1. Writing the Commentary
● You must produce one analytical commentary
reflecting on your studied texts and the pieces of
writing you have produced (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4
assessed).
● The advisory total word count is 1000–1250 for
the commentary.
● You will be awarded up to 24 marks for the
commentary.
2. You should all
be aiming to
hit the highest
bands – the
mark scheme
here identifies
what this
requires you to
do.
3. You must do the following things:
Provide a clear rationale for the choice of approaches and the
significance of the chosen genres
Provide evidence of wide reading and research
Make some evaluative comments about the style and
influence of the stimulus texts
Make the purpose of each text clear
Show an understanding of the characteristic stylistic features
of the chosen genres.
Make appropriate and discriminating use of technical
terminology
Make the commentary interesting and coherent
4. Where to start:
On a clean (spare) copy of each of your texts, identify the
audience, purpose, content, context, style and purpose of
each.
Next, highlight typical generic traits that you have used in each
text and annotate them – you should ensure that you identify
some which are structural and some which are literary.
Make sure you choose the most interesting examples…. NOT
personal pronouns and declarative sentences!
5. Writing the commentary
Every point that you make has to be concise and
relevant – 1250 words maximum is not long
enough to allow for any meandering off task!
You should ensure that you refer constantly to
both your source texts and your wider reading,
and comment on how they have influenced
choices that you have made in your own writing,
whilst interspersing regular terminology.
6. Introduction:
In no more than 100 words, outline the genre, purpose, audience, content,
context and style of both of your texts, and how they have been inspired by
your stimulus texts.
For example, “As inspiration for my literary text, I studied
Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and produced my own,
highly figurative short story based on the theme of entrapment
(in which the protagonist reflects upon her own fate) aimed at
entertaining and provoking debate amongst a similar educated,
adult audience. However, for my non-literary text I produced an
article, using Brian Keenan’s An Evil Cradling as a stimulus text,
focussing on the same theme of entrapment, aimed at
informing and educating a similar adult audience, but using a
more factual and formal style.
7. Rationale for choice of approach:
In 50 – 100 words, explain why you have chosen to produce
these generic styles and how you have approached them.
For example, “For my literary piece, I decided to focus on the
failure of my female protagonist to liberate herself, in contrast to
the protagonists in Carter’s Bloody Chamber stories (as I felt that
this was a perspective less obviously discussed in her work)
whilst still hoping to emulate the stylistic features employed by
her. My non-literary article discusses the aftermath of a hostage
situation and the effects of entrapment on the individual, in
contrast to the description of the actual event in the stimulus
text.
8. Main body of essay: 600 words
You will be comparing what you read as a fiction piece and how it stylistically
influenced your own writing, and the same for non-fiction. To do this, you need to
annotate your own work and identify a minimum of 5 features you consciously used
in both your pieces of writing.
For example, "xxxxx used an extended metaphor to create an atmosphere of
oppression and hostility (evidence) , the dynamic verbs "…...., ….." further highlighting
the brutality of the regime and the terror that the protagonist felt, building pace and a
sense of breathlessness; this is paralleled in my own fiction piece with the use of
pathetic fallacy "…..", the simile "…." creating an intensity of fear and a similar physical
reaction. Atwood also frequently uses the lexical field of colour "…../..../...." To
exemplify the ways in which Offred observes the world around her; in bold,
frightening colours which jar the senses. I mirrored this in my own fiction piece
"….../..../...." , in this instance to suggest the fear that she experienced, the colour red
having connotations of.....
9. Wider reading
In approximately 200-300 words, refer to your wider reading and how this has affected your choice
of approach, the content of your work and the stylistic traits included.
"As further research on the topic of entrapment I read The Collector by John Fowles, which I found
interesting as it offered a different perspective; one in which the protagonist was more sympathetic with
her captor, rather than one in which she was trying constantly to find ways of escape. In contrast, 12
Years a Slave presented an image of entrapment from history and real life, which was far more
devastating and did not shy away from the facts of black history and the slave trade – elements of this
trauma which I felt influenced my writing as I wanted to show the longterm impact of enforced
entrapment on not just an individual but an entire community. Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) inspired me
by referencing a more philosophical form of entrapment (quote) which conveyed how the political
regime of a country can entrap whole sectors of society – akin to my alternative chapter, where I
attempted to demonstrate the ways in which the majority of people had accepted their fate. As non-
fiction wider reading I read several articles on prisoners of war (list a couple here) which influenced my
article as I, too, wanted to emphasise the sheer hopelessness one would feel in a situation with no
apparent form of escape. Butterful Tears (a selection of essays) offered several different voices ….. "
10. Conclusion:
In 100 words maximum, summarise how effectively
you think you have completed the task. Focus on
which you think you were most successful at and
which you think was most interesting to emulate,
rather than what you think you did terribly!
11. Bibliography:
At the end of your commentary you must include a bibliiography of all the texts you
have read as wider reading.
You should separate them into fiction and non-fiction
You must NOT include reference to anything that you have studied for the exam
There must be a minimum of 10 other references on this list, not including your core
texts
12. Finally:
Bring me your complete version next Tuesday, plus any updated non-fiction drafts.
Make sure name is on it and a word count.
Do NOT delay it into your exam week as this will place immense pressure on you.
During those weeks you simply need to be making improvements, NOT writing
whole texts.
13. Annotate for how the writer presents ideas
about repression.
Appearing thus late in the story, Cecil must be at once described. He was
medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders that seemed braced
square by an effort of the will, and a head that was tilted a little higher than the
usual level of vision, he resembled those fastidious saints who guard the portals of
a French cathedral. Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he
remained in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows as self-
consciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision, worshipped as
asceticism. A Gothic statue implies celibacy, just as a Greek statue implies fruition,
and perhaps this was what Mr. Beebe meant. And Freddy, who ignored history and
art, perhaps meant the same when he failed to imagine Cecil wearing another
fellow’s cap.
• Repression: the action of
subduing someone or something by
force
14. What was Forster's point about repression? Let's
discuss these critical responses.
"George seems almost completely free of the social burdens that so
constrain Cecil" – Stephanie Derbyshire
"Lucy is shackled by Victorian conventionality” – Philip Wagner
"If Cecil and Charlotte try to suppress Lucy's rebellious spirit, the
Emerson's encourage it… They challenge her, making her question the
conventions she's used to" - Milena Milutinovic on Lucy's rebellious
spirit .
"Cecil, although irritating, is hardly villainous" - Stephanie Derbyshire
15. Discuss: how is Cecil shown as repressed in
comparison to George?
Evidence?
Author's point?
Contextual relevance – actual historical facts preferably! Read these as revision!
https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/a-room-with-a-view-class-
conventions-and-the-quest-for-clarity
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/room-view
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/296528/a-room-with-a-view-by-e-
m-forster-introduction-by-wendy-moffat-notes-by-malcolm-
bradbury/9780141183299/readers-guide/
16. Consider their respective
contexts...
Lucy and George both stand outside Britain’s traditional class
structure. George is a clerk, the son of a journalist and grandson of a
laborer. Lucy is the daughter of a lawyer and her social status is “more
splendid than her antecedents entitled her to.”
How does this affect our feelings towards Cecil?
What role does social class play in the novel?
Why did Forster choose Cecil to deliver the statement: “The classes ought to mix…There
ought to be intermarriage—all sorts of things. I believe in democracy.”?
17. GEORGE:
For a young man his face was rugged, and—until
the shadows fell upon it—hard. Enshadowed,
it sprang into tenderness. She saw him once
again at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, carrying a burden of acorns. Healthy
and muscular, he yet gave her the feeling of
greyness, of tragedy that might only find
solution in the night.
Standing at its brink, like a swimmer who
prepares, was the good man. But he was not
the good man that she had expected, and he
was alone.
George had turned at the sound of her arrival.
For a moment he contemplated her, as one
who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant
joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat
against her dress in blue waves. The bushes
above them closed. He stepped quickly
forward and kissed her.
CECIL:
“Up to now I have never kissed you.”
She was as scarlet as if he had put the thing most indelicately.
“No—more you have,” she stammered.
“Then I ask you—may I now?”
“Of course, you may, Cecil. You might before. I can’t run at you, you
know.”
At that supreme moment he was conscious of nothing but absurdities.
Her reply was inadequate. She gave such a business-like lift to her
veil. As he approached her he found time to wish that he could
recoil. As he touched her, his gold pince-nez became dislodged and
was flattened between them.
Such was the embrace. He considered, with truth, that it had been a
failure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget
civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature.
Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.
Why could he not do as any labourer or navvy—nay, as any young
man behind the counter would have done? He recast the scene.
Lucy was standing flowerlike by the water, he rushed up and took
her in his arms; she rebuked him, permitted him and revered him
ever after for his manliness. For he believed that women revere
men for their manliness.
18. Links to TBC
Whereabouts in TBC are characters repressed by societal expectations?
Select the BEST evidence!
Was she successful in critiquing the ways in which society represses the individual, or did
she, too, fall into the trap of repeating old stereotypes?
some early critics such as Robert Clark and Patricia Duncker saw her wide-
ranging feminist agenda as too ambiguous, the latter felt she was “rewriting
the tales within the strait-jacket of their original structures” (qtd. in
Makinen 23) and remained unconvinced that Carter was able to completely
escape the conservative gender stereotypes often exemplified in traditional
tales and motifs.
