What Makes an Impressive Critical Lens Essay?

When it comes to write a critical lens essay; then your keen focus on the literary works become mandatory. In critical lens essays, analyzing the perspective statement in-depth helps you to deliver the valid interpretation of the statement. If you are able to interpret your critical lens statement effectively; then you would also be able to support your agree or disagree opinion about the statement by referring to literary elements.

 

Here are the 13 literary elements that you should profoundly focus on while writing a critical lens essay:

 

• Characterization: Whether author implements a character directly or indirectly.
• Conflict: The confrontation between the opposing forces like Hero vs Villain.
• Figurative Language: Using the simile, metaphor, alliteration, personification and hyperbole in the right place at the right time.
• Flashback: A scene that reflects the past event at present.
• Foreshadowing: Hints or clues suggesting the events that may happen next.
• Imagery: Use of sensory language to visualize an imaginary character.
• Irony: Contradict – What was expected to happen and what happened.
• Plot: The sequence of events in the literary work.
• Point of View: The perspective of the narrative.
• Setting: The time and place where the action was performed in literary work.
• Symbolism: Anything that stands for something in the literary work.
• Theme: The central idea behind the literary work.
• Tone: Attitude of author towards the audience or subject.

 

Once you have a full grip over the preceding elements; then there is no way you can’t write an impressive critical lens essay. Let’s suppose, you have to write a critical lens essay in the light of a following statement:

 

“To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else”
-Bernadette Devlin

The Price of my Soul (1969)

Here is the structure that you should follow to come out with impressive critical lens essays in the light of the preceding statement:

Introduction: Your introduction should follow the following 4 steps:

 

Step 1
Statement: State the critical lens statement given to you as follow:
According to Bernadette Devlin: “-----------------“.

Note: Write the quote in the blank space.

 

Step 2
Interpret: Give meaning of the quote in your own words. The meaning is simple here: You have to give up loads of things in your life to achieve the worthy one.

 

Step 3
Agree or Disagree Statement: Obviously, the life experiences suggest that people lose almost everything in hunt for the worthy livings, so, you should agree here.

 

Step 4
Thesis: Now, you should incorporate the 2 literary works that you would use to prove your interpretation and present them as a joint thesis.

 

Joining the preceding 4 steps would make you develop an introductory paragraph for your critical lens essay.

 

Body Paragraphs: Since you have to incorporate the 2 literary works, so you will use 2 body paragraphs for your essay:
 
Paragraph 1: Refer to the 1st literary work. Use your 1st literary work to prove the interpretation you made above. It’s better to use at least 2 literary elements to prove your interpretation about the quote.

 

Paragraph 2: Just like the paragraph 1, you have to refer the 2nd literary work to prove your interpretation but don’t forget to incorporate the literary elements.

 

Conclusion: You should conclude critical lens essays by implying the following points:

 

• Restate the quote with name of a person who delivered the quote.
• Re-interpret the quote on the basis of rephrasing
• State that both authors that you chose for literary works integrate the elements that help you prove or disprove the quote.
• In the end, make a broader statement that summarizes what the essence of the quote that you understand

 

In short, following the preceding structure for your essay would aid you a lot to develop an impressive critical lens essay.