The Scarlet Letter and Les Miserables are commonly used texts - depending on which form you're using for the latter, the novel, at least, is way too long. Pick something unique. Do some research. Look at some poems by Percy Bysse Shelley and William Blake (it doesn't matter if you have two paragraphs analysing the same textual form - Blake's The Tyger is common as well, try to avoid it unless you know you can analyse it brilliantly), and even artworks (not Liberty Leading the People, that text is done to death). If you can read music, do it! Those texts are really unique. A classmate of mine did very well analysing Chopin!
Analysing an artwork isn't hard, but focus on these three 'frames': structural (how is it composed? What meanings are expressed through its symbolism? Through the way it was made?), cultural (how was it shaped by its social conditions? By prevailing or widespread ideologies?), and subjective (how are the individual beliefs of the artists manifested through the work? What emotions or ideas has the artist intended to elicit in his audience?). I'd like to stress the last rhetorical. Ext1 essays consistently ask you to evaluate. Part of this means elucidating its effect on the audience. Consider: what attitudes make this text relevant to contemporary audiences? No, do not say that the text is iconic. You're writing an academic essay, not a eulogy/homage. Yes, you can still make logical links despite the two century disparity. No, you do not have to bullshit - but you have to put yourself in the shoes of academics and scholars who would take particular interest in studying these texts. How do these texts accentuate the values laden in our society?
Hope that helps. Avoid the surface-level texts. Demonstrate to the marker that you've done some research.
