Literary Analysis

Read the story all the way through one time. Note the title, author, and date of publication.
Read the story a second time.
Mark the text
Underline key words or unknown words.
Look for repetition.
Circle key ideas that point to the author’s purpose.
Look for a main point or theme. What does the story teach you about life?
Identify literary techniques – imagery, conflict, characterization, etc.
Ask the following questions of the text
What is the literal meaning?
What are the facts presented?
What are the main points made by the author?
What does this piece suggest about human nature?
Does the author create a believable story?
How does it make you feel? Why?
After careful analysis of the literary work, you will become the expert critic, explaining the meaning you discern, supporting your interpretation with evidence from the work, and evaluating the effectiveness of the literary elements used by the author and the significance of the theme. Your purpose is to deepen the understanding of the work for your classmates. Even if they, too, have studied the work carefully, you will try to convince them that your interpretation is valid.

This paper requires you to document the use of an outside source—the source of the literary work itself. You will use parenthetical references to identify the exact location of evidence in the literary work that supports your ideas. You will name the author and title of the literary work and the date of its publication in your opening paragraph. Any specific reference to the work itself in your paper will require a parenthetical reference with the page number and paragraph number. Look at the student essay included in Bedford. Notice that in his opening paragraph, he includes the name of the literary work and the name of the author, but he does not include a publication date. If he were writing his paper in APA style, he would put the story’s publication date in parentheses immediately after the title of the work. Please be sure to use APA formatting.

Link to the short story for the literary analysis: https://americanliterature.com/author/guy-de-maupassant/short-story/the-necklace