Literary Analysis Preparation Ms. Graham Helton, English I

Today’s Plans: Consider which character you would like to write about more—the victim Fortunato or the narrator Montresor. Consider what three adjectives you will use to describe the character/explain your answer to the prompt. Prepare and record evidence to support the prompt you prefer and the corresponding adjectives/character traits.

Prompts: How does Fortunato make himself an easy target for Montresor? If you choose to write about the victim Fortunato: How does Fortunato make himself an easy target for Montresor? If you choose to write about the narrator/murderer Montresor: What qualities allow Montresor to be an effective murderer?

Goal: 5 Paragraph Literary Analysis Essay Paragraph 1: Introduction. Grab the reader’s attention with a “hook” and introduce the situation. This will also contain your thesis statement or “claim.” In your thesis, you’ll identify three traits. Paragraph 2-4: Body paragraph 1-3. In each body paragraph you will focus on one of the characteristics to support your prompt. For each characteristic, you will provide evidence/quotes from the text and commentary/explanation of that evidence. Paragraph 5: Conclusion. Restate the thesis and provide a “clincher” statement about the greater significance of what you wrote.

What kind of evidence do you need? Choose additional characteristics (descriptive adjectives) that support each prompt. Find quotes, lines, sections, etc. from the text that DISPLAY or IMPLY those characteristics.

What kind of evidence do you need? For each line/quotation/etc. you identify, write an accompanying EXPLANATION for it. How does it SHOW the characteristic, for example? What is the significance of that particular line? What do we learn from it? You HAVE TO explain your quotes/etc. because they do not always LITERALLY display the evidence.

MLA Style Quotations: Close your quotations with PARENTHETICAL CITATION. “‘We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible’” (Poe 214). The above example is for quoting an existing quote. You will need to add a single quotation mark to the inside of the original quotation marks. Otherwise, it looks like this: “Quotation” (Author’s Last Name + Page #). Be sure to end with a period! Do not put it BEFORE the parenthetical citation.