Anne DeWitt Summary or Analysis?

Transcription

1 Anne DeWitt Summary or Analysis? [I use this series of handouts in both the Writing Seminar and Research Seminar, usually while students are working on revising one of their essays, in order to give them a firmer grasp of the basic moves that analysis can make. The examples I use vary from class to class; I try to present examples that are relevant to the class material, but I also want to avoid passages that students might be writing about for the assignment they re working on when we do this activity, and I try to use actual student writing from previous classes for my examples of good analysis. Sometimes, the third example will be a kind of trick question, where both pieces of writing are analysis, but present opposing interpretations of the passage this is a good way to make the point that analysis can be arguable, i.e., have a counter-argument. I usually ask students to work through each of the examples in pairs, then we have a group discussion about them (the marginal notes below highlight the types of things I want them to recognize). As the discussion wraps up I give them the how to recognize analysis handout to sum up what we ve discussed.] On the following pages, you have a quote from a literary text (Frankenstein or H. G. Wells s novel The Island of Doctor Moreau). The quote is followed by some writing about it. Decide whether each piece of writing is summary or analysis of the quote. How can you tell? Example 1 from H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau: As I went running headlong up the beach, I glanced over my shoulder and saw [Montgomery s] attendant with him. I ran furiously up the slope, over it, then turned eastward along a rocky valley, fringed on either side with jungle. I ran perhaps a mile altogether, my chest straining, my heart beating in my ears. a) This scene finds Prendick on the run from the imperious and almighty face of science, Dr. Moreau. Repetition of the word run purges from the reader's attention anything but raw, driving motion. Prendick's description clarifies his primal fear as it Comment [AD1]: same observation here and below what does the writer do differently here? manifests in his physiology when he notices [his] chest straining, [his] heart beating in [his] ears ; the use of the present participle gives the description of Prendick s condition a striking immediacy. The run conjures the impression that fear of Comment [AD2]: why does the writer re-quote? how is this different from the re-quotation below? what is the re-quotation followed by, in this case? Moreau's sinister intentions has ground Prendick's intellect down to a beastlike state similar to that of Moreau's animals. Comment [Office3]: What is the relationship of this sentence to the rest of the mini-paragraph?

2 b) This scene finds Prendick on the run from the terrifying Dr. Moreau. Believing that capture would be a fate worse than death, he panics and flees, running desperately to escape. Wells s descriptions emphasize this desperation: Prendick s pace is furious[], his chest strain[s], his heart beat[s], and the verb run is repeated several times within the passage.

3 Example 2 From Frankenstein, p. 67: Yet heaven bless thee, my dearest Justine, with resignation, and a confidence elevated beyond this world. Oh! how I hate its shews and mockeries! when one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed. They call this retribution. Hateful name! When that word is pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments are going to be inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to satiate his utmost revenge. a) Elizabeth pronounces a passionate denunciation of the death penalty. She criticizes the practice of punishing one death with another, and denounces those who execute this system of justice for their deluded belief in their own greatness. It is hateful that such retribution means that one death leads to another, and Elizabeth s comparison of this to the actions of a tyrant, as well as the strong language that she uses throughout the passage, strongly condemn her contemporary criminal justice system. b) At first glance, this speech of Elizabeth s seems to be an intrusion of political philosophy that has little to do with the main plot of Frankenstein. But a closer examination suggests that her speech serves as a critique of both Frankenstein and the Creature. Elizabeth condemns the deadly logic of the death penalty; the same logic underlies the Creature s eventual killing of Victor s family and friends, including Comment [AD4]: why start here Comment [AD5]: and then go here? what is this structure doing? do you recognize this from anything else we ve discussed? Elizabeth herself. Indeed, her lament that the murder of one creature is paid for by the death of another evokes Victor s destruction of the female creature and the Creature s retributive murder of Elizabeth. More broadly, Elizabeth s focus on retribution and revenge anticipates the obsession that both Victor and the Creature develop: Victor says of the Creature, my hatred and revenge burst all Comment [AD6]: Why jump to a later part of the plot? does that count as analysis? Comment [Office7]: why re-quote here? bounds of moderation, and he vows to avenge the deaths of William and Justine (71); in a parallel speech, the Creature tells us My daily vows rose for revenge a

4 deep and deadly revenge (116). Frankenstein and his Creation talk obsessively about revenge, but we can see from Elizabeth s speech that the novel asks us to criticize Comment [AD8]: why these quotations from other parts of the novel? this jumps around a lot does that count as analysis of this passage? both male characters for their allegiance to retributive justice.

5 Example 3 The passage here is the scene where the Creature is captured and imprisoned in the first half of Bride of Frankenstein. a) Following this, the monster is placed into the chair in which he is to be held. This particular moment has an intriguingly low angle. Rather than placing the camera at eye level (where the action surrounding the focus of the scene, the monster, would be emphasized), the director chose to aim the camera in such a way that the entire room is seen clear to the ceiling. This choice would be unorthodox unless there was a feature of the room placed high at the ceiling that was important enough to take note of its appearance. In this particular jail cell, there is one small, rectangular Comment [AD9]: what does the writer do here? is this analysis? again: this is how you have to present visual evidence: you can t quote, so you have to describe. window with bars very high up. Throughout the scene, members of the mob are pressed against this window, which we see occasionally in a close up frame. But the particular low, full room shot provides an interesting reflection from audience members watching the creature s imprisonment through a rectangular window or screen to the mob through rectangular window raptly observing the same scene. This particular moment provides a dual meaning. On one hand, the audience has a connection between their perspective and the mob s perspective. On the other, though we are both observing the same scene, the mob is at a different angle. They Comment [AD10]: what work does this sentence do? is this evidence or analysis? Comment [AD11]: why this On the one hand Comment [AD12]: on the other structure? can only observe from above and rather far away, while the audience is placed directly into the scene and views the mob in the same way the creature does. Therefore, though the mob s perspective is certainly given to the audience, the audience is not forced to see through that perspective and is rather encouraged to use its own. Comment [AD13]: what relationship does this sentence have to what comes before? to the on the one hand / on the other structure? b) Both films include scenes in which the monster is chased and hunted by angry villagers. While Frankenstein ends with a torch-lit search for the monster, which culminates with his apparent death in the burning mill, The Bride of Frankenstein

6 begins with a hunt when the monster turns out not to be dead after all. This hunt concludes when the villagers capture the monster and imprison him. Not surprisingly, he escapes a second time because his tremendous strength allows him to break out of the human prison. Later in the film he is chased again after the hunters discover him in the blind man s cottage.

7 Frankenstein and Revisions How to Develop Analysis November 8, 2016 DeWitt do you make observations about the passage, then explain the effects of those observations? do you show your reader something non-obvious about the passage? do you go outside the passage? remember, you can do this by bringing in a key term, connecting to another part of the text, or to a different text altogether. does your analysis support or lead up to a larger claim about the passage? is what you re saying about the passage arguable? can you imagine a counterargument a different interpretation of the passage? can you imagine a more superficial interpretation? Passages of analysis will do at least one of these things.