The literary thesis statement. Literary essays are argumentative or persuasive essays. Their goal is primarily analysis, but analysis with the aim of showing readers your interpretation of a literary text. So, the thesis statement is a one to two sentence summary of the main argument, or interpretation, of your essay. Thesis statements for literary analysis essays. The political and social developments of the 18th century had a significant impact on the development of the English novel, meaning that you can't just state any fact and make it your thesis. For example, everyone knows puppies are cute. An ineffective thesis would be: Puppies are adorable and everyone knows it. It's not really a debatable topic. Something that would be more debatable would be, Table of Contents: Hook your reader: Give background information: Introduce your thesis statement: Map the structure of your essay: Check and revise. More examples of essay introductions. Other interesting articles. Frequently asked questions about essay introduction.