Lesson 4: Analyzing Short Stories
Writing A Critical Analysis
For this section, you will choose one of the stories below that you would like to read. These stories are found in Detective Stories by Philip Pullman.
Suggested Reading Assignment
Choose two of the stories you have read and read them over again.
Required Writing Assignment
(1) Write a short story review. You will compare the two stories.
In the previous sections you have read a few short stories. You also wrote a summary, answered questions, wrote a review, and now, you are going to write a critical analysis. In order to do this, you need to know what a critical analysis involves.
Analysis of Short Stories or Novels
A critical analysis involves more in depth writing. For this paper, you will not be writing a summary. You will choose one of the topics below and write a critical analysis. You will be writing a paper about your opinions on a subject. For example: You may want to write a paper on the villains in two of the stories. You would first write a thesis statement. You would state in one sentence the main point you are trying to discuss in your paper and then back up your statement with passages from the two stories. You might want to say: The villains are very different in both stories. Then, you would defend your statement by the passages and your opinions of the passages.
Below is a list of topics that you could choose from to write your analysis. You could compare any of the following topics:
(1) The protagonists in each story.
(2) The suspects and their motives.
(3) The structure of the story. How was the plot developed? (4) The villains and why they committed the crimes.
(5) What type of detective fiction stories were they? How can you tell the differences?(Comic Detective, Historical Detective, Hardboiled Detective, English Classic Detective, etc.)
(6) What clues did you find in the story? How were they planted? Hidden or revealed?
(7) What about the themes in the two stories? Were they easy to see and understand?
(8) Which style of writing did you prefer and why?
