Help on my character analysis essay!

It is generally a bad idea to use the first person when writing an analytical essay, so I would advise taking out “The character I have chosen to study” from your thesis. You will also need to develop a stance in which you will argue for in your essay. A possible rewrite:

Ylla, a Martian housewife who is plagued with an overbearing husband and dreams of earthmen landing on Mars, shows (character traits) when she (character’s actions).

It’s a rather long statement. Here’s how I broke it down with my Journalism knowledge. First off I never start anything with “the,” because I find it amateurish.

From Ray Bradbury’s novel, “The Martian Chronicles,” Yila, a Martian house wife is plagued by living amongst an overbearing husband. (I broke up right here) She longs for earthmen to land on Mars through her dreams.

Also dude, you have to keep writing. No stopping and going. Just get it all out there. After you’re done writing, then you can go back and edit. You don’t want to stop and go because there are two sides of the brain in charge of this whole writing process. One is on the left side (creative) and the editing side that deals with statistics (right side of brain). You can’t have them both on. I hope this makes sense. Anyways I’ve studied under Max Branscomb, and the reason I say starting with, “The” is amateur is because it is. If you can figure out a way to avoid using it, you will forever be that much of a better writer than another. It’s hard to learn at first, but it makes for a much interesting piece in my opinion. Good luck :D

Thanks, that was very helpful! But what other information should I add to the introduction? Should I talk a bit more about the dreams or about Ylla? I just have no clue what to add. :/

Work whatever it is that you find interesting about her into the intro, and go into more detail in the later paragraphs. Why is she so interesting? How do her dreams contribute to the plot of the story?

When ever I wrote an essay for my composition class I would my write ideas down on several pieces of paper. Sometimes it was a full sentence or paragraph, sometimes just a partial sentence, or simply a word of inspiration, all part of the main idea. I would number each segment to keep a semblance of order then I would gather all the pieces and let the story flow through me, arranging pieces, rewriting and adding what ever came to me. It was much, much easier for me to piece the essay together then to sit down and simply write the entire story out.

One would think that a journalism student would know that “amongst” requires more than a single other person to join with (I don’t live “amongst” my dorg; I live “with” her), and wouldn’t hang a misplaced modifier “through her dreams” to modify where Ylla wants the earthmen to land on Mars (through her dreams?).

But I second the notion that you don’t want to make this a “first person” essay. Leave yourself out until the conclusion, if you need to place an “I” statement there to wrap things up. I think I’d also be a little less direct with the expository remarks about “Ray Bradbury”, “The Martian Chronicles” and “Ylla”. Something like…

Few women enjoy living with an overbearing husband. How difficult it must be on Mars, where Ylla dreams of Earthmen landing while she lives with her overbearing husband in Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles”. Or something like that.

As @fizzbanger suggests, and I’ll add to the suggestion:
Why is she interesting? List the reasons on another paper (or file) and determine which reasons are most important, so that you can build them into your essay and keep track of which order you want to present them in, and how to bridge from one to another.

What aspects of the story expose her character? List these as well. You should consider a chronological list as well as a list “by importance”.

Make lists of the things that you want to discuss, so that you don’t leave things out – and it will help you to outline the entire essay.

So what about this?

From Ray Bradbury’s novel, “The Martian Chronicles,” Ylla, a Martian housewife is plagued with an overbearing husband and a life of his constant suspicions. She is tired of him, tired of everything and then when she starts having dreams about earthmen landing on mars, her life changes. As the story progresses, so do her dreams and she soon finds herself longing for the the earthmens’ arrival. Her husband thinks she’s sick and tries to ignore what’s happening while Ylla watches the sky for the unknown men who fill her dreams.

That’s what I have this now but I know I need to add or change something. :/ I don’t really like the ending very much. Do you have any idea on how I could change it? I wanted to use the phrase “which eventually leads her to question her very existence as a Martian” but I dont know how to get it in there.