The Body

Remember how I said it drives me crazy when people place literary devices first? The same applies to the body paragraphs.

Each paragraph is structured the same, you start with a general sentence. In our example something to do with family drawing strength from each other during hard times; at the end of the sentence or better yet in the next sentence you can add your first literary device. (Ours is biblical illusions). So, in the first sentence repeat that John Steinbeck emphasizes that families can draw strength from each other during hard times through biblical illusions. (NOT: Through biblical illusions, John Steinbeck emphasizes families can…)

Then you give your examples using paraphrasing and direct quotes. (I will go into how to set these up in another post.) Each literary device should have at least three examples for a five page paper. If you cannot think of three examples for a literary device then that device isn't stong enough and therefore your paper will not be strong enough, or worse, long enough.

Each example can be placed in a new paragraph or each literary device can be in all one paragraph, depending on how your teacher wants it. In college most professors want them in a new paragraph (which is great for space). Your last sentences (or paragraph) for each literary device needs to be summed up. This isn’t hard at all, lots of repetition. In our example you will do the same for symbols and chapter structure. And that’s that on to the conclusion.