How do I analyse quotes in an essay?

The first thing to do when choosing a quote to analyse in an essay in to make sure it is relevant to your argument. Think about the theme in the question you have been set - for example, a question asking you to analyse the presentation of women in a text will be looking for quotes with the theme of gender. Decide whether you are for or against this argument, and then select quotes that back up your point. Examiners are looking for a point, evidence, explanation/analysis and then a link that ties the point back to the overall argument of your essay. The quote falls under the evidence bullet point in the checklist. Once you have selected your quote, a sophisticated technique to impress examiners and introduce your analysis is to embed it. For example, introduce your paragraph with a topic sentence, eg. "The presentation of women in Jane Eyre arguably challenges the female stereotypes of the time" and then embed the quote "for example, when Jane says 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me' she defies the Victorian confinement of women." This opens up the gate for further analysis, and sounds better than just listing quotes by themselves which often leads to the point and relevance getting lost. Now you have introduced the quote in your paragraph, you need to pick it apart. One way to go about this is to start with close reading and then expand with the broad connotations of what this could mean in the greater scale of the text and your argument. Some ideas for close reading is to discuss literary techniques the author uses, whether or not it is typical/atypical of the genre and how these techniques contribute to the meaning of the quote. For example "I am no bird" is a metaphor, and this contributes to a bigger theme of women often being objectified as wild creatures to be captured and tamed. Then you can start to discuss context - that is, how the quote is relevant to the issues of society at the time. For example, Jane Eyre was written in the Victorian era, a time that was still very much patriarchal. Finally, after some analysis, make sure to link back to your topic sentence. This neatly ties the quote to the point and keeps in relevant to your essay by not allowing yourself to go on a tangent. Repeat these steps and link relevant quotes together in a similar way, and you will create sustained evidence for your points!