A literary critical analysis essay is one in which you formally write out your critical analysis of a literary work. In this class, we are going to analyze short stories. For this paper, you  must write on one of the following short stories included on your list of assigned readings: “The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, "A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri, “A & P” by John Updike, “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, “This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” by Sherman Alexie and “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid. We will read and discuss each of these in class.

An analysis involves a close ‘reading’ and you must explain to the reader what you see in the story, the significance of it, what it is trying to relate, or how it tries to relate ideas. An analysis is not a summary. As you analyze the paper, you are pulling it apart to figure out what it means, what the author might be trying to demonstrate, or what the story itself is saying.