Martin Amis, the son of renowned British author Kingsley Amis, was considered the master of new unpleasantness. To highlight the hideous social problems, he often used dark humour in his novels. When analysing Martin Amis essays, the reader must take a mental note of all the subtle themes he identifies.
Furthermore, it’s equally important to choose the right evidence when you have to prove your key arguments. Doing the correct analysis of the gathered evidence is also essential. Even when you feel like your evidence may speak for itself, you must explain it in detail to readers for comprehension.
Often, students feel the need for one-on-one help so that they can craft flawless papers. In such a situation, they must contact their supervisors or a UK-based essay writing service for personalised assistance. Experienced people can analyse complex themes better than novice writers.
This article explores in detail tips for analysing the key themes in the Martin Amis essay collection. Let’s dive deep into it:
How to Analyse the Themes in Martin Amis Essays?
The main themes in the Martin Amis collection of essays are politics, popular culture and social class. Growing up, he had no interest in literature but used to read comics only. After the divorce of his parents, his father married Elizabeth Jane Howard, a famous novelist.
Howard used to encourage Martin to read the classic works of Jane Austen. This sparked his love for literature and he started writing novels with multiple themes. For analysis of his work, a student can use the following techniques.
Let’s discuss these tips in further detail now.
1. Consider Varying Perspectives
Martin Amis was a prolific writer and he used a lot of complex and intertwined themes in his books. All his books revolve around different ideas and present varying perspectives to readers. Einstein’s Monsters 1987, Time’s Arrow 1991, The Information 1995, Experience 2000, The War Against Cliché 2001, Koba the Dread 2002, and others – all have different concepts.
The key here is to link the varying perspectives and prove that your argument is correct (by showing the overwhelming evidence). Don’t forget to stay on the topic and relate the evidence with the main ideas of your Martin Amis essays.
So, you should ask yourself what point you are trying to make and what the rationale behind it is. Also, think about making your ideas more succinct and concise. Remember that there must be a sense of connection and relevance in the ideas you present to the readers.
2. Use References
You will need to support the analysis of themes in Martin Amis essays with evidence. With different zones of interest by the author, you will be required to find the relevant references. The best sources that you can get and utilise are the peer-reviewed journals.
The best thing to consider is to find sources that go against your ideas because that way, you can link contrary perspectives. There is a world of literature out there to search and find relevant resources.
Also, you must ensure that all the sources you use are as relevant and recent as possible. When you search the literature databases, it will assist you in finding the gaps in the literature. Furthermore, you can mention the gaps to show why it was important for you to conduct research on the given topic.
3. Make It Critical
A common mistake that students make when analysing the complex themes in Martin Amis essays is giving descriptive analysis. Most of the time, the examiners require the students to provide a critical evaluation of the given essay questions. That is why you should avoid describing the key factors of essays in a plain way.
Instead, a better way to analyse the key questions is by being critical of it. You must not merely state what other people have written already. A better way to address this is to find out the opinions of others and then use them in support of or against your arguments.
The critical analysis may be in the form of a theory or a framework or it might be related to primary or secondary research. Either way, the point is to keep your analysis analytical and not just plainly descriptive.
4. Decode the Question
No matter what the questions for Martin Amis essays are, you must know how to decode the apparent meaning of essays. Here, we have an example from the University of Hull. Let’s look at the following topic:
‘Analyse the impact of the employability agenda on the undergraduate student experience.’
When decoding this title, we can identify the three main areas:
Here, the first part tells you about what you have to do with your work. The second and the middle parts of the question refer to the main subject or the key issue of your papers. In the academic world, analysing refers to the discussion or evaluation of a given issue.
The last part is more focused on the constraint part, and that’s where one needs to concentrate on. So, you must ensure that you have decoded the question in a good manner before planning your essay.
5. Recognise the Subject
For a successful analytical analysis of Martin Amis essays, it’s important to recognise the main subject in the work. You must know what you have to talk about in your papers. So, it will be best to pick a few key points and address them in detail in your documents. However, you should avoid listing all vague observations and instead use only coherent ideas.
For this purpose, you will most likely need to examine the source you are analysing more than once. Students can also purchase essays from online resources if they find it difficult to recognise the main subject of their work.
In a nutshell, students are expected to understand the concepts that are important for the formulation of arguments. After that, they must analyse it critically and present the ideas coherently in the papers.
6. Develop Deeper Insights
As you know, analysis is a central writing skill in academia. Essentially, writers have to examine the given evidence in detail so that they can develop meaningful arguments. There are specific types of analysis which are disciplinary in nature, such as the following:
- Close reading
- Discourse
- Rhetorical
You should ask your department instructors about what sort of analysis they require from you. So, while examining the Martin Amis essays, you should zoom into the details and then shed light on the greater picture.
It will assist your readers in finding depth in your work. Furthermore, the supervisors can see that you have worked really hard to curate all the core insights. Since it can boost your grades, you must conduct a deeper analysis of the papers you are evaluating.
7. Identify the Focus
Martin Amis best essay always has a central theme and focus. So, if you are to write about the topic you are given, concentrate on finding the central theme. When writing without a focus, you can end up writing a book and not a mere review essay. That is why, you must be consistent with your arguments and ensure that they align with the main ideas of your work.
There are two major benefits of identifying a constraint in your Martin Amis essays. Those are listed here:
- It makes you concentrate on one thing at a time. Your attention remains at one point.
- It can also provide you with enough context on a given time frame and situation.
For instance, you can pick one key theme in any of Martin Amis works, such as capitalism or popular culture. After that, you must stick to it and describe the related events in detail so that the reader gets a clear idea of the situation.
8. Integrate Evidence with Your Ideas
While analysing the Martin Amis essays, you should try developing arguments that provide reasonable answers to research questions. Bear in mind that an argument should bring reasoned answers to the main queries of your academic essays.
The articles, books and other research material that you read for your work can serve as evidence to back up your ideas. The manner in which you choose and interpret the evidence demonstrates your individual ideas.
So, every time you use an idea from other people’s work, you must not forget to reference it in the bibliography. You may choose to express the ideas in your own words, but even then, you must provide readers with the link to the original source. It’s necessary to ensure integrity and originality in your papers.
9. Add Contrasting Information
You can further try to complicate the themes by adding contrasting perspectives in the Martin Amis essays. It creates a vivid picture in the minds of readers. Also, it lets them view different points of a given situation.
For instance, you can tell the readers about the perspectives of a character X and then you move towards the description of character Y. Then, briefly explain the personalities of both these characters to clarify the difference in the reader’s minds. Needless to say, it ensures coherence and clarity in your work.
When you use compare-and-contrast techniques in such papers, you will be able to analyse the given text well. Furthermore, you can shift the focus of the essay and add new information with further research questions.
10. Edit and Proofread
This one is not an analysis tip in its essence; however, it is a must for the success of one’s papers. So, you must proofread and edit the Martin Amis essays that you craft to fulfil your academic assignments.
It will undoubtedly be best if you ask for critical feedback on the presentation, flow and structural clarity of your papers. Professional editors and experienced peers can assist you in the provision of honest feedback.
The bottom line is that you should look for grammatical accuracy in your work. Furthermore, the references must be on point. Apart from that, you should also see that the evidence is fully contextualised and explained.
What Is Martin Amis’ Style?
The work of Martin Amis had become the talk of the town in his own lifetime. He was one of the literary celebrities in the contemporary American writing world. Some newspapers described him as the crown prince of literary hipness.
His early preferences for writing include his fascination with junk culture, languorous banter and wit, and describing low life in a high style. His comical style was rhetorical, urgent and insistent. The paradoxes he used were playful, and the plots of his novels used to be really interesting.
Overall, the main themes in Martin Amis essays include the following:
- Capitalism
- Masculinity
- Greed
- Self-Obsession
- Consumerism
What Genre Is Martin Amis?
Martin Amis is broadly known for using satire to remark on life and dark humour. His work was quite popular in Britain in the 20th century. Even London Fields, his most famous work, is a dark and humorous murder mystery.
He often used to draw inspiration for his works from his own life experiences. Also, he used to experiment with style, form and narrative techniques like a postmodern writer.
What Is the Plot of The Information by Martin Amis?
The Information by Martin Amis follows a very simple premise. The plot is based on the life of two friends who are writers. Richard Tull is an unsuccessful contemporary writer. Gwyn Barry, his friend and an equally unpleasant person, gets favoured by fate and becomes a successful novelist.
Both characters are like the two sides of the same coin; however, the only thing that differentiates them is the book sales. As Tull fails his literary career, he plans a scheme to punish his friend for his success. Barry escapes the threat with another stroke of luck. The entire book follows the same theme.
Conclusion
All in all, this was about the key tips for analysing the complicated themes in Martin Amis’s essays. To succeed in your papers, you should discuss the writer’s dark humour style and couple it with his criticism of modern life. Amis used multiple intertwined themes in his work, and sometimes, students confuse themselves while trying to decipher them.
If you feel lost when working on the papers of this British novelist, you may look for professional assistance with your essay to keep it on track. You can also go for support from someone who has already read the collection of essays by Martin Amis.
Lastly, bear in mind that although Amis is a moralistic writer, he also has contempt for organised religion. You should also keep the graphic depictions of violence, his interest in drugs and his use of obscene language to untangle the themes in his work.