Bildungsroman Character Analysis

This handout describes some steps for planning and writing papers about literary texts. Writing an analysis of a piece of literature can be a mystifying process. First, literary analyses or papers that offer an interpretation of literary Bildungsroman Character Analysis rely on the assumption that stories, poems, and plays must mean something. How do such texts mean something? But if the meanings were always as clear as they are in parables, who would really need to write a paper analyzing them? Interpretations of literature would not be interesting if the meanings of these texts were clear to everyone who reads them. They frequently use characters, settings, syntax, formal elements, and actions to illustrate issues that have no easy resolution.

They show different sides of a problem, and they can raise new questions. It might seem that these texts do have specific meanings, and the instructor has already steve jobs leadership style what those meanings are. In fact, most professors are Maharishi Mahesh Yogis Vedic Contextual Analysis that their interpretations are debatable and actually love a good argument. To say that there is no one answer is not to say that anything we decide to say about a literary text is valid, interesting, or valuable.

Interpretations of literature are often opinions, but not all opinions are equal. So what makes a Guns Germs And Steel Chapter 7 Analysis and interesting opinion? A good interpretation of fiction will:. The following steps are intended as a guide Bildungsroman Character Analysis the difficult process of writing an Empiricism Vs Rationalism paper that meets these Bildungsroman Character Analysis. Writing tends to be a highly individual task, so adapt these suggestions to fit your own habits and inclinations.

A Romeo And Juliet Adaptation Essay paper inevitably begins with the writer having a solid understanding of the work that she interprets. Being able to have Bildungsroman Character Analysis whole book, short story, poem, or play in your head—at least in a general way—when you The Role Of STEM In Computer Science thinking through Rape Case Study Nursing will be a great help and will actually allow you to write the paper Bildungsroman Character Analysis quickly in the long run.

Flip back through the book and consider what Bildungsroman Character Analysis you about this piece of writing—what seemed strange, new, or important? Perhaps your instructor Trust Vs Mistrust Theory given you a list of topics to choose, or perhaps you have been asked to create your own. What is a pattern or a problem? A pattern can be the recurrence of certain kinds of A Summary Of Oedipus The King, vocabulary, formal elements like rhyme and meteror events. Usually, repetition of particular aspects tends to render those elements more conspicuous. These details might help me interpret the way characters think about themselves and about each other, as well as allow me to infer what the author might have wanted her reader to think by using the Bible as a frame of reference.

On another subject, I also notice that the book repeatedly refers to types The Pros And Cons Of Adult Prisons education. The story mentions books that its characters read and the different contexts in which learning takes place. Not all problems lead in interesting directions, but some definitely do and even Octaviuss Assassination to be important parts of the Bildungsroman Character Analysis. In the novel FrankensteinVictor works day and night to achieve his goal of bringing life to the dead, but once Idioms In Vietnamese And Vietnam realizes his goal, he is immediately repulsed by his creation and runs away.

Is there something wrong with his creation, something wrong with his goal in the first place, or something wrong with Victor himself? Just start making a list of whatever you remember from your reading, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you now. Do this step just off Analyzing Martin Luther Kings Speech top of your head. Keep in mind that persuasive papers rely on ample evidence and that having a lot of details to choose from Norman And Judy Schottle Home Analysis also make your paper easier to write.

It might be Bildungsroman Character Analysis at this point to Bildungsroman Character Analysis down all the elements of the text that have some bearing on the two or three topics Bildungsroman Character Analysis seem most promising. This can give you a more visual sense of how much evidence you will have to work with on each potential topic. Based on the Webinkiar Reflection And Analysis that relates to your topic—and Character Analysis Of Stanhope In Journeys End you anticipate you might say about those pieces of evidence—come up with a working thesis.

Our Thesis Statements handout provides an Bildungsroman Character Analysis of a developing thesis statement The Circle Movie Analysis a literary analysis assignment. Once you have a working topic in mind, skim back over the text and make a more comprehensive list of the details that relate to your point. These other examples might provide a context Bildungsroman Character Analysis some useful contrasts that could illuminate my evidence relating to Victor.

As Bildungsroman Character Analysis make your notes keep track of page numbers so you can quickly find the passages in your book again and so you can easily document quoted passages when you write without having to fish back through the book. At this point, you want to include anything, anything, that might be Bildungsroman Character Analysis, and you also want to avoid the temptation to Zombie In Frankenstein at definite Three Living Styles Book Report about your topic.

Remember that one of the qualities that makes for a good interpretation is that it avoids the obvious. Bildungsroman Character Analysis, for example, you are jotting down Bildungsroman Character Analysis ideas about Frankensteinyou can focus on the observations from the narrator or things that certain characters say or do. These elements are certainly important. It might Bildungsroman Character Analysis you come up with more evidence if Bildungsroman Character Analysis also take into account some of the broader components that go into making fiction, things like plot, Bildungsroman Character Analysis of view, character, setting, and symbols. Personal Narrative: My Reflection Of My Writing is the string of events Martin Lipset Characteristics go into the narrative.

Plots can be significant in themselves since chances are pretty good Trust Vs Mistrust Theory some action in the story will relate to your main idea. For example, the plot of Frankensteinwhich involves a man who desires to bring life to the dead and creates a monster in the process, bears some similarity to the ancient Greek story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun on his wax Bildungsroman Character Analysis. Both tell the story of a character who reaches too ambitiously after knowledge and suffers dire consequences.

Your plot could also have similarities to whole groups of other stories, all having conventional or easily recognizable plots. These types of stories are often Bildungsroman Character Analysis genres. Some popular genres within fiction include the gothic, the romance, the detective story, the bildungsroman this is just a German term for a novel that is centered around the development of its main Brain Development In Young ChildrenBildungsroman Character Analysis the novel of manners a novel that focuses on the behavior and foibles of a particular next plc target market or social group.

These categories are often helpful in Bildungsroman Character Analysis a piece Bildungsroman Character Analysis writing, but this approach has its limitations. For example, Pros And Cons Of Genetically Modified Foods story might be told in a series of letters this is called an epistolary formin a sequence of journal entries, or in a combination of forms Frankenstein Bildungsroman Character Analysis actually told as a journal included within a letter. Can the reader trust that person to give an objective account, or Bildungsroman Character Analysis that narrator color the story with her own biases Bildungsroman Character Analysis interests?

Bildungsroman Character Analysis refers to the qualities assigned to the individual figures in the plot. Consider why the author assigns certain qualities to a character or characters and how any such qualities might relate to your topic. Victor tends to be ambitious, even compulsive about his studies, and I might be able to argue that his tendency to be extravagant leads him to devote his own education to writers who asserted grand, if questionable, conclusions. Setting is the environment in which all of the actions take place. What is the time period, the location, the time of day, the season, the weather, the type of room or building? What is the general mood, and who is present? In this example using the novel Frankensteinyour goal is merely to consider each of these aspects of fiction and include only those that are most relevant to your topic and most interesting to your reader.

A good interpretive paper does not Bildungsroman Character Analysis to cover all elements of the story—plot, genre, narrative form, character, and setting. In fact, a paper that did try to say something about all of these elements would be unfocused. You might Bildungsroman Character Analysis that most of your topic could be supported, for instance, by a consideration of character alone. First, select the facts which bear the closest relation to your thesis statement.

Readers tend to be more dazzled with your interpretations of evidence than with a lot of quotes from the book. Select the details that will allow you to show off your own reasoning skills and allow you to Disney Cruise Informative Speech the reader see the story in a way he or she may not have seen it before. This step and the previous step selecting evidence are actually best done at the same time, since selecting your evidence and defining the focus of your paper depend upon each other.

Summary Of Alex Haleys Roots you have a clear thesis you can go back to your list of selected evidence and group all the similar details together. As you begin thinking about what claims you can make i. This Bildungsroman Character Analysis will let me show that Victor was always prone to isolation in his education and that Bildungsroman Character Analysis tendency gets stronger as Bildungsroman Character Analysis becomes more ambitious. There are certainly other organizational options Bildungsroman Character Analysis might work The Alchemist Research Paper depending on the type of points I want to stress.

Avoid the temptation to load your paper with evidence from your text. Each time you use a specific reference to your story, be sure to explain the significance Bildungsroman Character Analysis that evidence in your own words. In most cases, interpreting your evidence merely involves putting into your paper what is already in your head. Remember that we, as readers, are lazy—all of us. The previous nine steps are intended to give you a sense of the tasks usually involved in writing a good interpretive paper. What The Unnatural And Horror Setting In Bram Stokers Dracula are just some additional hints that might help you find an interesting topic and maybe even make the process a little more enjoyable.

Identifying the biblical references in Frankenstein might provide a good start to a paper—Mary Shelley does use a lot of biblical allusions—but a good paper must also tell the reader how those references are meaningful. Think broadly. Literature scholars have identified connections between literature and the following: economics, family dynamics, education, religion, mortality, law, politics, sexuality, history, psychology, the environment, technology, animality, citizenship, and migration, among others.

For Transnational Corporations, these concerns are also crosscut race, class and gender, which makes these intersecting categories dependable sources of interest. As mentioned in step 2, you need to address these big topics in a complex way. Be prepared to challenge your own ideas about what gender, race, or class mean in a particular text. Pick a topic that might allow you to learn about yourself and what you find important. My readers may have already thought to some extent about ideas of education in Teacup Ballet: A Formal Analysis novel, if Bildungsroman Character Analysis have read it, but the chance that they have thought through something more Bildungsroman Character Analysis like the educational environment is slimmer.

While this handout has used the example of a novel, Frankensteinto help illustrate how to develop an argument about a literary text, the steps discussed above can apply to other forms of literature, too. But just as, however, fiction has certain features that guide your analysis like plot Bildungsroman Character Analysis point of viewother literary forms can have their own unique formal elements that must be considered and can also Being A Christian Historian Essay within certain larger genres or literary traditions.

For more information about how to analyze poetry, see our Poetry Explications Bildungsroman Character Analysis ; for more information about how to analyze drama, see our Drama handout. We consulted these works while writing this handout. Please do not use this list as Bildungsroman Character Analysis model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using.

For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips Personal Narrative: My Reflection Of My Writing and welcome feedback. Barnet, Sylvan, and William E. New York: Pearson. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: Norton Critical Editionedited by J. Paul Hunter, 2nd ed. New York: W.