When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

HERE IS A SINGLE-PARAGRAPH ESSAY SUCH AS YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO WRITE TWICE IN CLASS (This one corresponds to the first one, which covers only the first five elements of poetry):

In “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” Randall Jarrell uses a number of poetic elements to express his theme.  First, the speaker is a male of no determinate age who has died fighting as a gunner on a B-17 bomber during WWII.  He reveals no particular faith, philosophy, or belief system.  Speaking to the world, he might have been urged to speak because he wanted to express the horrors of war.  We have no way of knowing why he has spoken.  The language is fairly denotative and colloquial.  The imagery comes from blood, birth, sleep, and space, with the birth language being particularly dominant.  “Fell” has a double meaning of being born and falling as a casualty of war, and “sleep” and “nightmare” link the pangs of birth undergone by his mother with his own horrible death.  “Wet fur” suggests amniotic fluid along with the moisture of his own blood.  Personification is employed with “State” in that the State has a “belly,” but the belly also represents the mother, who has given birth.  “Nightmare fighters” is a metaphor in that the enemy fighters are participants in a terrible dream from which the speaker does not awaken.  Perhaps the most important word is “they,” which might represent the forces which cause the speaker to be involved in this war.  “Six miles from earth” is a hyperbole which characterizes just how far out and away the speaker has been before he dies.  Symbolism is quite intense.  The ball turret is obviously a symbolic metaphor for the mother’s womb.  He is born from her womb into a life of hostility, danger, and death (the ball turret),  but in it he ironically dies rather than lives.  The “State” might be a metaphor for all the forces that impel us into situations over which we have no control.  Thematically, it is easy to say that the theme is that war is horrible, but Jarrell seems to be saying something more important.  Perhaps he is reminding us that institutions, organizations, in other words, “the State,” compel us into modes of life which we don’t desire.  Instead of making this statement outright, however, he employs various poetic elements through images of life and birth to say that much of our lives is beyond our control.

NOTE:

If you wish more detailed information about how to write a paper about literature, see the sections in our text on writing about literature. See also the pages on Documentation, and at the end of our text,  there is a valuable Glossary of Literary Terms.