Task: Choose a play in which your attitude towards the central character varies at different stages of the play. Show how the skill of the dramatist causes your attitude to change.
How to do… critical essays
Introduction
Title
Author
Refer to
Task
Para 1: Intro
Example: Shakespeare’s Elizabethan tragedy ‘Macbeth’ provokes a strong reaction from the audience. As Macbeth’s character develops and changes, the audience’s attitude varies towards him too.
Para 2: Plot summary Brief plot summary. Remember, you don’t pick up many marks for purely narrating the events of the plot.
Example:The bloody tale of Macbeth ‘the Scottish play’ charts the ambitions of Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth. Our tragic- hero goes from a brave warrior to a bloody “tyrant”. Whether these ambitions are his, or his “fiend-like” Queen’s are a matter of dispute, but his murders of Duncan, Banquo and Macduff’s clan are unarguable.
Main body of essay- each paragraph of the main essay should be structured around a PCQE.
Point
Context
Quotation
Evaluation
Conclusion
Sum up your main points.
Link back to question.
Overall observation on the text.
Meet your new BFF- PCQE
Point – Point is the main statement in your paragraph. Remember this point must be relevant to your essay task.
Context- Give some context to the quotation you will be using. For example, if you are writing about a drama it would be the act and scene reference.
Q – Insert a quotation that is relevant to your point.
Evaluation – This is a chance to pick up marks! Here you should analyse your quotation. (For further guidance on this see How to do Analysis sheet.) Try to also refer back to the question.
Examples of PCQE: Macbeth exemplar
Task: Choose a play in which your attitude towards the central character varies at different stages of the play. Show how the skill of the dramatist causes your attitude to change.
Essay sample
At the opening of the play, Macbeth is depicted as a brave and “noble” warrior. However, after meeting the witches and hearing their prophecies “Thane of Glamis…Thane of Cawdor… king hereafter” his desire for power is awakened.
P Upon hearing the prophecies, Lady Macbeth is determined they will come true for her husband.
CIn Act 1, scene 5, she states:
Q“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promis’d: yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o’th’milk of human kindess.”
EThis quotation shows that Lady Macbeth thinks her partner is too kind and gentle to become king. The expression “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindess” suggests Macbeth is innocent and pure. At this point in the play, the audience believes Macbeth to be an essentially good person and we are sympathetic towards him.
How to do analysis
*This advice is supplementary to PQCE. You must still remember to do use it. *
Often students tell me that they know which quotation to use in an essay but they don’t know what to say about it. The trick is to move from general to specific analysis.
Begin by analysing the general meaning of the quotation - you might comment on characterisation, theme, etc: his analysis will be partially determined by your essay question.
Then go on with specific analysis- select some words from the quotation and discuss them. The words you choose should allow you to comment specifically on a literary technique. For example, this could be- symbolism, imagery, dramatic irony. After your analysis, remember to add in a sentence that refers back to the essay question.
Analysing a quotation
2015 (Higher) Past Paper, Q.1
Task: Choose a play in which a major character’s actions influence the emotions of others.
Briefly explain how the dramatist presents these emotions and actions and discuss how this contributes to your understanding of the play as a whole.
Example essay extract
P Throughout play Macbeth, the major character of Lady Macbeth manipulates our eponymous tragic-hero. In the early stages of the play, the audience sees her exhibit her feminine wiles to persuade her husband to ruthlessly pursue the kingship.
CIn Act one, scene five, she urges Macbeth to:
Q "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't." (Act I, Scene V)
Evaluation/ analysis
General analysis
Here, Lady Macbeth is instructing her partner to appear irreproachably good to the court. However, beneath this exterior she compels him to be more devious- akin to the reptile of a serpent.
Specific analysis
Her use of the words “innocent flower” has connotations of femininity and purity- virtues which are questionable in the lady herself. However, she also invokes the spirit of a “serpent” which carries biblical symbolism of evil- perhaps closer to her own true character. In her word choice we see the transference of her own emotions onto Macbeth.
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You will notice that the specific analysis in the example above makes use of critical terminology- again, a great way to boost your grade!