Testing Your Hypothesis: Experiments in Writing a Literary Essay

Let’s return now to considerations for drafting a literary essay. Once you’ve identified a promising topic and have identified sources that you plan to incorporate into your essay, it’s time to start drafting. Keep in mind that while we often refer to writing as a process, it’s more accurate to refer to writing as a set of processes. The singular word “process” suggests that there is one set of steps that we must complete in a particular order, and once we move through the process from the first step all the way to the last step, we are finished. In reality, writing is iterative or recursive, meaning that we might revisit or return to steps within this process as we move from brainstorming ideas to submitting the final draft. For instance, after writing your first draft, you might need to return to the process of developing and refining your thesis to make sure that it accurately reflects the evidence you’ve presented throughout your paper. Thinking of writing as a set of processes rather than just a singular process is also useful because the steps you take while writing your essay—and the order in which you take them—might not be exactly the same steps that your peers use to write their essays. The most important aspect of mastering the writing process is finding a set of processes that works for you.

Finding Your Voice

On its surface, finding your voice seems simple. We all have a voice after all, whether it’s internal or spoken aloud. Get to know someone, and you’ll get to know all the peculiarities of their speech: certain expressions, idiomatic turns, tics, and verbal effluvia. Despite this concept being so seemingly easy, many novice writers struggle to find their voice in academic writing. Why is that the case?

From one point of view, this problem can be seen as a result of an overfocus on correctness rather than clarity^[1]. Have you ever written a sentence in an essay and then stopped because you knew that sentence violated a grammatical rule? Perhaps, for example, there was a dangling preposition it ended on. (See what we did there?) Have you struggled with such a sentence, rewriting it and rewriting it until it was correct, but upon finding that it was correct, you also realized that it had become incomprehensible or just plain boring? If so, you’ve found yourself struggling between saying something as simply and clearly as possible—clarity—and saying something that accords with all the rules—correctness.

This is not meant to give you, the student, carte blanche to break the rules—even if writers break them all the time. The rules that govern correctness can be broken down into real rules, social rules, and invented rules^[2]. If you violate the real rules of a language, a native speaker will not understand you. Second language learners must learn the real rules, whereas native speakers often take them for granted. For example, in English, articles precede nouns, adjectives precede nouns, and so forth. Social rules are the rules appropriate to specific social settings, something all of us understand intuitively. You wouldn’t speak to your bestie the same way you speak to your professor, and you’d never use text slang and abbreviations in a formal essay. Invented rules are a little trickier. Prescriptive grammarians would argue these rules introduce greater specificity and represent the way it should be (follow the rules), while descriptive grammarians point out that many such rules were only invented in the last century or so, yet English speakers have still managed to communicate without them. If English has gotten by just fine without the rules, should they be enforced?

Here things get trickier. An ignorance of the rules is not an excuse to violate the rules. When a writer breaks the rules, we know they have done so for a reason, whether that be lyrical or emphatic. Furthermore, the world is a place where pet peeves and stereotypes exist, where some people judge intelligence not by critical thinking skills but by an ability to follow the rules. Finally, the social rules of academia demand attention to even the invented rules. This is true of most examples of formal writing, a form of writing concerned with the minutiae of grammar and decorum. We are in academia. Sometimes we write in less formal ways. Take this textbook, for example. We’ve taken some informal liberties to create a more relaxed tone, a tone more appropriate to an introductory textbook. No matter how informal we write, you will find that we have followed certain conventions. We cite information. We research. We include attributions. We think critically. We peer review, are peer reviewed, and revise accordingly.

Since formal writing is more attuned to the prescriptive grammatical rules mentioned above, you might find it a little more difficult to find your voice than you would if you were writing, say, fiction or poetry. Nonetheless, as with any type of writing, the basic principle of communication should be addressed first: focus on clarity insead of correctness. It is much easier to edit later for correctness than it is to edit later for clarity. A great way to test clarity is to read your work aloud to someone else and have them stop you anytime they are unsure what you are saying.

Sometimes, writers produce essays that meet all of the academic conventions of research, argumentation, and citation yet consciously violate all of the grammatical standards of the academy. What we call “correctness” is more often a result of the power relations within a given society; take the phrase “the Queen’s English,” which lays bare the class dynamics of grammar and accent. While most of your instructors might not allow such radical breaks with grammatical norms, consider how the following passage uses the grammatical norms of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) while still meeting the research conventions of academia:

But some would say, “You can’t mix no dialects at work; how would peeps who ain’t from yo hood understand you?” They say, “You just gotta use standard English.” Yet, even folks with good jobs in the corporate world dont follow no standard English. Check this out: Reporter Sam Dillon write about a survey conducted by the National Commission on Writing in 2004. He say “that a third of employees in the nation’s blue-chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training” (A23).^[3]

Reviewing Academic Conventions

You should also remember that there are certain agreed-upon conventions when it comes to writing about literature. For instance, we use present tense when we write about literary works because the actions within the texts are considered to be always happening. When you think about it, it makes sense: you can open a book to the same section at different times in your life and there are the same words conveying the same actions (although not always the same meaning). For example, in an essay about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, you might write the following:

The novel begins with a letter written by Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville. In his correspondence, Walton reiterates to her his goal of finding a new route to far-away lands.

Even though Walton’s letter is dated 17–, you, the literary critic, use present tense when you are recounting it.

Developing a Thesis

A thesis statement articulates the central idea or main focus of your essay. Eventually, it will be a sentence (or sometimes a couple of sentences in a longer paper) that presents your argument. Usually, the thesis comes at the end of the first paragraph of the paper. A thesis should have two parts, a topic and a comment, so that readers will both know what your paper is about and be able to identify the specific claim that you are making about your chosen topic.

Sample thesis: Topic (what you’re writing about) + comment (why it’s important to write about the topic or what you want to say about it).

Remember that a good thesis statement should also be debatable. No one wants to read an essay in which you make an argument for a claim that is an established fact or for an idea that no one would disagree with. Similarly, you want to make sure that your thesis presents an argument that readers will care about and that changes the way they might think about a given text. In other words, your thesis should matter. If you find yourself asking “so what?” after drafting your thesis, you probably need to revise and refine. Also, a thesis statement should be appropriate in scope for the length of the paper. Resist the temptation to cram too much into a relatively short essay. A narrow thesis, perhaps even narrower than you might initially anticipate when developing your working thesis, will allow you to develop your argument thoroughly and support it with concrete evidence (i.e., specific quotations and details from the text as well as thorough discussion of how those quotations and details advance your argument).

As aforementioned, your thesis usually appears towards the end of the first paragraph or introductory section of your essay. Often, however, when you review your first draft, you may find that your thesis appears most clearly in your concluding paragraph and that this final paragraph may even work better as your introductory paragraph. The logic behind this common phenomenon is clear: once you’ve written a complete first draft, you know what you want to say, and so when you arrive at your conclusion, you are now able to make your argument most clearly. For your next draft, then, move that clearer thesis statement (and possibly even the whole concluding paragraph) to the beginning of your essay (or the end of your first paragraph). Always keep an open mind and be prepared to revise your draft in order to clarify your argument and strengthen your entire essay.

Identifying Problematic Thesis Statements

Now that we’ve discussed the features of a strong thesis, it’s important to identify some of the most common characteristics of weak thesis statements and to consider how to address these weaknesses.

Many students learned the five-paragraph essay form in middle or high school. When using this form, writers draft an introductory paragraph that concludes with a three-pronged thesis, then write three body paragraphs with one paragraph devoted to each of the three points mentioned in the thesis, and then wrap up the paper with a conclusion paragraph. Many students had great success employing this form in writing assignments and standardized tests prior to college, so why give it up now? Simply put, a five-paragraph essay structure does not accommodate the habits of mind and rhetorical strategies that we need to develop as growing writers. Complexity, uncertainty, tension, risk, and revision are all parts of writing, and the five-paragraph essay structure encourages us only to examine evidence to the degree that we can slot that evidence into one of our three predetermined categories/paragraphs. Good writing occurs when we consider the ways in which evidence confirms—but also complicates—our ideas. Additionally, five-paragraph essays are usually quite boring to read. When you tell your readers in the thesis statement the three main ideas that your paper will discuss, readers have little motivation to read beyond the thesis. You have effectively revealed all your evidence in the first paragraph and have confirmed to your readers that there will be no complications or complexity in your ideas.

Thesis statements that are overly broad, that do not accurately reflect the arguments and evidence of the rest of the paper, or that make a claim with which no one would disagree are the other most common types of weak thesis statements. Consider the following thesis statement problems:

• Too broad or vague: If you can’t successfully make your argument with the available time, space, and resources, you’ve probably made your thesis too broad. Think about narrowing the scope of your argument or qualifying your claim so that you will be successful in proving your claim.
• Simply factual instead of debatable: If you have a hard time imagining anyone disagreeing with your thesis, you’ve probably developed a thesis that is not debatable. Interrogating the interesting, the unusual, the unexpected, and the seemingly out of place in your chosen text(s) will help you move toward a claim that is debatable and that will inspire your readers to join in the conversation with you.
• Not relevant: If you write your working thesis, draft your paper, and never revisit your thesis during the process of revision, there is a high likelihood that your thesis does not accurately reflect the rest of the paper. As we encounter and make sense of evidence throughout the process of writing a draft, our understanding of our topic grows and becomes increasingly nuanced. Make sure that your thesis is always reflecting your most up-to-date understanding of your topic by revisiting your thesis often while drafting and revising.

Below you’ll find three problematic thesis statements. Which of the above problems does each thesis statement struggle with, and how might you revise each in an attempt to remedy that problem (keeping in mind that the following might present more than one problem)?

1. In Frankenstein, the Creature is very angry with Victor.

Is this first thesis statement debatable? If it isn’t, what might the author add to make it so? Notice how this thesis contains a topic but no comment on that topic; how can we add a comment on that topic in order to make this thesis statement debatable?

2. In Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft presents images of paradise, angels, and demons.

This second thesis statement presents three topics (images of paradise, angels, and demons). Already, we are able to predict that the essay that follows will have a body paragraph dedicated to each of these topics. If that essay’s scope is ~1000 words, it is highly unlikely that the essay writer can actually develop an interesting argument about all three of these topics in the space provided. Yet even if they could, the thesis statement above still contains no comment on any of the topics. Yes, Shelley includes these images in her novel, but so what? Why should we care? What’s interesting or especially important about them? What is the rationale for the writer including these three topics in the same essay? How are they related to one another?

3. In Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley alludes to Milton’s Paradise Lost.

This third thesis statement is way too broad and yet again limited to a topic without elaborating on the significance of that topic.

The essay writer needs to focus this thesis and include a comment about the topic. In narrowing the focus of the thesis and in making sure that it has a comment, they might try something like the following:

In Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley alludes to Milton’s Paradise Lost in order to encourage the reader to consider who the true demons of the story are and why.

Now the topic is narrow and there is a comment about the topic; the writer is no longer discussing Shelley’s allusions to Paradise Lost in an overly broad way but is instead focused on why she might have included these allusions. There is plenty to argue about both for and against this thesis, but now it is debatable, and we will expect the essay writer both to provide evidence that this thesis is valid and to demonstrate to us how they analyze evidence in order to prove/support this thesis.

Comparing and Contrasting Texts

Sometimes, an essay assignment or writing prompt will ask you to compare and contrast two things–perhaps, two characters in the same novel or two characters in different novels or, more broadly, two passages from different novels or even just two novels, leaving the elements you choose to compare and contrast entirely up to you. No matter what elements or texts you compare and contrast, you must be ready to move past the fact of similarities and differences between texts and on to making an argument about why noticing those similarities and differences is important. The examples below illustrate how you might begin to make an argument about literature that you are comparing and contrasting..

Text A is seemingly very like Text B: they’re both about XYZ. But there’s an important difference within this similarity:__________. This difference leads us to understand __________.

Text A and Text B have a big difference: Text A is XYZ while Text B is ABC. But there’s an important similarity within that difference: ___________ . This similarity leads us to understand __________.

Stitching the Parts Together: Organizing Your Essay

Once you’ve developed a working thesis, it’s time to consider the organization or structure of your essay. Consider the conceit we’ve been using for this chapter: writing can be like putting together the body of a creature. With that idea in mind, stitching the parts of an essay together certainly can go one of several ways–either the stitching is apparent but makes sense, or the stitching is awkward and not entirely logical, or the stitching is missing altogether and the draft falls apart.

A good organizational structure is paramount in academic writing; without clear and thoughtful organization, your essay will not hold together and therefore it will not be as persuasive as it could be. A strong essay will have its evidence arranged into paragraphs that are cohesive and that flow logically. To make sure your paper is organized effectively, you might create an outline in which you organize your thesis, sub-topics, and evidence using a series of headings and subheadings. Depending on the assignment, your instructor might require such an outline. You might also choose to sketch out your paper’s organization in a less formal way; writing down all the points you plan to address or even drawing a schematic in which you group points and evidence together will ensure that you have a plan of action for the paper’s overall organization and for the organization of each paragraph.

Essays typically have three sections: an introduction, a body (composed of body paragraphs), and a conclusion. You might not necessarily draft the paragraphs in this order, but it’s important to know how each section of the essay functions so that you can make sure each and every paragraph is in its most effective and logical place by the time that you submit your final draft.

Introduction

The introduction, as the name suggests, should introduce readers to your topic, contextualize the topic, and present your thesis as clearly as possible. The introduction will often be a single paragraph, but in longer papers, two or even three paragraphs might make up the introductory section. In any case, the thesis should come at the end of the introduction, regardless of whether the introduction is a single paragraph or a small cluster of paragraphs.

As you set out to write your introduction, make sure that you do not start your paper with an overly broad statement. Claims about all of human history or universal experiences at the beginning of your essay don’t give your readers any sense of what your paper is really about. We understand a writer’s impulse to do this; many people have been taught to think about paragraphs using the inverted triangle image representing a movement from broad to narrow, as show in Figure XXX below:

Oftentimes, the idea of the inverted triangle paragraph gets interpreted as follows in Figure 7.8.

Skip the “since the beginning of time” or “in that day and age” type statements and get straight to the topic of the paper. A well-crafted introduction will pique its readers’ interest without having to depend on sweeping statements or empty truisms. You may still consider the broad-to-narrow shape of an introductory paragraph, but you will want the “broad” part to be clearly related to the thesis your paragraph is leading to. Take a look at the following revised, inverted triangle in Figure 7.9.

As you can see from the figures above, writers should strive to keep an essay’s introductory paragraph clearly focused on their specific thesis, moving from a broad idea about that specific thesis to the focused thesis itself.

Body

Body paragraphs in literary essays function like pieces of a puzzle. When you put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, you get a clear picture of the entire argument AND you are able to see how the pieces connect together. Each body paragraph provides a necessary and discrete part of the overall argument, and no two body paragraphs deal with the same sub-topic. To extend the puzzle simile, each piece of the puzzle provides a unique piece of the overall picture of the puzzle’ design, and no two puzzle pieces should be identical.

So, how do you build a good body paragraph? Try to remember focus, coherence, and content!

First, make sure that the entire paragraph has one, and only one, focus. The topic sentence should accurately communicate the main point of the paragraph, which in turn must clearly relate to and develop the essay’s specific thesis. If your topic sentence doesn’t clearly relate to your thesis in some way, consider whether what you believe to be your topic sentence really is or not. Furthermore, all of the content in the paragraph should clearly connect back to the topic sentence. In this way, the topic sentence functions for the paragraph similarly to how the thesis functions for the entire essay.

Second, create coherence within the paragraph so that readers understand the logical flow of your argument. You might ask yourself why a particular sentence follows the one before it or why you presented evidence in a specific order. You can enhance the coherence of your paragraph by using transitional words and phrases to signal to readers the relationships between individual sentences or ideas. For example, using the transition “however” alerts readers that you are preparing to say something that contrasts with the idea communicated in the previous sentence. Similarly, the use of “moreover” or “additionally” lets readers know that you are adding more detail, or extra layers, to the ideas articulated in the previous sentence.

Lastly, ensure that the paragraph has enough content. A body paragraph needs several sentences to develop sufficiently. Provide ample evidence in each paragraph, and make sure you follow each piece of evidence with clear analysis. Your evidence will include specific quotations from the text that support your topic sentence (and therefore support your thesis argument), and your analysis will be your discussion of why and how the quotation (or other evidence) works to prove that your topic sentence (and therefore your thesis statement) really are making valid arguments. This evidence and analysis form the content of the body paragraph, which will in turn ensure that the idea presented in your topic sentence is thoroughly developed, which in turn ensures that the body paragraph clearly develops your overarching thesis argument.

In the sections below, we consider the various elements–topic sentences, evidence, analysis, and transitions–of body paragraphs in more detail.

Writing Topic Sentences

As described above, each body paragraph should begin with a topic sentence. The topic sentence’s most obvious function is to present the topic of the body paragraph. Each body paragraph should have one (and only one) main idea, and the topic sentence should clearly communicate this main idea.

The more closely we examine good topic sentences, however, the more we realize that topic sentences are the heavy lifters of body paragraphs. Good topic sentences allow your evidence to work effectively and allow your argument to develop clearly and logically. In addition to presenting the main topic of the paragraph, topic sentences should also clarify the relationship between the paper’s thesis and the specific evidence explored within the paragraph. In other words, a good topic sentence should signpost the specific part of the thesis that an individual body paragraph addresses. Lastly, a good topic sentence should aid in the transition process as readers move from the preceding paragraph to the paragraph that the topic sentences opens.

Let’s return to the revised thesis sentence we considered above:

In Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley alludes to Milton’s Paradise Lost in order to encourage the reader to consider who the true demons of the story are and why.

The topic sentence for your first body paragraph should signal to readers the movement from the introductory section of the paper to the body section of the paper. Given the thesis, the topic sentence could be something like the following:

Topic Sentence #1/Body Paragraph #1

We first encounter a possible allusion to Milton’s epic poem during Robert Walton’s initial letter to his sister Margaret.

Similarly, the topic sentence for a body paragraph that follows another body paragraph should help elucidate the connection between, or logical progression from, one main idea to the next. For example, the body paragraph that follows the paragraph identifying and analyzing Shelley’s first allusion to Paradise Lost might look something like this:

Topic Sentence #2/Body Paragraph #2

After potentially evoking Paradise Lost early in his first letter, Walton then makes a statement that yet again encourages us to think of Milton’s poem, writing that. . .

We now expect this paragraph to discuss a second, later allusion. This paragraph’s development will consist of evidence, analysis, and transitions, as discussed in detail in the following sections.

Providing Evidence

No matter the texts you analyze and the literary conversations into which you enter, your use of evidence serves the crucial function of supporting your argument. Without convincing evidence, every argument crumbles. Depending on the type of writing you are doing, evidence can come in a variety of forms including, but not limited to, specific quotations from the text, data or statistics, anecdotes or stories, expert opinions, examples, and definitions. When writing a literary essay, especially, you will frequently use textual evidence in which you draw specific quotations from and create summaries or paraphrases of small sections of your chosen primary text(s). Further, if you include research in your essay, you similarly will draw appropriate quotations from or create summaries or paraphrases of ideas from the secondary sources you find during your research to provide evidence in support of your thesis. Note: Each and every time you quote, summarize, or paraphrase any text, you must cite that text clearly and correctly, both in the body of your essay in parenthetical citations and at the end of your essay on the Works Cited page.

Summary, paraphrase, and quotation each serve different functions, so make sure that you choose carefully your method of incorporating evidence into your paper.

When you summarize, you use your own words to communicate the main ideas of someone else’s text in a condensed form. Remember that because you are communicating someone else’s ideas, even though you are using your own words, you need to include a citation each time you summarize. Summary works best as a way of incorporating evidence into your paper when you are focusing on big ideas.

When you paraphrase, you reword a portion of someone else’s text, putting it into your own words and using your own sentence structure. The original passage and your paraphrase should be around the same number of words. As is the case with summary, you need to include a citation for each paraphrase because you are communicating the ideas of someone else. Paraphrases work best when you want to focus on the details of a passage of text but don’t need to draw attention to the specific words or sentence structure.

When you include a quotation in your essay, you incorporate into your text a portion of someone’s else text using their exact words. As is the case with summary and paraphrase, all quotations should include citations since you are communicating someone else’s ideas and using their language to do it. Quotation works best when you want to draw attention to the words themselves or when you cannot communicate the idea as effectively in your own words. Each time you include a quotation in your text, make sure that you frame it with your own words. Do not simply drop the quotation into your essay in between two sentences of your own writing. The passages below illustrate the difference between a dropped or floating quotation and a properly incorporated or framed quotation:

Dropped/floating quotation:

After potentially evoking Paradise Lost early in his first letter, Walton then makes a statement that yet again encourages us to think of Milton’s poem. “I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation [. . .].”^[4]

Notice how the floating quotation doesn’t make sense when it is dropped in after the essay writer’s sentence instead of being incorporated smoothly into the writer’s own introduction of the quotation.

Correctly incorporated/framed quotation:

After potentially evoking Paradise Lost early in his first letter, Walton then makes a statement that yet again encourages us to think of Milton’s poem, writing that “I also become a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation [. . .].”^[5]

Notice how the essay writer introduces the quotation so that the reader has an idea of what is happening in it and why it is being used. Note also the bracketed ellipses [. . .] that indicate that the essay writer has omitted a small section of the text, deeming it not necessary to their use of this quotation as a piece of evidence. As long as the writer has not changed the fundamental meaning of the quotation, they can choose to omit a few words, here and there, that may make the quotation unnecessarily long for their purposes.

The paragraph, however, is not complete yet. If the writer simply ends the paragraph after giving the quotation, the reader has little to no idea how the writer means for that quotation to support the thesis’s argument. This problem then leads us to the need to include analysis following the quotation in order to make clear how the quotation develops the writer’s main argument.

Analyzing Evidence

Analysis is the process by which you explain to your readers how your evidence functions to support your argument. One of the most common pitfalls of college writers is the tendency to present readers with large quantities of evidence yet very little analysis. They assume the evidence speaks for itself. As a writer, you cannot assume that your readers will intuit how your evidence functions to support your claim. You have to explain to your readers both how you are interpreting your evidence and how these interpretations, in turn, bolster your thesis.

Imagine two maps leading to treasure. The first map has inscrutable symbols all over it. It does, in fact, show the path to the treasure, but it is difficult to navigate with the map without knowing the meaning of the symbols. Does X mark the spot of the treasure? Or does X mark “you are here”? The second map is identical to the first but with one significant difference. The second map also includes a key detailing the meaning of each symbol on the map. Someone might find their way to the treasure using the map without the key, but they are much more likely to find the treasure, and have a more enjoyable time doing it, if they have access to the map with the key. An essay without sufficient analysis is like the map without the key. It forces your readers to try to make sense of the evidence in your paper without any guidance. An essay with sufficient analysis, on the other hand, guides readers through the evidence so that they can easily reach the same conclusions as the writer.

Consider again the quotation in which Walton may be alluding to Milton a second time in his letter. As discussed above, the essay writer has introduced the quotation and incorporated it into their own writing through proper framing. The writer’s work with this piece of evidence, however, is not yet finished. Instead of assuming that the meaning of the quotation is self-evident and they can move on to the next part of their argument, the essay writer must analyze the quotation by explaining how it functions to support their thesis. Take a look at how the analysis that follows the quotation develops the paragraph’s main point:

Body paragraph #1 including textual evidence and analysis:

After potentially evoking Paradise Lost early in his first letter, Walton then makes a statement that yet again encourages us to think of Milton’s poem. He writes that “I also become a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation [. . .]” (Shelley, Letter 1, Par. 4).^[6] Note that Walton capitalizes the word “Paradise” here, leading us to think of the Paradise of Adam and Eve as opposed to simply a paradisiacal situation of some sort. Walton’s pairing of this capitalized word with his own short period as a poet may also make us think of Milton’s poem, Paradise Lost. As we make that connection, we should then notice that Walton doesn’t just live in “Paradise,” but “in a Paradise of my own creation.” While we might be tempted to see Walton’s “Paradise” as parallel to that of Adam and Eve, the fact that he has created this particular “Paradise” aligns him more with Satan in Paradise Lost, as Satan attempts to rival God, fails, and is then cast out of Heaven. The parallel between Walton and Satan is further solidified by Walton’s own words: “You are well acquainted with my failure, and how heavily I bore the disappointment.” Like Satan, Walton has aspired to create something that rivals God’s creation, he has failed at creating his own Paradise, and he has been ejected from it. These parallels between Walton and Milton’s Satan may encourage us to see Walton as prideful and ambitious, and in encouraging the reader to identify these traits and make these associations at the very outset of her novel, Shelley invites us to continue to look for parallels between her other characters and Milton’s anti-hero.

The discussion after the quotation provides an analysis concerning what about the quotation is important for the reader to understand in order to follow the writer’s topic sentence and, in turn, their thesis argument about the way Shelley includes allusions to Paradise Lost to encourage us to question which characters are the true demons in the novel. In this way, the essay writer begins to convince the reader that the thesis is sound (and therefore should be taken seriously) and that their argument adds something interesting to the critical conversations about this novel.

Transitions between and within paragraphs

While each body paragraph does not need a robust conclusion in which you summarize or restate that main point(s) of the paragraph, you do need to make sure that none of your paragraphs end abruptly. Think about creating a smooth transition between ideas as you conclude one paragraph and move on to the next. As stated above, and considering the points above about the relationship between evidence and analysis, you don’t want to end a paragraph with a quotation. A quotation at the end of the paragraph is evidence without analysis. As you wrap up each body paragraph, you should think of putting yourself in a position where it logically makes sense to pick up with your next body paragraph. Ask yourself: how are what I’ve just said and what I’m about to say related?

Even within a body paragraph, you will probably need to transition between ideas as you move back and forth between evidence and analysis. Simple words and phrases can do most of this transitional work for you. Some words and phrases signal that you are arguing in the same direction that you were previously arguing (“additionally,” “moreover,” “furthermore,” etc.) while other words and phrases signal that you are changing directions (“nevertheless,” “but,” “however,” “on the other hand,” etc.). Let’s take one final look at the sample paragraph we started drafting above—this time in its complete form—and notice how the paragraph and the one that follows it connect to one another both through their content and by using transitions at the beginning and throughout the rest of the paragraph.

Two body paragraphs, with transitions in bold font:

After potentially evoking Paradise Lost early in his first letter, Walton then makes a statement that yet again encourages us to think of Milton’s poem. He writes that “I also become a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation [. . .]” (Shelley, Letter 1, Par. 4). Note that Walton capitalizes the word “Paradise” here, leading us to think of the Paradise of Adam and Eve as opposed to simply a paradisiacal situation of some sort. Walton’s pairing of this capitalized word with his own short period as a poet may also make us think of Milton’s poem, Paradise Lost. As we make that connection, we should then notice that Walton doesn’t just live in “Paradise,” but “in a Paradise of my own creation.” While we might be tempted to see Walton’s “Paradise” as parallel to that of Adam and Eve, the fact that he has attempted to create this particular “Paradise” aligns him more with Satan in Paradise Lost, as Satan attempts to rival God the Creator, fails, and is then cast out of Heaven. The parallel between Walton and Satan is further solidified by Walton’s own words to his sister: “You are well acquainted with my failure, and how heavily I bore the disappointment” (Shelley, Letter 1, Par. 4). Like Satan, Walton has aspired to create something that rivals God’s creation, he has failed at creating his own Paradise, and he has been ejected from it. These parallels between Walton and Milton’s Satan may lead us to see Walton as prideful and ambitious. In encouraging the reader to identify these traits and make these associations at the very outset of her novel, Shelley invites us to continue to look for parallels between her other characters and Milton’s anti-hero, which in turns asks us to consider seriously who is, ultimately, the villain, and who is the hero of her novel, and why.

In his fourth letter to his sister, Walton recounts the events that have taken place over a few days and introduces to the reader two new characters, through whom the parallels to Paradise Lost continue. The first, appearing one evening, Walton describes as “a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature” (Letter IV, Para. 3). The second new character–“a human being [. . .] [who] was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but an European”–appears the next morning and is hauled aboard Walton’s ship (Letter IV, Para. 6). Notice that in the very first descriptions of these two characters, Walton sets up a contrast between “a being” and “a human being.” This contrast is immediately emphasized by Walton’s then speculating that the earlier figure is “a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island” as opposed to being “an European,” as he supposes the second figure to be. These contrasting descriptions quickly lead the reader to understand that in Walton’s eyes, the humanity of the “savage” is questionable, whereas the “European[’s]” humanity is obvious. Walton’s perceptions of the “savage” “being” as inhuman are confirmed by the stranger who, once he recovers his voice, refers to the other figure as “the dæmon” (Letter IV, Para. 13). As the novel progresses, the stranger will use this word repeatedly for the other, encouraging his audience (Walton and the reader) to identify the other as a devil, which in turns alludes to the ultimate devil, Milton’s Satan. In this way, the reader is initially led to believe that Victor Frankenstein (the stranger) is the noble victim of the Satan-like Creature.

Notice that the last sentence of the first body paragraph and the first sentence of the second body paragraph connect to one another. The movement exhibited here is that of progress and addition: the last sentence of Body Paragraph #1 states that Shelley is making connections between first Robert Walton and Satan in Paradise Lost and then will continue to PL and additional characters. This statement is then followed by the transition and topic sentence of Body Paragraph #2 in which the essay writer indicates that they are now analyzing Walton’s fourth letter and two new characters who are introduced therein, and that the descriptions of both of these characters also contain allusions to Milton’s work, most specifically to his Satan.

Now take a look at the transitions within the paragraph. These ensure that the content flows by making clear connections between the sentences and their ideas. The transitional phrase “in the very first descriptions” signals that the essay writer is introducing important information and is indicating where that information occurs in the letter. The writer draws attention to the location of this information for two main reasons: first, to establish that these issues (about what constitutes a daemon and what a human) surface immediately with the introduction of the Creature and Victor Frankenstein; second, to establish that this is just the beginning of these issues. Notice the next transition: “As the novel progresses. . .” This tells the reader that there is more to come, that additional textual evidence will be provided to support the writer’s thesis.

Conclusion

A conclusion functions to wrap up your essay and signals to readers that you have persuasively constructed an argument that is worthy of continued consideration. To remind readers of the care with which you have built your argument, you should gesture back to your thesis and the body of the essay, but refrain from repeating your thesis and topic sentences verbatim. Lastly, make sure that you do not introduce completely new ideas into the conclusion; because this is your concluding paragraph, you don’t have time to discuss these new ideas or quotations, and so dropping these in at the last minute will distract readers from the actual focus of your essay.

Let’s return one last time to the argument that Mary Shelley alludes to Paradise Lost in order to invite questions about who the demons and who the innocent victims are, how they are, and why. Observe how the following concluding paragraph reiterates the essay’s main thesis, includes a recap of the big points made in the body paragraphs, and incorporates two short, pertinent quotations from the text in order to cement the thesis argument.

Concluding paragraph

As we’ve seen throughout the discussion above, Mary Shelley works a number of allusions to Paradise Lost into the text of Frankenstein in order to accomplish two main things: first, she draws parallels between the Creature and Milton’s Satan, and then second, as the novel progresses, she encourages the reader to question those same parallels and transfer their meaning from the Creature to Victor Frankenstein, himself. In Victor, Shelley writes a character who desires glory and fame, who wants to create and be hailed as the father of a new and better race. In his ambition and pride, Victor, more than any other character, resembles Satan and his desire to challenge and supplant God. While the Creature may initially be called “the daemon,” Victor is the one who truly behaves demonically, abandoning the child he creates and for whom he is responsible, leaving the Creature to fall from innocence, not through his own sins but as a result of those of his “father,” Victor refuses to give the Creature any comfort or love whatsoever, and, furthermore, focuses so narcissitically upon only himself that he fails to protect the very people he supposedly loves. While the Creature certainly commits his own share of atrocities, all of his actions stem from Victor’s choices, and in this way, we can hear Mary Shelley’s condemnation of those who possess knowledge and choose to abuse it. The irresponsible scientist turns out to be the real “savage” in Frankenstein, incapable of loving anything but himself, a condition that results in not only his own fall but the fall of everyone around him.

As we look at this concluding paragraph, we see that it points back to and confirms the thesis in its first two sentences. Next, the paragraph reminds readers of the main points of the body paragraphs without simply recycling each body paragraph’s topic sentence. You can also gather from the conclusion above that, in addition to establishing the parallels between the Creature and Satan, the essay writer moved on, in later paragraphs, to discuss the ways in which Victor parallels Satan far more clearly than the Creature does. Finally, the writer brings the essay to a close with a strong final thought that both wraps up the essay as a whole and encourages readers to keep thinking about the topic, perhaps considering where they, themselves, might push it further with their own arguments.