1. Literary Analysis Essay
Purpose: To identify the theme and message of the story or novel and To prove how the author created this theme. Strategies:

2. Evidence: Quotes with page #s
1st Paragraph:
Intro:
Thesis
Background information/Intro
Section 2
Topic Sentence:   
Evidence: Quotes with page #s
Section 3
Section 4
Last: Conclusion
Conclusion: 5

3. Background information/Intro
1st Paragraph:
Intro:
Thesis
Background information/Intro
Finney’s When people survive a near death experience, they realize what is truly important to them in life.
Section 2
Character changes
Tom’s realizations at the end of the story emphasize that life or death situations make people rethink their values.
“You won’t mind” (6), “You work too” (6), “”they were the way” (8)
“He understood” (15), “He wished” (15), “He thought of Clare” (16), “He did not” (16)
Section 3
Conflict Resolution
Tom’s survival at the end of the story, show that the author thinks these realizations are an important part of living.
“He saw the yellow” (6), “For many seconds” (8), “For a motionless instant” (10), “A fraction” (11), “But if” (15), “He heard the sound” (16), “Tom Benecke burst” (16)
Section 4
Irony
The author also uses situational irony to emphasize the change in Tom’s attitude.
“He saw the yellow” (6), “As he saw the yellow” (16),
Last: Conclusion
Conclusion: 5

4. Ideas for introductions
Choose a quote from the story
Describe the setting, characters, or plot
Choose a quote from another story or movie that connects thematically
Use “imagine”
Make sure you connect to your thesis

5. Body Paragraphs (the proof)
Start with your argument (How does the author show this theme?)
Explain what happens in the story.
Use textual evidence to prove this happens.
Explain how this shows the theme.

6. One way Finney shows this theme is through the change in his main character, Tom. In the beginning of the story he values money and promotion, but even more than that, he values pride and recognition. “You won’t mind, though, when the money comes rolling in and I’m known as the Boy Wizard of Wholesale Groceries,” Tom asks his wife as she is lamenting about Tom working too much (6). This implies that Tom thinks about his title and reputation as most important. Even though money is also important to Tom, we realize that his pride is an even more important value to him when he loses the yellow paper with all his work on it. “It wouldn’t bring me a raise in pay,” he thinks, “It won’t bring me a promotion either” (8). Even though Tom has been thinking about the yellow paper in terms of promotions and money, it is because “this… would gradually mark him out” from the other men in the company that he goes out the window, risking his life to get the yellow paper. After Tom goes out onto the ledge and “he understood fully that he might actually be going to die,” Tom starts to think about other things besides work and his reputation (15). Tom shoves the yellow paper in his pocket and thinks of it as “contents of the dead man’s pockets… one sheet of paper bearing penciled notations– incomprehensible” (15). When Tom thinks about this paper as the last item on his corpse, he realizes how little value it really holds. He also finds himself thinking about his wife instead of the paper. “He wished, then, that he had not allowed his wife to go off by herself tonight– and on similar nights” (15). This shows that Tom’s starting to reexamine what has always been important to him and realize that he took the really valuable things in life for granted. It took Tom realizing that he might die because of this that helps him realize how important his family is to him.

7. One way Finney shows this theme is through the change in his main character, Tom. In the beginning of the story he values money and promotion, but even more than that, he values pride and recognition. “You won’t mind, though, when the money comes rolling in and I’m known as the Boy Wizard of Wholesale Groceries,” Tom asks his wife as she is lamenting about Tom working too much (6). This implies that Tom thinks about his title and reputation as most important. Even though money is also important to Tom, we realize that his pride is an even more important value to him when he loses the yellow paper with all his work on it. “It wouldn’t bring me a raise in pay,” he thinks, “It won’t bring me a promotion either” (8). Even though Tom has been thinking about the yellow paper in terms of promotions and money, it is because “this… would gradually mark him out” from the other men in the company that he goes out the window, risking his life to get the yellow paper.
After Tom goes out onto the ledge, however, and “he understood fully that he might actually be going to die,” Tom starts to think about other things besides work and his reputation (15). Tom shoves the yellow paper in his pocket and thinks of it as “contents of the dead man’s pockets… one sheet of paper bearing penciled notations– incomprehensible” (15). When Tom thinks about this paper as the last item on his corpse, he realizes how little value it really holds. He also finds himself thinking about his wife instead of the paper. “He wished, then, that he had not allowed his wife to go off by herself tonight– and on similar nights” (15). This shows that Tom’s starting to reexamine what has always been important to him and realize that he took the really valuable things in life for granted. It took Tom realizing that he might die because of this that helps him realize how important his family is to him.