So you’ve mastered the five paragraph essay, and perhaps even longer, more fluid formats. It’s time to try your hand at incorporating other experts’ ideas about the text, and even place your ideas on equal footing with theirs. Hands and feet aside . . . enter THE LITERARY CRITICISM ESSAY!

Want advice on other aspects of writing an essay? Try these articles on why essays make great assessments, thesis statements, and body paragraphs. Someday I might get around to writing about how to expand the five paragraph essay into longer pieces of writing, but in the meantime, the basics still mostly apply.

(While we’re at it, need some help with citations? OWL-Purdue is your guy!)

This article is also already too long so it won’t concern itself with how to go about finding and keeping track of the actual research. This is to be continued in another article on another day . . . .

What is worth saying, however, is that, MOST IMPORTANTLY, this is YOUR essay despite these critics’ contributions. Come up with your thesis independently of what all these so-called experts are arguing. Use plenty of evidence from the text itself. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND writing your essay first, or at least outlining it, and only AFTER THAT bringing in the outside criticism. If you are a teacher, it’s not a bad idea for the students to write a criticism-less essay as a separate assignment first, and only after that taking a trip to the school library.

(If it still exists . . . . Moving on before I am filled with dread and despair.)

Once you have found the ideas and quotations from these lauded sources that you would like to use, how do you go about seamlessly incorporating them into your essay? I’m so glad you asked! Here are four simple and foolproof ways to use them in a way that furthers your point and impresses your dear reader, using Madame Bovary as an example.

Without further ado . . .

1. ADD A BIT OF FLAIR IN THE INTRODUCTION OR CONCLUSION.

In an essay entitled simply “Madame Bovary,” Albert Thibaudet compares Gustave Flaubert’s process of writing his famed novel to “the very motion of fate,” (375). “Fate” can be treated in many different ways; it can be an inhuman cosmic force or carried out by human vehicles, can be an inevitable series of events or secondary to human will. Fate can even be used by some as an excuse for their actions. Rather than favoring any one of these depictions over another, Flaubert explores how personality can determine how fate acts in a person’s life, either controlling or being controlled by it.  Of course, Flaubert, being the cynic he was, shows both as equally despicable.

2. SUBTLY SHOW THAT CRITICS AGREE WITH YOUR ARGUMENT.

Homais joins Rudolphe as an example of Flaubert’s conflicting depiction of what “success” means. Interestingly, the novel begins with the humiliation of Charles, the controlled, and ends with the success of Homais, the controller.  As Brombert terms it, “baseness wins out” (90).  Flaubert’s tone when discussing Homais is not kind, and the reader is not meant to . . .

3. ACKNOWLEDGE THAT CRITICS DISAGREE WITH YOU . . . BUT THEN SHOW WHY YOU ULTIMATELY ARE CORRECT.

Auerbach goes on to say that Charles is not an isolated example of a character living in his own world, that each has his own world, and that “each is alone, none can understand another, or help another to insight” (390).  Though the tone is correct in its acceptance of the pessimism of Flaubert’s vision, the statement does not take the characters controlling their own fate into account.  These characters do understand the reality surrounding others, but, instead of helping them “to insight,” they utilize that knowledge to manipulate the characters with false worlds.

4. INTRODUCE IDEAS THAT DIDN’T OCCUR TO YOU AND WHICH TOOK YOUR ESSAY IN A SLIGHTLY NEW DIRECTION.

Charles Bovary, who opens the novel, is more than simply led by fate.  Victor Brombert claims that he is “an accomplice of destiny,” (73).  Since he unknowingly leads his wife into two affairs, this claim is not as exaggerated as it may first seem . . .

Good luck writing! And remember, you’re a critic now too! Take your place among the greats and argue with confidence! No “I think,” “I believe,” or “maybe” allowed when putting your thoughts to paper. In fact, avoid the word “I” altogether. State your ideas as fact and your reader will nod right alongside you in perfect agreement. Probably.