An essay is just an essay. Don’t let the fancy term “literary analysis” confuse you. Simply write your impressions about “The Secret Lion” as you would for any literary work you might read.

It is very simple – use the example of a literary analysis on this website. There are links to an in-depth Community College of Virginia round up of several student reports:

A Literary Analysis for Hills Like White Elephants is at the BOTTOM of this WIKI page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_Like_White_Elephants

I know this sounds really crazy, but you have to read/understand the professor. Every professor is different and has a different theory about what fantastic literary analysis is. What do you think he might want? What have you been talking about a lot lately in class? characters? symbolism? What do you think the professor might want you paper to be about? Some professors drop clues as to what they believe a good paper topic might be. I could be wrong, but i think he might want you to give your own opinion and analysis of the literature you are reading. About the whole summary thing, you should never summarize a novel/story in a literary analysis. Most likely you can reference important scenes in ONE sentence, if you are going to discuss it in full detail. He just doesn’t want a book report. He’s already read the book, he doesn’t want to read it again, kind-of-thing. My best advice to give you: when in doubt, talk to the professor. They actually like it when you go in and ask questions during office hours. If you have procrastinated and it is due before the next office hours, email him and ask him directly.