Chapter 3: Strategies for Analyzing
To some extent, analysis is used in nearly any writing project. Basically, analysis refers to thinking about the parts of a whole—how the parts work together to build the whole. In analyzing a flower, you might identify the different parts (stem, petals, stamens, pistils), or qualities (color, odor, size, shape), or different purposes the flower might be used for (decoration, landscaping, butterfly food, herbal medicines).
Writing an analysis for a university course you’re in or a company you work for also demands you examine the components of a class project, a business plan, or an event, such as homecoming. Here is a good introduction to the task of writing an analytical essay.
An analysis can treat many aspects of a subject, so you need to indicate by your thesis exactly what you are aiming to prove by your analysis. Having a tentative thesis, or statement of what you are asserting and supporting in your essay, will allow you to focus on the subject within boundaries set by the thesis. A thesis that focuses on the problems of children adapting to loss and change, examples of which you might find in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, frees you from examining material on the coping skills of older persons—unless you discover clearly relevant ties between the problems and solutions of each age group. When you focus on your material through the lens of the thesis, you can find specific details in the literary text to support and validate your thesis or to modify it.
Fiction, poetry, and drama often mix the modes of narrative, descriptive, and expository writing that characterize functions of the informal essay, but what sets them apart from exposition is that the imaginative forms present their images of life directly. The expository writer talks about his or her topics; the writer of fiction, drama, or poetry gives his readers experiences which mirror life. John Updike, in “Pigeon Feathers,” tells of a young boy’s search for reassurance of the resurrected life promised by orthodox Christianity. Updike does not write an essay on the topic, but tells a story, bringing to our imaginations the fear and disillusionment that build in David as he unsuccessfully seeks clear and comforting knowledge from his parents and his pastor. Gerard Manley Hopkins reveals in “The Windhover” his speaker’s exhilaration at seeing a hawk in flight, an imagistic picture he allows us to participate in imaginatively, preparing us to reflect, as his speaker does, about the costs and rewards of serving God. By giving readers vicarious or imaginary experience, literature can open their horizons to understand, feel, and reflect on new worlds of human activity. In this way, literature becomes a way of knowing, as science and theology are, at their best, ways or methods of knowing reality.
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In this chapter, you’ll be writing an analytical essay, most likely an ad analysis or a literary analysis (a short story, poem, or essay). If your professor assigns a literary analysis—perhaps a short story--you will most likely analyze the characters (e.g., are they demanding, selfish, or portrayed as childlike?) and the setting (e.g., an old farmhouse or in urban London?). You would also consider the use of other literary techniques, such as irony, flashbacks, symbolism, and conflict. If you’re analyzing a poem, you’ll be looking at poetic devices such as alliteration, meter, and imagery. If you’re analyzing an essay, you might be analyzing the essay for allusion, logos, and diction. Your professor will explain more when the essay is assigned.
If your professor assigns an ad analysis, you will be analyzing an advertisement—perhaps a full-page magazine ad—to examine the various aspects to see how they work together to produce an effective advertisement. For example, you may analyze the use of color to set a mood (e.g., blue for cool and relaxing) and the use of diction to connote or suggest urgency and the need to purchase this product soon (e.g., “Markdowns this weekend only). You would also want to analyze the images chosen, such as a cowboy to sell products to men or a big Chevy truck out in rough terrain to imply the truck is tough.
Your teacher will be assigning an analytical essay. Your teacher’s instruction and these links will lead you to in-depth information, explanation, and guidelines you need to write an ad analysis or literary analysis: poetry, essay, or fiction.