Reading a Character Analysis

Before you begin your own character analysis, you should read a paper created by another student. As you read, note how the writer describes characters, explores themes, cites evidence from the literature, connects to the larger context, and combines the whole with transitions. Click on the side notes to study these features.

Reading a Student Model

This reading analyzes multiple characters from Cry, the Beloved Country, showing how they help express the main themes of the work. The overall structure includes a beginning paragraph, multiple body paragraphs, and an ending paragraph. The writer uses source citations as well as historical context and discussions of theme to show the significance of the characters in the novel.

Sample Character Analysis

Warm-Up for Analyzing a Character

Try to describe an object. That's fairly easy: a stout coffee cup with a robin-egg blue interior and a matte-black exterior that advertises the "Crossroads of Civilization" exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Objects are often straightforward. What you see is what you get.

Try to describe a person. That can be incredibly difficult. In fact, some authors have written whole novels describing a person such as Jane Eyre or Oliver Twist and still felt like they only scratched the surface. And yet, sometimes, you must read a great work of literature and write an effective character analysis in just a few pages.

What Is a Character Analysis?

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A character analysis is a response to literature that looks closely at one or more characters and connects them to the major themes of the story or novel. A successful analysis considers different aspects of a character, provides textual evidence about the person, and explains what these details mean in the larger picture of the work.

In this unit, you will write a character analysis that focuses on one or more key characters in a work of fiction. You need to select a work that you know well. Then you must think deeply about it and unearth evidence to support your position.

Thinking About People

Characters are, of course, just fictional people. You can warm up your character-analysis muscles by analyzing people you know and like. (Be kind!) You can describe the person physically and psychologically, and you can think about what motivates the person. For example, this table records details about a student's best friend since third grade:

Editing for MLA Citation Style

Whenever you use ideas from others, you need to credit the source. You do so to show who originated an idea, to avoid plagiarism, and to allow readers to explore the same materials.

All credits begin with an in-text citation that names the source and page number (if there is one). The simplest in-text citation gives the source in the sentence itself.

If the sentence doesn't give readers enough information to find the correct work-cited entry, provide the last name of the author in parentheses before the end punctuation. If the source has no author, use the first significant word(s) of the title, in italics for longer works or quotation marks for shorter works.

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

The beginning first needs to grab the reader's attention. Then it introduces the topic and provides background leading up to your opinion statement. To get started with your beginning paragraph, you can experiment with different lead-writing strategies.

1. Present a startling statistic.

   According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 1 in 10 Americans had a mood disorder last year, and 21 percent will experience one during their lifetimes.

2. Open with an engaging quotation.

   “I try not to worry about the future—so I take each day just one anxiety attack at a time.” 
   ― Tom Wilson, American Cartoonist

3. Create an interesting scenario.

   Imagine that your life had a movie soundtrack. Now imagine that it was the nerve-racking soundtrack to a suspenseful movie. That's what anxiety and depression feel like.

4. Focus on causes.

   Adrenaline is great for fight-or-flight situations, when you need to energize muscles and put nerves on high alert. Adrenaline is less great when there's no threat, but you feel jittery and paranoid anyway, all the time.

Prewriting to Think About Problems

Problems are everywhere in life. You can start to think about problems by considering any aspect of life, from food to families to fun, and think about the problems that can come up in those areas. Start by consulting the Basics of Life List. This list contains all of the essentials of life—general subject areas. Pick one or two subjects that interest you. Then list problems that relate to that subject. You can click on any of these subject areas to find more resources related to it.

One student selected the subject "Personality" to write about and created a cluster to explore pain points with personality. Afterward, the student chose to write about his own struggles with anxiety, depression, and seasonal affective disorder, and the solutions he has found to help him manage his mood states.

Reading a Problem-Solution Essay

You notice a problem and analyze it. You brainstorm solutions and try one. That's the problem-solving process in a nutshell. It's also the outline of a problem-solution essay: introduce and analyze a problem, propose and explain a solution, and argue why it is the best course of action. Below, you'll see how one student built such an essay.

Reading a Student Model

Read the following problem-solution essay and respond to the reading afterward. In the beginning paragraph, the student grabs the reader's attention and delivers the opinion statement. The first middle paragraphs analyze the problem, and the later middle paragraphs propose, explain, and argue for a specific solution. The ending paragraph sums up the proposed solution and encourages the reader to help enact it. Click on the side notes to study the features of this essay.

Warm-Up for Problem-Solution Writing

When you search for a job, you'll see that employers seek "self-starters" who are "goal-oriented" and "collaborative team members," people who thrive in a "dynamic workplace environment" and take on "diverse challenges." Employers seek problem solvers.

That's a secret to success not just on the job but in life itself: Be the solution person instead of the problem person. The world is filled with problems and with people who love to focus on them. Become one of those rare people who loves to devise solutions—fixing problems and improving life for everyone.

In this unit, you will write an essay that closely analyzes a problem in your community, proposes a specific solution, and argues to convince the reader that it will work. As you develop your essay, you will use the problem-solving process.

What Is the Problem-Solving Process?

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The problem-solving process is a series of steps that carries a person from knowing little about a problem to creating a satisfying solution. This process switches back and forth between critical and creative thinking, following steps like these:

1. Analyze the problem, exploring causes and effects (critical thinking).
2. Brainstorm solutions—ways to remove or reduce causes and effects (creative thinking).
3. Evaluate possible solutions and choose the best one (critical thinking).
4. Create a plan for implementing the solution (creative thinking).
5. Apply the plan, evaluating each part (critical thinking).
6. Revise, refine, and perfect the solution (creative thinking).

You'll use the problem-solving process right along with the writing process as you create your essay. In fact, they are related. The writing process is one version of the problem-solving process—the steps that take you from knowing little about your topic to having an effective final essay. The lessons in this unit will guide you through both processes. You can get started by thinking about the problems all around you.

Thinking About Problems

"Problem" is a big word. It can refer to something as simple as a hang-nail and something as complex as the national debt. One way to start thinking about problems, big and small, is to focus on "pain points." A pain point is simply something that causes you discomfort. It could be a squeaky desk in second hour. It could be the fact that your best friend is moving to Tucson. Both are problems that need effective solutions.

Editing to Fix Sentence Shifts

For the most part, you should stick to a specific tense (past or present) and a specific person (first or third) in your essay. Unnecessary shifts can be distracting or even confusing:

Revising to Target the Prompt

First, you need to make sure you have answered the prompt. A brilliant essay that talks about rock climbing will not score well when the prompt asked for a definition of leadership. You can use your PAST analysis of the prompt to check your response. Turn each answer into a question, and use them to analyze your response.

• Purpose: Why am I writing? (Do I introduce myself and tell how I will enrich life on campus?)
• Audience: Who will read my writing? (Do I address admissions officers, providing the information they need to know about me?)
• Subject: What am I writing about? (Do I focus on a particular life experience, talent, commitment, or interest I have?)
• Type: What form should my writing take? (Do I compose my answer as an essay?)