Page ID. Heather Ringo and Athena Kashyap. City College of San Francisco through the ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative. Table of contents: Poetry: Fiction: Poetry. Attribution. The following examples are essays in which student writers focused on close reading of a literary work. A literary analysis essay is an important type of essay that focuses on the detailed analysis of the literary work. The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to explain why the author used a specific theme for their work. Or examine the story's characters, themes, literary devices, figurative language, and settings. ~ Tragedy. Antigone is a traditional Greek tragedy. A tragedy is defined as a drama involving a noble and courageous hero or heroine who has excellent character and who, due to tragic character, has a flaw.