A thesis, which often appears in the introduction, announces an essay’s main point. When planning your paper, it is good to have a working or preliminary thesis in mind. This preliminary thesis will reflect the current state of your thinking about the work and will likely change and evolve as you plan and draft. (See the sections on thesis statements in your handbook.)
In a literature analysis, your thesis will answer the central question that you have asked about the work. When drafting your thesis, aim for a strong, assertive summary of your interpretation. For example, here are two successful thesis statements taken from student essays, together with the central question each student had posed.
question
What does Emily Dickinson’s poem “I dwell in Possibility—” tell us about the writing of poetry?
thesis
Emily Dickinson’s poem “I dwell in Possibility—” implies that poetry itself is limitless and that the role of the poet is not to create poetry but to inhabit and shape it.
question
What is the significance of the explorer Robert Walton in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein?
thesis
Through the character of Walton, Shelley suggests that the most profound and useful sort of knowledge is not a knowledge of nature’s secrets but a knowledge of the limits of knowledge itself.
As in other college writing, the thesis of a literature paper should not be too factual, too broad, or too vague (see also “thesis” in your handbook). For an essay on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, the first three examples would all make weak thesis statements.
too factual
As a runaway slave, Jim is in danger from the law.
too broad
In Huckleberry Finn, Twain criticizes mid-nineteenth-century American society.
too vague
Huckleberry Finn is Twain’s most exciting work.
The following thesis statement is sharply focused and presents a central idea that requires discussion and support. It connects a general point (that Twain objects to empty piety) to those specific aspects of the novel the paper will address (Huck’s status as narrator, Huck’s comments on religion).
acceptable thesis
Because Huckleberry Finn is a naive narrator, his comments on conventional religion function ironically at every turn, allowing Twain to poke fun at empty piety.