Character Analysis Essay Instructions

Character Analysis Essay Instructions

Character Analysis Essay Instructions

PARAGRAPH 1 (INTRODUCTION):

  1. Hook the Reader—get the reader’s attention with a shocking or amusing generalization, a fact, or a relevant quote.
  2. Background information—this includes the author’s name, the title of the story, and a brief plot summary. Your brief summary should consist of two to five sentences that briefly informs your readers what happened in the story. Highlight the major action of the story, especially those parts that are relevant to your analysis. Make sure to include other characters’ names, but your summary should mostly concentrate on the character you are analyzing.
  3. Thesis—see “Thrilling Thesis Statements” handout for complete explanation.
  4. Examples:

Antigone makes herself an easy target because of ______, ______, and ______.

Creon is the tragic hero because he shows ______, ______, and ______.

PARAGRAPHS 2, 3, AND 4 (Body Paragraphs):

  1. Topic sentence: a topic sentence has a topic and a limiting idea. Your topic is the character you have chosen and your limiting idea is a character trait.
  2. Introduce quote: Before you supply the quote that supports your topic sentence, you need to introduce it. What this means is that you give some context to the quote. If someone is speaking the quote, you should tell your reader who is talking.
  3. Example: Creon shows his stubbornness when confronts Antigone: “…” (14).
  4. Quote: Provide a quote that supports the topic sentence. Be sure to put the page number in parentheses.
  5. Analysis: After the quote, spend about two to three sentences discussing how this quote proves that the character has this trait.
  6. Transition: Use a sentence or half a sentence to transition into a second quote for support.
  7. Example: Another time the reader sees Creon’s obstinance is when he...
  8. Introduce quote
  9. Quote 2
  10. Analysis 2
  11. Transition: Connect back to the thesis statement before going on to next paragraph.

PARAGRAPH 5 (CONCLUSION):

  1. Reword your thesis. You may want to start the rewording of your thesis with a signal word like thus, therefore, etc.
  2. Tie all your points together. In 1-3 sentences, tell your reader the significance or importance of the ideas you have been analyzing. You might want to tell your reader what they should learn from the ideas you analyzed in the body paragraphs. DO NOT USE THE WORD “YOU”!
  3. Clincher: try to end your paper with a short sentence that reinforces your argument and answers the question: “So what?” The last sentence should do one of two things: it should either include some words from your attention-getter or it should include most words from your title. This gives a sense of closure to your paper.
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