Literary Analysis

I have read three short stories independently. The three are "Hills Like White Elephants," "Araby," and "The Sniper." I'm still trying to understand literary analysis exactly. I believe it's a short summary of how the author uses a certain topic in the story to express something. There are a few elements in each story that would be a great part of a literary analysis for each story.

My first read was "Hills Like White Elephants." The story consists of, mainly, a conversation between the two main characters with interruptions in it from other minor characters and the observation of setting. In this story, the author mirrors what the characters are talking about, but he doesn't directly explain it or put it all on the table. "Araby" was a really confusing story. The narrator first started talking about his general life, then he talked about his friend's sister, and then his crush on her. He was a bit of a creeper to her. Then, he went to some sort of convention that he really wanted to go to; then, at the end, he's at his event thing and the light goes out. I really didn't understand the story. Although, the the author did use memories and details and memories of details to explain the boy's crush on this girl. The next story made a little more sense. "The Sniper" was a sad short story. The main guy, in this story, was a sniper for Dublin, on one side, during the civil war. He was stationed on a roof so he could shoot down the "bad guys." There was another sniper on the roof across from him, who he killed. In between this happening, the sniper man killed a guy on a truck with his set of troops. Also, he was shot, in his arm, himself. A lot of tension builds up and throughout the story. Also, many gruesome events take place with people murdering each other. The author uses setting and tension in the story to set the action of the story. You don't know or expect what's going to happen, but you do know something will happen by the tension build throughout the plot of the short story.


Reading Times:

10/22/12="Hills Like White Elephants"; by Ernest Hemingway; 15 min; 3 pages (R&A)
10/24/12=City of Ashes; by Cassandra Clare; 34 min; 31 pages
10/25/12="The Sniper"; by Liam O'Flaherty; 17 min; 3 pages (R&A)
10/25/12="Araby"; by James Joyce; 20 min; 6 pages (R&A)
10/26/12=City of Ashes; by Cassandra Clare; 27 min; 26 pages
10/28/12=City of Ashes; by Cassandra Clare; 34 min; 31 pages
12/29/12=City of Ashes; by Cassandra Clare; 29 min; 27 pages