how to conclude a cultural analysis essay

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Cultural Analysis Essay: Topics, Tips, & Example

Writing an essay on cultural issues is an exciting yet a challenging task to complete. Cultural analysis essays are assigned to those who study literature, business, marketing, and social work.

What is a cultural analysis? How to choose a topic for such an assignment? How to write a cultural analysis essay? You’ll find the answers to these questions below. This article contains cultural analysis essay topics, writing tips, together with cultural analysis example added as a bonus.

📝 What Is a Cultural Analysis?

🖊️ how to write a cultural analysis.

• 📃 Choosing a Cultural Analysis Topic?
• 📋 Cultural Analysis Essay Topics

📑 Cultural Analysis: Example of an Essay

🔗 references.

A cultural analysis essay focuses on social and cultural aspects of life : the ways people interact with each other, create communities, etc. It also explains how these interactions are based on the backgrounds and common practices of the participants.

Your cultural analysis essay can be short – for example, a 500-word essay . Or you can go for a long piece of writing. It depends on your topic and the number of arguments you want to cover.

In terms of the style, you can pick an expository , a descriptive , a narrative, or a persuasive type of essay. Your decision will depend on what you aim at when writing this paper.

You might be wondering: how to write a cultural analysis essay? And what exact steps should you take?

• First of all, you need to choose a topic you’re going to explore. It shouldn’t be too broad, as, for example, ‘Culture of Islamic countries.’ It will be best to focus on a particular event or a custom and explore it. Further, we’ll provide you with cultural analysis essay topics.
• Then you can focus on researching, formulating a thesis statement , and creating an outline . The outline is an essential part of your writing, as it helps you to ease the process.
• In the introduction, you should mention your thesis statement and cover what you’re going to discuss in your paper. Remember that it’s vital to intrigue a potential reader in your intro!
• Next, you’re going to focus on the main body . You can split it into several paragraphs. The number of paragraphs will depend on the length of your essay and the number of arguments.
• The conclusion is the last paragraph of your paper. Here, you should confirm your thesis statement by summing up your arguments.

Here , you can learn more about a step-by-step plan for your analytical essay.

📃 Cultural Analysis Topic Ideas: How to Choose

Here, you’ll find three important points that will help you to choose the right topic for your paper.

Cultural Analysis Topics: Point 1

First, choose a society or culture that you want to talk about . Let us take American culture and society as an example.

Cultural Analysis Topics: Point 2

Cultural traditions are reflected in many ways: in literature, cinema, etc. We suggest you use films (this is not boring). You can even write the cultural analysis essay based on your favorite movies.

Cultural Analysis Topics: Point 3

Now, you have to decide on the central issue of your cultural analysis essay . What particular aspect of American culture do you want to discuss, e.g., men/women, drugs, minorities, etc.?

Finally, you need to watch a movie (better twice) that depicts the problem you want to consider . Your major goal boils down to analyzing the film and making the final decision. The question is whether this or that cultural aspect is depicted as it is. This is exactly why the article is called “reflecting the reality.”

As you know, truth is not always shown correctly, especially in movies. For instance, many African Americans living in the United States are depicted as drug pushers or members of some gangs. However, this is not precisely what happens in reality.

Sure, you can take any culture or even sub-culture as the basis of your paper.

📋 80 Cultural Analysis Essay Topics

We’ve prepared 80 exciting topics for your cultural analysis essay. Let’s dive in!

• Changing role of the institution of the family in modern Western society.
• Social Media Role in Promoting Social Change.
• Male and female roles in American society: In the past and nowadays.
• Cultural Changes in America After World War II.
• Cultural stereotypes: How have they occurred?
• A Family System and Social Care Service Users.
• The role of marriage: Western and Eastern countries.
• Cultural Diversity Among the Hispanics.
• How are cultural minorities presented in American media nowadays?
• Cross-Cultural Management Problems.
• The role of traditions in modern American society.
• Role of Social Media in the Curriculum.
• Does the media help in promoting social tolerance?
• Culture and Diversity in Education.
• Origins of racism and discrimination in American society.
• Importance of Social Responsibility.
• The role of migration in modern American culture.
• Intercultural Communication Breakdown.
• New professional ethics in the United States: What has been changed in the last decade?
• A Development of American Society.
• Role of religion in modern American society.
• Social Problem, Its Components and Stages.
• Impact of Latin American culture on US culture.
• Social Media’s Effect on Democracy.

• Cultural unification mechanisms: How does it work?
• The Meaning of Theology for the Present Society.
• Social media and global culture: A myth or reality?
• Gender & Society. Intersectionality and Feminist Activism.
• The role of national cultures.
• Why Make a Step Family a Real Family?
• How is culture used in advertising?
• Hip-Hop in Japan and Cultural Globalization.
• The role of holidays and celebrations in American culture.
• Direct and Indirect Social Influences on a Person.
• Multicultural societies: Positive and negative aspects.
• Gun Control: Social Contract Broken in the US.
• The role of subcultures in American society.
• Freedom Significance: Social and Political Aspects.
• American Revolution and its role in American culture.
• Social Issues: The Uses of Global Poverty.
• World War II and its influence on world culture.
• Effects of Technology on Society.
• The role of religion in Islamic countries.
• Cultural Safety and Transcultural Nursing.
• The role of feminism in American culture.
• American Culture Reflection in Sport.
• The role of feminism in post-Soviet countries.
• Social Media: Ethical Issues and Theories.
• Female and minorities in politics: Why it becomes important nowadays?
• The Effect of Music on Culture.
• Hip hop culture and its influence on American society.
• Effect of Gaming on People’s Social Lives.
• Gender and Social Movements.
• Race relations in the United States: Has the situation improved in the 21st century?
• Heritage and Culture in African American Literature.
• Do social networks support personal identity or suppress it?
• Culture Diversity and Healthcare Delivery in Australia.
• What are the roots of international culture?
• Foreignism, Media, Imperialism Influence on Culture.
• Social networks and its impact on national cultures.
• Family Support and Intervention in Substance Abuse Among Adolescents.
• Mexican culture and its influence on American society.
• Nuclear family : What has changed in the 21st century?
• Science, Technology and Society: Implications for Education.
• Freedom of information and its impact on international culture.
• Popular Music in the Modern Culture.
• Do national cultures lose their significance in the rise of international culture?
• “Religion in Society: A Sociology of Religion” by Ronald Johnstone.
• How did the technological revolution change European culture?
• Rap in American Culture.
• Changing female roles in Islamic countries. For this topic, you can choose two Islamic countries: the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia . And discuss and compare the way female roles are changing.
• Canadian Political Culture.
• Indigenous people and their impact on American culture . Here you can pick one particular area of American culture that indigenous people influenced. It could be, for instance, literature or cinema.
• Social Media Helps to Bridge Divides.
• The influence of religion on modern American politics . For this topic, you can focus on how Bible teachings are reflected in contemporary American laws.
• Social Groups and How They Work.
• American popular culture and reasons for its acceptance worldwide . You can discuss the origins of this phenomenon and why American culture got accepted all over the world.
• Family Structure and Its Effects on Children.
• Fighting gender stereotypes in mass media . For this topic, you can choose European Union and discuss how it fights gender stereotypes and sexism in the media.
• Teen Pregnancy Prevention in Modern Society.

In this section, we’ve prepared a cultural analysis essay example for you.

You’ll see excerpts from an essay on social networks and their influence on national cultures in the table below. We hope you’ll get inspired by your paper!

Social networks and their impact on national cultures

• Ideas for culture essay & paper topics – California State University, Fresno
• Use of social media to promote national culture worldwide – URFU
• Guidelines for academic papers in Literary or Cultural Studies – Stiftung Universität Hildesheim
• The Practice of Cultural Analysis – Stanford University Press
• Film Analysis – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Write Your Essay | UNSW Current Students
• Writing Across Cultures and Contexts: International Students in the Stanford Study of Writing – Stanford University
• Cross-Cultural Analysis – The University of Alabama

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5.8: Strategies for Starting Your Cultural Identity Paper

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This chapter summarizes a range of different ideas about literature that all center on the identity of authors, their characters, and (in part) their readers. In each paper we find a close consideration of the way different groups interact: how they perceive and represent each other, how they talk to and about each other, and how they exert power against each other. Whether discussing the effects of colonialism in nineteenth-century Africa, the perils of assimilation for Native Americans in the early twentieth-century United States, or the economic parallels between slavery and whaling in nineteenth-century America, each paper takes seriously the cultural and political realities that underlie the creation of literature, and each sees literature as a force that can shape those cultural and political realities. When reading literary works, you should be attentive to issues of identity, power, assimilation, and/or prejudice.

If you follow these steps, you’ll be well on your way to writing a compelling paper on racial, ethnic, or cultural themes:

• Consider the racial, ethnic, or cultural background of the author. Do the characters in the work come from a similar background? Does the author come from a colonized or minority population? Conversely, does the author come from an imperial or majority population? Does the work seem intended to address issues particular to the author’s background?
• Consider the history of the work’s setting and/or composition. What were the major political realities of the day? Were there major conflicts, settlements, or economic realities that would have shaped the author’s or his or her contemporary readers’ worldviews? Are the settings in the work familiar to the author’s experience, or are they “other” or exotic settings? How might the politics of the day shape the work’s themes, images, settings, or characters?
• Research the reactions of previous critics to the work. Have they noticed particular attitudes toward race, ethnicity, or culture in the text? Do you agree with their assessment, or do you see ideas they have missed? Can you extend, modify, or correct their arguments?
• Consider the possible readers of the work. How do you think members of the groups represented in the work would feel about the way their race, ethnicity, or culture is represented? If you come from a group depicted in the work you’ve chosen, how does that depiction make you feel?

In short, you want to ask how the work you are studying represents the identities of the groups it depicts. If you can begin to answer these questions, you’ll be well on your way to a cultural analysis of a literary text. Remember that you can write a cultural analysis in many modes: you can celebrate a work’s progressive representation of race or you can critique a work’s problematic complicity in negative social attitudes. Either way, you can write a compelling argument about race, culture, and ethnicity in literature.

How to Write a Cultural Analysis Paper

M.t. wroblewski.

Students don't always believe it, but sometimes the most difficult part of writing a paper is settling on a topic -- and then narrowing that topic sufficiently. Such is often the case with a cultural analysis paper, which affords you many interesting choices. First you have to choose a culture or a country. Then, after studying its cultural influences, you must choose the one that interests, if not fascinates, you the most. Right from the outset, start saving information, chronicling the websites you visit and a jotting a brief overview of what you found there -- just as a tourist visiting a country for the first time might do.

Settle on a focus for your cultural analysis paper. Writing a paper on a country's entire “culture” is far too broad, no matter what the assigned length of the paper. So consider a specific cultural event, custom, celebration, influence or even cultural phenomenon. Choosing "religion" or "music" might be tempting, but even these ideas are much too broad. Narrow the focus even more by limiting your research to a facet of the religion or one form of music. With a specific and narrow theme, you can focus your research with great precision, enabling your paper to teem with rich, colorful details that will set it apart.

Develop a working thesis statement for your cultural analysis paper. Think of this statement as the answer you would give someone who asks, “So what is your cultural analysis paper about?” A thesis is the guiding force of any paper, and every sentence and every paragraph of your paper ought to amplify, illustrate and support the thesis in some meaningful way. Continue to tweak, refine and improve your working thesis statement until you are ready to turn in your paper; this is how important the thesis is.

Write an introduction for your cultural analysis that sets a tantalizing stage for the paper. Provide a brief overview of the culture you have chosen to profile and then segue to your theme. Place the theme in context by explaining what it is that makes it such a profoundly important part of the culture. Then lead directly to your thesis statement. Altogether, you might devote up to five paragraphs to your introduction.

Develop your theme in the body of the cultural analysis paper. The body represents the bulk of the paper and where you must convince the reader of the veracity of your thesis statement. With this vital task at hand, start at the beginning to make your case, assuming the reader knows little to nothing about your topic. Slowly build your case with evidence, examples, statistics and quotes. A cultural analysis paper affords great opportunity to allow the reader to truly “experience” a cultural theme, so choose descriptive words with care and share your enthusiasm for the topic.

Conclude your paper by giving the reader something to ponder. Too often, students end papers as though they have written the definitive and last word on a subject. But the world continues to turn, so try to “point forward” -- or, better yet, find a source who points forward and makes a prediction about the future of your cultural theme.

Try to put your paper aside for at least one day and return to it with a refreshed pair of critical eyes. If you can't be your own worst critic, find someone to assume this role for you. Then edit and proofread your paper carefully.

• 1 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Sociology
• 2 Michigan Statue University: Rhetorical Analysis of Cultural Artifact
• 3 Winthrop University: Cultural Events Analysis
• 4 Purdue University Online Writing Lab: Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements

About the Author

With education, health care and small business marketing as her core interests, M.T. Wroblewski has penned pieces for Woman's Day, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal and many newspapers and magazines. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Northern Illinois University.

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So much is at stake in writing a conclusion. This is, after all, your last chance to persuade your readers to your point of view, to impress yourself upon them as a writer and thinker. And the impression you create in your conclusion will shape the impression that stays with your readers after they've finished the essay.

The end of an essay should therefore convey a sense of completeness and closure as well as a sense of the lingering possibilities of the topic, its larger meaning, its implications: the final paragraph should close the discussion without closing it off.

To establish a sense of closure, you might do one or more of the following:

• Conclude by linking the last paragraph to the first, perhaps by reiterating a word or phrase you used at the beginning.
• Conclude with a sentence composed mainly of one-syllable words. Simple language can help create an effect of understated drama.
• Conclude with a sentence that's compound or parallel in structure; such sentences can establish a sense of balance or order that may feel just right at the end of a complex discussion.

To close the discussion without closing it off, you might do one or more of the following:

• Conclude with a quotation from or reference to a primary or secondary source, one that amplifies your main point or puts it in a different perspective. A quotation from, say, the novel or poem you're writing about can add texture and specificity to your discussion; a critic or scholar can help confirm or complicate your final point. For example, you might conclude an essay on the idea of home in James Joyce's short story collection,  Dubliners , with information about Joyce's own complex feelings towards Dublin, his home. Or you might end with a biographer's statement about Joyce's attitude toward Dublin, which could illuminate his characters' responses to the city. Just be cautious, especially about using secondary material: make sure that you get the last word.
• Conclude by setting your discussion into a different, perhaps larger, context. For example, you might end an essay on nineteenth-century muckraking journalism by linking it to a current news magazine program like  60 Minutes .
• Conclude by redefining one of the key terms of your argument. For example, an essay on Marx's treatment of the conflict between wage labor and capital might begin with Marx's claim that the "capitalist economy is . . . a gigantic enterprise of dehumanization "; the essay might end by suggesting that Marxist analysis is itself dehumanizing because it construes everything in economic -- rather than moral or ethical-- terms.
• Conclude by considering the implications of your argument (or analysis or discussion). What does your argument imply, or involve, or suggest? For example, an essay on the novel  Ambiguous Adventure , by the Senegalese writer Cheikh Hamidou Kane, might open with the idea that the protagonist's development suggests Kane's belief in the need to integrate Western materialism and Sufi spirituality in modern Senegal. The conclusion might make the new but related point that the novel on the whole suggests that such an integration is (or isn't) possible.

Finally, some advice on how not to end an essay:

• Don't simply summarize your essay. A brief summary of your argument may be useful, especially if your essay is long--more than ten pages or so. But shorter essays tend not to require a restatement of your main ideas.
• Avoid phrases like "in conclusion," "to conclude," "in summary," and "to sum up." These phrases can be useful--even welcome--in oral presentations. But readers can see, by the tell-tale compression of the pages, when an essay is about to end. You'll irritate your audience if you belabor the obvious.
• Resist the urge to apologize. If you've immersed yourself in your subject, you now know a good deal more about it than you can possibly include in a five- or ten- or 20-page essay. As a result, by the time you've finished writing, you may be having some doubts about what you've produced. (And if you haven't immersed yourself in your subject, you may be feeling even more doubtful about your essay as you approach the conclusion.) Repress those doubts. Don't undercut your authority by saying things like, "this is just one approach to the subject; there may be other, better approaches. . ."

Copyright 1998, Pat Bellanca, for the Writing Center at Harvard University

Essay 1: Cultural Analysis

Basic Assignment . This assignment asks you to write a critical essay that provides a cultural analysis of a multicultural American literary text written before World War I, something prior to literary modernism and on our syllabus.

Cultural Analysis . For the purposes of this assignment, "cultural analysis" means making connections between a text we've read and the cultural contexts in which that text emerged or circulated. It does not exclude the formal analysis of a text (indeed some of the very best cultural criticism uses analysis of form); but cultural analysis moves beyond the boundaries of the text itself to establish links among texts, values, institutions, groups, practices, and people.

 Here are some examples of the questions that a critic developing a cultural analysis might ask:

 •    What kinds of behavior does this text seem to encourage or enforce?

•    What are the social purposes or functions of this text?

•    Why might readers at different times and different places find this text compelling?

•    What are the differences between my values and the values implicit in the text?

•    Upon what social understanding does the text depend?

•    How might this text affect the freedom or movement of a person or groups of persons?

•    How is this text connected to larger social groups, beliefs, structures, issues, ideas, events, habits, customs, practices, or communications?

 These are just examples. The specific questions, form, and content of you paper should be tailored to your own talents and interests. In other words, you will develop your own topic for this paper. It also means that some of these papers may be deeply informed by cultural theory; others may not. Some will want to develop a very precise idea of what “cultural analysis” means; others will not. Some will use a great deal of historical research; others only a little. Some papers will use mostly primary documents to construct an understanding of an early American cultural context; others will rely on secondary sources; and others may use a mix of both. All these papers, however, must use documents and sources beyond the literary text itself.

Proposals . I will need a proposal from everyone sometime before September 24 . I will accept three different kinds of proposals: 1) a paper conference with me; 2) a one-page, typed explanation of the option you’ve selected and a preliminary indication of what you would like to do with the topic; or 3) an e-mail version of #2.

What-I’m-Really-Looking-For. Just so you know, when I’m reading these papers, I’ll be asking myself the following questions:

•    Does the paper move beyond an analysis of a text in isolation, the text itself?

•    Does it focus on a multicultural American literary text written before World War I, something prior to literary modernism and on our syllabus?

•    Does it make links between the text and its culture (i.e., values, institutions, groups, practices, or people)?

•    Does the paper make specific and interesting claims about the text and culture examined?

•    Does it explain in a clear and persuasive manner its interpretation of the text and its cultural contexts?

•    Does it support that interpretation with judiciously chosen evidence, including most importantly appropriate, direct references to the text?

•    Is it organized in a way that makes clear (rather than detracts from) the argument’s major claims and emphases?

•    Does it acknowledge its primary and secondary sources using a bibliography and a clear and consistent style of documentation?

•    Would the paper be interesting to others in the class? Does it avoid saying the obvious?

Revisions . After I return your papers (on October 8th probably), please read my comments. If at that point, you would like to revise your paper, please do so. Revisions will be due one week after papers have been returned (October 15th). A revision does not automatically receive a better grade. The revision must be substantially improved. It must demonstrate significant change in ideas and focus, arrangement and organization, or evidence and development. Simply correcting typos or making editing corrections will not change the grade.

To submit a revision, please: 1) Write a summary explaining why and how you revised—for example, how and why you decided to change the focus and organization; why you deleted or added a certain part; why and how you rearranged information; and so on. 2) Hand-in your revision, your original paper, and my original comments along with your summary explaining the changes.

Due Date . Friday, October 1

Length . 5-8 typed, double-spaced pages

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This page was updated on 18 August 2004. Other pages on this site may have been updated more recently. These pages are copyright © 1995-2004 Gregory Eiselein.

Cultural Analysis Essays: What to Focus on

Are you struggling with a cultural analysis essay? Can you not understand where to start and what to focus on? It is pretty weird that a teacher has not provided necessary specifications, because cultural analysis essays can actually be devoted to many different issues.

Yet, the main principle of writing cultural analysis essays remains the same. You need to analyze something referring to its cultural aspect. Let us introduce you a couple of examples and pointers for writing your cultural analysis essay.

📝 Essays on cultural diversity

📃 essays on cultural differences, 📄 deaf culture essays, 📑 analyzing cultural aspects in movies.

This is one of the popular topics today that students have to address. Our society and world in general become more and more culturally diverse and cosmopolitan. How do all these cultures interact? Answer this question in your essay on cultural diversity.

If you choose this option, you will have to compare two particular cultures. For instance, you may discuss cultural differences between America and India or America and China.

Explain what deaf culture is all about, signs deaf people use, schools they go to, their entertainment, and so on. By the way, some people believe that deaf culture does not exist. Express your opinion about this issue in the deaf culture essay.

This is one of the most fascinating ways to complete cultural analysis essays. It is not a secret that films reflect culture of different countries. What movies do you think are best at reflecting American culture?

Take them as examples for your cultural analysis essay, explain what particular cultural aspect they are about (men or women in society, drugs, or any other social problem), and finally tell whether it is really so in reality.

Probably, you will find our next articles about “Proud to Be a Canadian” essays and a Geography essay useful too.

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• Knowledge Base
• 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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Table of contents

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:

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!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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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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