Literary Analysis: Lord Of The Flies

I was not introduced to the idea of analyzing literature until probably the sixth grade. Since then, my definition of the term “literary analysis” took a slightly different direction with every new teacher that tried to break down such a concept. It was first taught to me as summarizing the piece of writing, including all of the main points. Moving on to the next grade, I learned it involved understanding so called literary devices, such as metaphors, similes, allusions, and imagery. In the ninth grade, I was taught that literary analysis was the act closely examining a piece of writing to find significant symbolism, roles, or effects of characters, setting, or parts of the plot. By the end of my sophomore year, I’ve come to define it as interpreting

In this end of the year assignment, the comparison was between two characters in the novel, Lord of the Flies. The centerpiece of the essay was the thesis, which was required to be arguable and not opinionated. In order to fit this criteria, I chose to argue the level of importance between two characters, which can be subjective to the reader. My thesis was along the lines of, “Although the author, William Golding, meant for Ralph to be the protagonist of the novel, Piggy deserves just as much credit as he made his own considerably major impacts to the story in his own way.” This thesis would allow me to analyze and compare the characters’ roles, personality differences, and influences to the plot. For the organization of the essay, the thesis was at the end of the introduction, which followed the “hook”(attention grabber) and a short summary. The body of the essay of course consisted of the three major topics of comparison and evidence in the form of quotations accompanied by analysis for explaination. To find evidence, my strategy was to first recall an example from memory and then find where it occurred in the book. I would also look at chapter summaries to discover additional examples. To cap it off, the conclusion included the restated thesis and recap of the major points. What I took from writing this essay was that there isn’t a single correct answer or way to look at a piece of writing. In my freshman year, the symbolic meanings I came up with were either correct, close, or wrong depending on what Mr.McKloskey’s answers were. Also, the comparative story vs. film essay didn’t allow for personal interpretation. Overall, I have gained a decent amount of experience analyzing literature, especially so in my two years in high school. Even so, there is without a doubt much more to learn about this concept in this upcoming IB English class