1. Question A – Part 1
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Students need to think about how the story is being managed by the writer.
It might be appropriate to write about:
Places
Time - how it is being manipulated, whether it is
condensed, accelerated, elongated and where the story starts and finishes in
terms of time
Narrator/narratee – whose thinking or speaking processes are being represented?
How reliable is the narrator?
Sequence/Structure – what is the order in which events are told?
Generic conventions/poetic forms – are they operating?
Voices – who speaks to whom and when? (is the speech direct, indirect, free
indirect?) Is the speech attributed?
Language – is there anything telling about the language that the writer uses?
• It is best for students to focus on the larger features
of narrative like voice or structure rather than
discussing the effects of individual words.
3. Diegesis - Telling
• Information related by the narrator which is
not dialogue and describes the action or
setting, comments on or reports character’s
thoughts or actions
4. Form
Mimesis
Diegesis
Plot – what is happening in the
story and what is the cause?
Thoughts – Direct thought
Indirect thought
Speech – direct indirect
Proximity
Characterisation Transparent/Round?
Quest narrative
Tragedy
Romance
Structure
In what order do events happen?
How the chapter fits in the
overall structure?
Flashbacks?
Flashforwards? Foreshadowing?
Patterns?
Repetition?
Exposition? Climax? Resolution?
Closure? Degrees of
Gaps?
Shifts? Jumps?
Regular? Disrupted?
Language
Poetic
Educated
Verbose
Description
Colloquial
Metaphorical
Symbolism
Contrast
Irony
Imagery
Violent language
Names
Dialogue
Narrative perspective/Voice
Homodiegetic
Internal focalisation
Retrospective
First person narrator
Choric voices
Other character voices
Self concious/Naïve narrator
Distance
Other narrators
Reliability
Active
Observer
Setting
General
Specific
Time of year/month/day
Symbolism of setting –
connotations/links to or
reflections on character
Use of setting
Descriptions of setting
A03/A04
How do you interpret a
character? Action?
What do the critics say?
Contexts of tragedy/romance?
Moral context
Modern context
Gender context
Mystery
Nick’s portrayal of him versus
reality
Class
American Dream – Roaring 20s
5. Paragraph on the author's
form/language.
• An example of this would be from The Great Gatsby where
you could comment on Carraway's 'educated and poetic
prose' and 'technically fluent style' and how this shapes the
readers view of Carraway. Other things to comment on
could be the language used in relation to the narrator's
feelings. Is the narrator happy or melancholic? Then
comment on how this is significant. Does the narrator's
language change during the chapter, or does his tone
change? If so then comment on this and say how it adds
significance to the chapter. Further, you can comment on
any of the above then relate it to its purpose/destination;
does the component you talk about affect anything later on
in the novel?
6. Paragraph on the structure of the chapter. You should use
this paragraph to talk about whether the chapter is told
chronologically or not, and how does this then shape the
reader's view of the novel. Comment on whether the
author has purposely created gaps in this chapter or
missed out a certain time period, or suddenly gone from
Spring to Summer in the chapter, etc. Commenting on time
and how it passes in the chapter can sometimes be quite a
unique, but effective thing to talk about in the question.
These are all significant components of how the author
tells the story - if these are present, then pull them out and
comment explicitly on how they shape meanings. Is there a
cyclical structure to how the chapter is told? How does the
structure of this chapter go on to affect other chapters
later on or previously in the novel? Obviously, you don't
need to comment on all of these ideas, the best way is to
just pull out one or two of these points then expand on
them.
7. Paragraph on the narrative
perspective.
• This is something that will vary quite a lot dependent on the text
you are doing. Personally, this was fantastic to use for Gatsby as it
features a narrator whose reliability can be questioned, so there is
lots to write about. Aspects to include in this paragraph are things
like what form of narration is present - is it first person, is it a
modified first person narrator (like Nick Carraway is) etc. It is best to
state what type of narration is featured at the start of your
paragraph. Then, you can comment on whether the narrator is
reliable, or if he is biased. Comment on how the narrator deals with
integrating with other secondary characters, and the effect this
might have on his narration/storytelling. Comment on any use of
different view points during the narration, and how this is
significant to the story, and what implication might come about
because of this. Always link these back to the 'overarching' story how they give effect to the rest of the novel.
8. Paragraph on setting.
• This can be a shorter paragraph that would be nice to end on.
Commenting firstly on where the narrator has started off in this
chapter and where he ends up (in context of the setting) and why
this may be significant. An example of how to utilise setting in this
question would be: 'The settings of the chapter are mainly Daisy
and Tom's house and New York, as well as the Valley of Ashes as the
site of Myrtle's death. Carraway describes the day as hot and stuffy
calling it "certainly the warmest, of the summer". This weather
provides a suitable atmosphere for the argument between Tom and
Gatsby; the conversation gets heated which is reflected by the
"large and stifling" room in which it takes place.' So by commenting
here on the weather and linking this in nicely with the overall
setting, you can see how it would begin to shape up in an essay. Of
course that isn't the whole paragraph, you would follow this up
with another couple sentences at least, but you get the idea.
9. • Fitzgerald uses the opening of his prose “The Great Gatsby” in
order to introduce us to the narrator Nick. Nick begins the narrative
by suggesting that he is tolerable person, and that his father has
taught him to “reserve judgement”. Yet, later on in the opening he
describes how only Gatsby was exempt from his “unaffected scorn”,
this contradiction suggest that Nick may not be a reliable narrator.
Nick also suggests that “life is much more successfully looked at
from a single window”. This could be revealing that Nick is a very
attentive narrator, however, a more plausible reading would suggest
that the Nick is narrow minded and only sees events from a single
perspective. Fitzgerald uses the opening to highlight Nick
unreliability as a narrator, we must therefore watch out for any
prejudice within the narrative, “while Nick is trying to write Gatsby,
we are also reading Nick”, the opening is a chance for Fitzgerald to
reveal that the truth is not straight forward in the narrative.
