Iago’s Motives In William Shakespeare “Othello Assignment | Get Paper Help
This is a Literature Analysis Essay. This essay requires quotes from the play. These are the questions to be answered for this essay: Are Iago’s motives merely what he says they are, such as thinking Othello slept with Emilia and wanting to get his revenge on Cassio for being promoted over Iago? Do you agree with the famous statement of the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge that Iago symbolizes “motiveless malignity”? How does Iago show that he enjoys manipulating Othello, Cassio, Desdemona, Roderigo, and Emilia? What is Iago’s attitude toward Othello, Cassio, Roderigo, Emilia, and Desdemona
HOW TO WRITE A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY
Adapted from http://www.gmc.edu/students/arc/documents/Literary analysis.pdf
The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to carefully examine and sometimes evaluate a work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature. As with any analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts. Examining the different elements of a piece of literature is not an end in itself but rather a process to help better appreciate and understand the work of literature as a whole. For instance, an analysis of a poem might deal with the different types of images in a poem or with the relationship between the form and content of the work. If you were to analyze (discuss and explain) a play, you might analyze the relationship between a subplot and the main plot, or you might analyze the character flaw of the tragic hero by tracing how it is revealed through the acts of the play. Analyzing a short story might include identifying a particular theme (like the difficulty of making the transition from adolescence to adulthood) and showing how the writer suggests that theme through the point of view from which the story is told; or you might also explain how the main character’s attitude toward women is revealed through his dialogue and/or actions.
REMEMBER: Writing is the sharpened, focused expression of thought and study. As you develop your writing skills, you will also improve your perceptions and critical abilities. Writing ultimately boils down to the development of an idea. Your objective in writing a literary analysis essay is to convince the person reading your essay that you have supported the idea you are developing. Unlike ordinary conversation and classroom discussion, writing must stick with great determination to the specific point of development. This kind of writing demands tight organization and control. Therefore, your essay must have a central idea (thesis), it must have several paragraphs that grow systematically out of the central idea, and everything in it must be directly related to the central idea and must contribute to the reader’s understanding of that central idea. These three principles are listed again below:
1. Your essay must cover the topic you are writing about.
2. Your essay must have a central idea (stated in your thesis) that governs its development.
3. Your essay must be organized so that every part contributes something to the central idea.
The Thesis Statement
The thesis statement tells your reader what to expect: it is a restricted, precisely worded declarative sentence that states the purpose of your essay—I the point you are trying to make. Without a carefully conceived thesis, an essay has no chance of success. The following are thesis statements which would work for a 500-750 word literary analysis essay:
1. William Wordsworth uses imagery and symbolism in is poetry to illustrate that nature is worth preserving since the destruction of nature is comparable to the corruption of the self.
2. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience juxtaposes childhood with adulthood to demonstrate how good and evil are inescapably intertwined.
3. Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrates man’s proclivity to sin without cause, to possess the opportunity of reconciliation, and to have the option to do penance, in hopes of receiving forgiveness.
The Introduction
The introduction to your literary analysis essay should try to arouse interest in your reader. To bring immediate focus to your subject, you may want to use a quotation, a provocative question, a personal anecdote, a startling statement, or a combination of these. You may also want to include background information relevant to your thesis so that readers may understand the position you are taking. In
addition, you need to include the title of the work of literature and name of the author. The following are satisfactory introductory paragraphs which include appropriate thesis statements:
A. Throughout Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, knowledge of the existence of a creator has a crippling effect on the creature as he struggles to reconcile his own perception of himself with his maddening desire for divine approval. It is impossible to ignore the author’s place within her text as Shelly, an avowed atheist, makes a comparison of human development through the contrary means of both religious and secular/humanistic relationships. In the end, through Frankenstein, Shelley concludes that moral and spiritual development can best be attained through the shedding of dogmatic belief structures, resulting in the elimination of God towards the attainment of self-realization.
B. Although both Wordsworth and Coleridge were strongly influenced by the popular ballad, they were attracted by this form for very different reasons. Wordsworth was drawn to the ballad by its directness and simplicity of style, and by the fact that it often treats of the lower classes of men. Coleridge took up the ballad for a nearly opposite reason; i.e., because of its remoteness from modern life, a remoteness that left him free play for his imagination.
C. Domesticity is not exactly what comes to mind when we read Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. This is not a work about plenitude, hearth, or the pleasures of home. Yet if we are to look for domesticity, we have to turn to the margins. The poem literally marginalizes the home, embodied in the wedding that frames the poem and whose domesticized bowers and maidens are antithetical to everything in the mariner’s tale. Domesticity is marginal, threatened, seemingly inadequate to the powers informing the central acts and mysteries that are narrated.
The Body of the Essay and the Importance of Topic Sentences
The term regularly used for the development of the central idea of a literary analysis essay is the body. In this section you present the paragraphs that support your thesis statement. Good literary analysis essays contain an explanation of your ideas and evidence from the text (short story, poem, play) that supports those ideas. Textual evidence consists of summary, paraphrase, specific details, and quotations. Each of the paragraphs of your essay should contain a topic sentence (usually the first sentence of the paragraph) which states one of the topics associated with your thesis, combined with some assertion about how the topic will support the central idea. The purpose of the topic sentence is twofold:
1. To tie the details of the paragraph to your thesis statement.
2. To tie the details of the paragraph together.
The substance of each of your developmental paragraphs (the body of your essay) will be the explanations, summaries, paraphrases, specific details, and direct quotations you need to support and develop the more general statement you have made in your topic sentence. The following is the first developmental paragraph after one of the introductory paragraphs (A) above:
Topic Sentence
Assertions
Frankenstein’s creature is a testament to this theory as his education and growth follow several divergent paths throughout his short existence, resulting in the freedom of the creature through the death of his creator. Strangely, although the secular theme is continued throughout the text, the religious references and biblical allusions cannot be ignored and are complex additions to a text that could otherwise be viewed as a secular treatise on the dangers of knowledge. Although it would be simple to pare the text down to such secular terms, it cannot be ignored that Frankenstein contains a great deal of biblical
with Textual Evidence
symbolism, particularly the theme of the outcast and the story of creation. One difference, though, makes the monster a sympathetic character. In the biblical story, Adam causes his own fate by sinning. His creator, Victor, however, causes the creature’s grotesque existence.
This paragraph is a strong one because it is developed through the use of quotations, summary, details, and explanation to support the topic sentence. Notice how it relates back to the thesis statement.
The Conclusion
Your literary analysis essay should have a concluding paragraph that gives your essay a sense of completeness and lets your readers know that they have come to the end of your paper. Your concluding paragraph might restate the thesis in different words, summarize the main points you have made, or make a relevant comment about the work you are analyzing, but from a different perspective. Do not introduce a new topic in your conclusion. Below is the concluding paragraph from essay (A):
Restating
Thesis
Summarizing Main Points
Different Perspective
It is evident that the creature is capable of learning moral behavior without the influence of spiritual or divine proclamation. The presence of any religious texts is conspicuously absent from his education, yet he is capable of developing a coherent sense of morality. Shelley’s creature is not evil by inherent constitution. He is born unformed—carrying the predispositions of human nature but without the specific manifestations that can only be set by upbringing. It is human interaction—and the lack thereof—that drives the creature beyond his limits, not evil born of the absence of God. Given the fact that the creature lives outside of civilized society, and thus lacks the enculturation that contributes to a sense of community to help ease the conception
of a divine being, it becomes clear that Shelley may be suggesting that social interaction is the only way human\s can grapple with the enormity of God.
The Title of Your Essay
It is essential that you give your essay a title which is descriptive of the approach you are taking in your paper. Just as you did in your introductory paragraph, try to get the reader’s attention. Using only the title of the literary work you are examining is unsatisfactory. The titles that follow are appropriate for the papers (A, B, C) discussed above:
A. Morality without God in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
B. The Influence of the Popular Ballad on Wordsworth and Coleridge
C. The Wedding Ceremony: Domesticity in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Audience
Consider the reader for whom you are writing your essay. Imagine you are writing for other students in your class who have as much education as you do. They have read the assigned work just as you have, but perhaps they have not thought about it in the same way as you. In other words, it is not necessary to “retell” the work of literature in any way. Rather your role is to explain or interpret the work—to tell what certain elements of the work mean in relation to your thesis. When you make references to the text of the short story, poem, or play, you are doing so to remind readers of something they already know. The principle emphasis of your essay is to draw conclusions and develop arguments.
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