Defining Literary Interpretation

In many ways, writing a literary interpretation will feel like the other essays you compose in this course. You will use the same close reading skills, the same kinds of critical thinking, and the same investigative approaches to ideas that interest you. Literary interpretation employs multiple modes of critical thought and writing, including summary, description, and analysis. In writing your literary interpretation essay, you will need to do the following:

Summarize: What happens in this literary work?

Describe: What are the components and details of this literary work?

Analyze: What does this literary work mean?

However, literary interpretation requires a bit more than the basic components of summary, description, and analysis. Literary interpretation requires a process of inquiry and a methodology. To make sure you interpret rather than summarize, don’t just ask “what” questions, but also ask “how” and “why” questions.

Adding these sort of “why” and “how” questions—as well as adding another level of complexity to the standard “what” questions—will help you to come up with an interpretive argument rather than just a summary, description, personal response, opinion, or evaluation.

To sum up: In many ways, a literary interpretation paper will feel like the other writing assignments you complete in this course. You will use the same close reading skills, the same kinds of critical thinking, and the same investigative approaches to ideas that interest you. However, because literary interpretation focuses on an inventive work, a work of fiction, drama, poetry, or creative non-fiction, it will require special attention to how literary texts work in different ways—and set out to achieve different purposes—than the non-fiction essays addressed in other assignments. To make sure you interpret rather than summarize, don’t just ask “what happened?” but also ask “why did that happen?” or “why did that matter?”

Multiple Interpretations, Discovery, and the Importance of Your Perspective

Most works of literature are open to more than one interpretation. We have discussed the importance of reading through various interpretive lenses by applying established methodologies, but the most important perspective is yours. Ultimately, you will be the one to come up with your overall interpretive argument about the literature. Your goal from the beginning, then, is to read closely on your path to discovery. Discovery often involves looking at something from a different perspective.

To illustrate this point, consider this excerpt from the essay by scholar Walter Benjamin entitled “Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting.” In this essay, Benjamin recounts how unpacking his books after having moved inspired him to look at his books differently. Once he looks at his books from a different perspective, Benjamin has a moment of discovery:

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. You need not fear any of that. In­stead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood—it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of an­ticipation which these books arouse in a genuine collector. For such a man is speaking to you, and on closer scrutiny he proves to be speaking only about himself. Would it not be presumptuous of me if, in order to appear convincingly objective and down-to-­earth, I enumerated for you the main sections or prize pieces of a library, if I presented you with their history or even their usefulness to a writer? I, for one, have in mind something less ob­scure, something more palpable than that; what I am really con­cerned with is giving you some insight into the relationship of a book collector to his possessions, into collecting rather than a collection. If I do this by elaborating on the various ways of ac­quiring books, this is something entirely arbitrary. This or any other procedure is merely a dam against the spring tide of mem­ories which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his possessions. Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collec­tor’s passion borders on the chaos of memories. More than that: the chance, the fate, that suffuse the past before my eyes are conspicuously present in the accustomed confusion of these books. For what else is this collection but a disorder to which habit has accommodated itself to such an extent that it can appear as order? You have all heard of people whom the loss of their books has turned into invalids, or of those who in order to ac­quire them became criminals. These are the very areas in which any order is a balancing act of extreme precariousness. “The only exact knowledge there is,” said Anatole France, “is the knowl­edge of the date of publication and the format of books.” And indeed, if there is a counterpart to the confusion of a library, it is the order of its catalogue.[1]

Note Benjamin’s theorizing about his library, even in the chaotic state that accompanies unpacking. Even to Benjamin, owner of the books, they seem different to him in these new circumstances. The same is true with interpretation. The act of interpretation asks us to pull apart a text, to think of it as disorderly parts without the connections of a narrative thread. Interpretation allows us a more arbitrary approach.

Take for instance, the main character of a novel, who may be introduced on one page, fall in love a few chapters later, and have a child closer to the end of the story. Character analysis allows you to pull these discrete elements into an essay without paying any attention to the intervening events. Just as Benjamin sees his collection as more than the sum of the individual books, so does the author of a character analysis see the protagonist as a complex, even flawed, character who represents some facet of human behavior.

If Benjamin had never written his essay, we wouldn’t think of his collection in precisely this way. Similarly, your interpretation will make a similar contribution to the existing bank of knowledge—providing insights available only from your unique perspective.

One important takeaway from this discussion is: you do not have to be an English major to write a great literary interpretation essay. In fact, when students approach the literary work through their varied majors, career goals, or personal interests, it often results in a fascinating, new perspective on the literature. For instance,

• In English 161, a Culinary Arts major wrote about the food as symbolic of the character’s cultural identities in Josefina Lopez’s play Real Women Have Curves.
• In English 162, an Engineering/Game Design major wrote about how Suzanne Collins incorporates video gaming techniques into the characterization and plot of The Hunger Games throughout the entire novel.
• In English 161, a student who was studying to take the state license exam in Real Estate interpreted Lorainne Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun through the perspective of the historical changes in his chosen profession, outlawing realtors from committing discriminatory actions such as blockbusting, redlining, and steering.

As you think about the best approach to take when reading and interpreting literature, add another question to your list. You are asking not just “What happens in this literary work?”—and also not just “why does that matter?”—but also “why does this literary work matter to me?”

The Literary Interpretation Essay

A good literary interpretation essay includes:

1. A strong thesis statement that makes an interpretive argument,
2. Your main points (sometimes called topic sentences or claims) that lead each paragraph or section of the essay,
3. Your ample and thorough collection of relevant evidence from the literary work—including examples, passages, scenes, details, and quotations, and
4. Your detailed analyses of that textual evidence, showing how the evidence relates to the main points of the interpretation as well as the overall thesis statement.

In the following sections, we will discuss these four components in the order that you will probably present them in your essay, but of course that is not the order in which they occur in the overall process of composing the essay. It’s not as though anyone begins reading a play, or writing an essay about a novel, with an interpretive thesis statement already formed. Before you get to the stage in the process where you are ready to write your interpretive thesis statement, you will probably go through an initial reading of the literary work and a second, closer reading in which you have a topic or two in mind. Your instructor may have your class read the literary work through a specific interpretive lens from the very beginning, or you may be introduced to multiple methodologies and asked to choose which one you will apply. Remember that interpretation is a journey to discovery that involves seeing things from a different perspective. However, the path that you take along the journey—the order in which you take the steps needed to write a strong interpretation essay—will depend upon your instructor’s guidance and your own sense of the process that works best for you.

Notes

Writing a Strong Thesis Statement

In organizing your Literary Interpretation Essay, you need to develop a unique, focused topic and a thesis statement that makes an interpretive argument. When coming up with your thesis statement about a literary work, you want your argument to be relevant, focused, and unique. A strong thesis statement avoids the obvious. In other words, you won’t try to argue a conclusion that most readers could reach on their own from a general knowledge of the work. In choosing your topic, you want your essay to be about something that matters—to you, to the human condition. This may involve larger issues that relate to social class, family dynamics, gender, race, economics, education, religion, psychology, politics, law, history, and so on.

A strong literary thesis statement should be

Debatable

Example: “While most people reading Hamlet think he is the tragic hero, Ophelia is the real hero of the play as demonstrated through her critique of Elsinore’s court through the language of flowers.”

This thesis takes a position. There are those who could argue against this idea.

Specific

Example: Through his portrayal of contrasting river and shore scenes in Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain suggests that to find the true expression of American ideals, one must leave ‘civilized’ society and go back to nature.

Through this very specific yet concise sentence, readers can anticipate the text to be examined (Huckleberry Finn), the author (Mark Twain), the literary device that will be focused upon (description of river and shore scenes) and what these scenes show (true expression of American ideals can be found in nature).

Rooted in observations about how the author used formalist elements in the literary work

Example:  The simplistic symbolism of the letter “A” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter breaks down as the novel progresses, which illustrates the complexity of Hester and Pearl.

In this thesis statement, the literary device of symbolism provides the focus for the interpretive argument (the complexity of the main character and her daughter).

A literary thesis statement should not be

Overly broad or generalized

Example: “I am going to be writing about “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.”

While we know what text and author will be the focus of the essay, we know nothing about what aspect of the essay the author will be focusing upon, nor is there an argument here.

More about society than the work of literature

Example: “Gender roles are bad and should be abolished.”

This may be well and true, but this thesis does not appear to be about a work of literature. This could be turned into a thesis statement if the writer is able to show how this is the theme of a literary work (like “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid) and root that interpretation in observable data from the story in the form of literary devices.

A statement about history rather than about literature

Example: Ophelia in Hamlet represents how women did not have any power back then.

Students sometimes want to try to make an argument about “life back then.” This sets up an impossible dilemma in that we can’t prove a history-based argument using only a literary text. Additionally, this statement does not specify the historical period and location: does “back then” refer to the setting and time period of the play: Denmark at some point in the 14th century? does it refer to Shakespeare’s England under the reign of Elizabeth I when the play was written and first performed? or does it refer to England under the reign of James I when the play was first published? Finally, the beliefs about history are overgeneralized—some women did have some political and economic power in all of these time periods; categories like age, ability, rank, social class, and race come into play as well; and the term “power” is not clearly defined. When you craft your interpretation essay, compose an argument that hinges upon collecting evidence from the literary work, and, if you do make some claims about history, be sure that you have scholarly sources to support them.

A summary or obvious statement about the text

Example: “Hamlet is about a prince, and his father has died.”

Yes, this is true, but it is not debatable. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who could argue against this statement.

An evaluation, or judgment, about the quality of the work

Example: “‘La Migra’ by Pat Mora is a really powerful poem.”

This may very well be true. But the purpose of a literary critic is not to judge the quality of a literary work, but to make analyses and interpretations of the work based on observable structural aspects of that work.

About the author rather than about literature

Example: “Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving were both creepy towards women in their personal lives but in different ways.”

Again, this might be true, and might make an interesting essay topic, but unless it is rooted in textual analysis, it is not within the scope of a literary analysis essay.

Sample Thesis Statements

So what does a strong thesis statement look like? Below, we provide some examples. These sample thesis statements are presented as guides, not as required forms or prescriptions.

As a reminder, literary interpretation is grounded in formalist analysis.  A formalist analysis considers the elements that make up a literary work, such as genre, character, structure, theme, setting, and literary devices. One strategy for composing your thesis statement, then, is to frame it as an analysis of how the author has crafted one or more of the formalist elements of the literary work.

An additional component of literary interpretation can be the application of theoretical lens, such as Postcolonial or Feminist.

The Process of Discovery Includes Asking Questions

A challenging aspect of composing a thesis statement is that you’re asked to write it before you know what you think, while you’re still in the process of discovery. One strategy, then, can be to write your potential interpretive argument not as a declarative statement but as a list of observations and any questions that are prompted by those observations. For example:

Writing a Detailed Analysis

You have written your thesis statements and your claims. You have chosen your textual evidence. Now, how do you write about the passages that you have chosen? How do you know how long your analysis of each example should be? How do you know when you’ve written enough analysis to persuade the reader?

Practice, practice, practice. The only way to develop the skill of writing analyses of literature (or any work, for that matter) is to do it. Like learning how to ride a bicycle, throw a baseball, drive a car, or play the piano, the learning starts in the attempt.

Begin by selecting a short passage (a key scene, a crucial conversation, or an opening or closing sentence or paragraph) that relates the topic that is most interesting to you. Quote this passage precisely. The next goal is to unfold the meaning of this quotation by focusing on the specific evidence in the passage. Do not spend time summarizing the plot. Your writing should be focused on developing your idea (your interpretation) when it comes to that passage. Use your analysis of the passage to develop your idea about the topic. Don’t get sidetracked or introduce a new topic. Concentrate on analyzing the passage you have selected, analyzing it in order to support your argument.

The first sentence should be your main point, or interpretive claim, about the passage. You may not know what your claim is before you start writing, and that’s okay: often it is in the process of writing about a literary work that we discover what we think it means. Just remember to go back and add your claim to the beginning of the paragraph eventually.

Here is a sample passage analysis in an essay with the following focus:

The writer chose to begin by analyzing the first scene in the novel that Tom is present in. This is what she wrote:

Note that the writer leads her paragraph with her main point about the passage: “Fitzgerald equates Tom with suffocation”—and she also mentions the setting of the scene, all of which connect her main point in this paragraph to her overall thesis about the novel: Tom Buchanan is associated with death in the sense that he takes the life out of the women who love him” and “F. Scott Fitzgerald achieves this effect […] through the narrative descriptions of the scenes in Tom’s house.” The writer then introduces the first piece of textual evidence that she intends to analyze, very briefly setting up the context (who is speaking, what is the setting, and at what point in the story). She quotes the evidence. Then, she makes two observations about that setting, pointing out the specific words that draw her to those observations—underscoring the evidence she has collected. She then sets herself up to add her piece of crucial evidence that relates to her overall argument about Tom. She repeats the same process: establishing her point, briefly setting up the who/what/when to contextualize the example, quoting the evidence, then making relevant observations and pointing out the specific words that support her observations.

Acronyms for Passage Analysis: MEAL & TEXT

The writer of the example above followed the acronym TEXT to help her organize her paragraph:

A similar formula can be found in the acronym MEAL.

Composing the Body Paragraphs

Writing passage analysis is difficult; even established professors and literary scholars find it challenging. If you find yourself staring at a blank screen or page when trying to write, here are some additional exercises that you can try.

A Word about Writers and Writing

Keep in mind that we don’t have to all be academic writers once we leave the college classroom. Some of these forms will be easier for you to write than others. It’s okay—we all struggle more with some types of writing, while others come more naturally to us.

The skills you learn writing your interpretation essay in the composition classroom will serve you well throughout your college career, and the writing skills you learn here will translate into the workplace. You may go on to a career that requires you to write: reports, emails, grants, proposals, policies and procedures, web pages, technical manuals, training guides, PowerPoints, speeches—and the list goes on. There are all kinds of writing in the workplace, and employers value employees with good writing skills and with critical thinking skills.

You will also continue to write in your daily life—grocery lists, creative pieces, emails, blogs, tweets, social media posts, and the like.

Many of you will go on to complete a bachelor’s degree, and some of you will head off to graduate school.

At each stage of the way, you will be introduced to new kinds of writings.

At every level, we encourage you to embrace the writing process and to value the power of the written word.

Glossary of Literary Terms

Literary devices are the tools authors use to craft their writing. The following sites offer a Glossary of Literary Terms:

1. Glossary of Literary Terms
2. Literary Research Guide
3. Literary Devices and Terms
4. Glossary of Literary Terms