A literary analysis essay makes an arguable claim about a text and supports it with close reading of specific passages. The three things it must do: take a non-obvious position, quote passages that actually bear on the claim, and explain why the quoted language is doing what you say it is doing — not just asserting it.
Example essay
Illustrative example — figures, citations, and names may not represent real studies or people. Verify before quoting.
The Real Argument of Bartleby's 'I Would Prefer Not To'
Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener is usually read as a story about a man who refuses to work, and the phrase he refuses with — "I would prefer not to" — is usually quoted as the concentrated expression of that refusal. But read closely, the phrase is not really a refusal. It is something stranger: a grammatical construction that makes it impossible for the narrator to respond within the normal terms of authority. The story's political force comes from what the phrase does to the boss, not from what Bartleby wants.
A direct refusal would have been "I will not." A request would have been "Please don't make me." A polite excuse would have been "I am unable." All three of these are sentences the narrator — a genteel Wall Street lawyer — has tools to handle. He could discipline the first, negotiate the second, and accept the third. "I would prefer not to" resists all three framings at once. It is not a refusal, because preference is not a refusal; it is not a request, because it asks for nothing; and it is not an excuse, because it invokes no incapacity. The grammatical structure — conditional mood, negative complement, a verb ("prefer") that normally describes aesthetic choices rather than moral stances — makes the phrase unanswerable.
Melville understood this. When the narrator tries to respond to Bartleby, his language keeps collapsing. He asks, "Will you not?" and Bartleby says, "I would prefer not to." He says, "You must," and Bartleby says, "I would prefer not to." Every time the narrator reaches for an imperative, Bartleby meets it with a subjunctive, and the imperative fails. The narrator finally reports, in frustration, that he "could not resist" Bartleby's "wonderful mildness." The mildness is the point. The phrase never confronts authority; it simply does not enter the field where authority can operate.
This is why readings that focus on Bartleby as a passive resister miss what the story is actually doing. Passive resistance still accepts the authority it resists — it just refuses to comply. Bartleby is doing something more radical: he is exiting the grammar of authority entirely. The narrator is left with a subordinate he cannot command and cannot fire, because every attempt to command or fire him runs into a wall of preference that has no handle. The horror of the story is not that Bartleby says no. It is that he makes no impossible.
Melville wrote the story in 1853, in the early years of the corporate-hierarchical American workplace. Read in that context, Bartleby's phrase is a thought experiment: what happens if a worker finds a way to speak that does not acknowledge the terms of the employer's authority? The story's answer is that the employer is helpless, and the story's darker answer is that the worker is also unreachable — and eventually dies of it. Melville's critique of the Wall Street workplace is not that the workers are crushed by authority. It is that the language of authority and the language of refusal are locked in a grammar that leaves no room for anything in between.
Breakdown
Non-obvious thesis stated clearly
But read closely, the phrase is not really a refusal. It is something stranger: a grammatical construction that makes it impossible for the narrator to respond within the normal terms of authority.
The thesis takes a position against the usual reading. Literary analysis essays that restate the standard interpretation are not really arguments. This one says: the common reading is wrong, and here is a sharper one.
Grammatical close reading
It is not a refusal, because preference is not a refusal; it is not a request, because it asks for nothing; and it is not an excuse, because it invokes no incapacity.
The essay does actual close reading — it breaks the phrase down into what it is and what it is not. Literary analysis that just paraphrases the text is book report. Literary analysis that examines the grammar is criticism.
Evidence from multiple passages
"Will you not?" and Bartleby says, "I would prefer not to." He says, "You must"...
The writer cites multiple moments in the story, not just one. This shows the pattern is consistent across the text rather than cherry-picked from one scene. Close readings live or die on whether the pattern they claim actually holds.
Distinguishes the claim from a common neighbor
This is why readings that focus on Bartleby as a passive resister miss what the story is actually doing. Passive resistance still accepts the authority it resists...
The essay protects its claim by naming a similar reading and explaining how this one differs. Literary analysis often fails because the thesis is indistinguishable from standard readings; this move preempts that objection.
Historical context deployed at the right moment
Melville wrote the story in 1853, in the early years of the corporate-hierarchical American workplace.
The essay brings in historical context only after the close reading has done its work. Context that comes too early can feel like the writer is importing meaning from outside the text; context that comes after can deepen it.
The closing extends the thesis
Melville's critique... is that the language of authority and the language of refusal are locked in a grammar that leaves no room for anything in between.
The ending does not summarize the argument — it lands on a larger claim about what Melville's critique actually is. A weak literary analysis ends by restating the thesis; a strong one ends by showing what the thesis unlocks about the text.
Writing tips
Pick a thesis that disagrees with the standard reading — if you cannot name what your reading is pushing against, you do not have a thesis yet. Quote specific passages and examine them at the word level, not just the plot level. Bring in context (historical, biographical, generic) only after close reading has earned it. End by extending the thesis to a larger claim about what the text is doing.