Erynne McCown
April 11, 1015
ENGL 1120
Literary Analysis Reflection
The literary text that I decided to analyze was, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin so I could express my thoughts regarding the symbolism and additional literary elements used in the story for the writer to convey their message. I wanted to express my thoughts so I would be able to help my audience not only understand what the story is about but understand the reasoning on a profound level.
When I was preparing to express my thoughts, I wanted to be able to use a format where I could introduce the topic, use citated evidence, and explain the evidence while getting straight to the point without too much added information that is unnecessary. The best way for me to meet all these requirements was through an essay written about the literary elements and how they influence the story. The essay is a literary analysis.
The most important part of the essay is the structure. The structure begins with a strong thesis. When writing my thesis, I made sure to include my statement which was, “In the short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K LeGuin, the author expresses to the audience that in life, nothing comes without consequence or sacrifice...” (McCown 1). Then I introduced the topics I was analyzing which were, “... literary elements, pathos induced descriptions, and rhetorical questions...” (McCown 1). And ending my thesis with the idea of LeGuin’s purpose to write a story, “...conveying the idea of perfection and complete joy of this society in order for the audience to understand the moral of the story on a deeper level” (McCown 1). This thesis reflects what the entire essay is about.
When I was writing my essay, I introduced the idea of rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions are used in written pieces to introduce topics and to get the audience to think about certain topics. There were rhetorical questions used in, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. For example, LeGuin asks, “Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No?” (9). This question was asked to influence the thought process of the audience. I decided to add irony and style to my essay by asking a rhetorical question as well. My question was present in the sentence, “While the story goes on, the imagery continues to be powerful but what is the purpose of the excessive word usage?” (McCown 6). This question proposed my audience to ponder on the word usage section of my analysis.
While writing this rhetorical analysis essay, I faced issues meeting the word count due to past experiences. Throughout my Literature and Composition classes in High School, I was trained to get straight to the point by minimizing expression. This essay needed to not only analyze the literature but express my analyzation in the literature. So, I made sure to get deeper into the topics instead of staying surface level to lengthen my essay.
The purpose of my essay was to make sure that the audience was aware of the message involved with the story. The audience needed to not only be aware of the message, but they needed to understand the message on a profound level which is why the literature was analyzed. While writing, I ensured there was textual evidence, flow, style, as well as a strong introduction and conclusion. Overall, the literary analysis on, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin not only expressed my thought but helped me understand the story on a level that correlates with my thoughts.