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Quoting When writing literary analysis your aim is to convince your reader of the validity of your ideas and arguments; quotation is a vital technique in this process. You should use quotation to
Quotation may be either direct or indirect : Direct quotation is when you take a passage from another author (from the text you are analysing or from another critic, for example) and insert it into your own text without changing the words. Indirect quotation is when you take a passage from another author (from the text you are analysing or from another source) and rewrite it in your own words before inserting it into your own text. This technique is sometimes called paraphrasing. You need to master both techniques and use them freely in your writing. Here is the first paragraph Of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale heart' : True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story. And here is a paraphrase of this passage : The narrator admits to being nervous but demands to know why we should consider him mad. His illness has increased the sensitivity of his senses, particularly his hearing ; he claims to be able to hear everything, both natural and supernatural. The proof of his super-sanity will be the lucidity of his narration. Notice how paraphrase can be used to support a critical point : Poe's narrator is a fanatic who takes himself for God ; the hypersensitivity of his hearing gives him the illusion of total control. Knowing everything, how can he be mad ? Like an evil genius, he attempts to manipulate the reader, hoping to impress us with the insane clarity of his murderous story. Now notice how direct quotation can be used to prove or illustrate a critical point : I think that Poe's narrator suffers from delusions of grandeur. His claim to hear 'all things in the heaven and in the earth' shows that he takes himself for God. 'Hearken', addressed to the reader, sounds almost like a biblical command spoken by a prophet or by God himself. The confession that he has also heard 'many things in Hell' suggests that the narrator's imagination is fascinated by images of violence and suffering. While his story may be told 'calmly' even 'healthily', we suspect already that it will include some act of psychotic evil.
Write paraphrases of four of the following passages; use a maximum of three sentences: 1. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. (from ‘The Story of an Hour’ by Kate Chopin) 2. Josephine's carriage had been wheeled out on the lawn between
the rosebeds. She lay with eyes shut and forehead contracted, for
overhead hung the dreaded space of the sky. But she had to be near
Lou while Lou cut the roses. In a day or two, Lou thought, I should
be wearing a bell. What shall I do with these if I ever do go? she
thought, as she cut through the strong stems between the thorns and
piled the roses on the foot of the carriage. I shall certainly never
want to look at roses again. By her wrist watch it was six o'clock
- two hours since Edward had started. All round, the country under
the white stretched sky was completely silent. She went once to the
gate. (from Bowen's 'Look At All Those Roses') 3. Not one of my friends failed to be taken in by the illusion, and all complimented me on bringing off such a coup. Their wives, of course, regarded Serena with suspicion, and clearly considered her to be part of some adolescent or sexist prank. However, I kept a straight face, and within a few months her presence in my house was taken for granted by all of us. ('The Smile’ by J.G. Ballard) 4. Being on the roof , it turned out, was a serious thing. If he jumped would the singing become dancing ? Would it ? What would jumping stop ? Yearningly, Ozzie wished he could rip open the sky, plunge his hands through, and pull out the sun ; and on the sun, like a coin, would be stamped JUMP or DON’T JUMP. (from ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ by Philip Roth) 5. 'This Be The Verse' They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hat and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. (Philip Larkin)
6. 'Not Waving but Drowning' Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning : I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he’s dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning. (Stevie Smith) Click here to send your answers to your tutor and print them out
Basing yourselves on extracts from the syllabus, use indirect quotation (paraphrase) to support four of the following critical arguments. Write a maximum of three sentences for each point: 1. That Mrs Mallard’s vision of life has completely changed following the news of her husband’s death. (‘The Story of an Hour’) 2. That the married couple in 'The
Beggar on the Dublin Bridge' have a different form of morality'. 3. That the narrator of ‘The Smile’ is proud of his stuffed female companion. 4. That Ozzie goes onto the roof in order to break the association between faith and authority. ('The Conversion of the Jews') 5. That Philip Larkin doesn’t believe in human progress. 6. That Stevie Smith ('Not Waving but Drowning') believes that society is indifferent to the individual. Click here to send your answers to your tutor and print them out
Now illustrate the following critical points, but this time using direct quotations. Use some of the following structures to introduce your quotations, or invent some of your own: this is shown / illustrated by… it is clear from the following passage / extract / quotation that… for example, when the narrator / character x says… we can see this in the following passage … says character x, and this shows that… x’s attitude to / vision of / approach to / perspective on / … can be seen in the following passage
Quote as many times as you like from the texts, but write a maximum of three sentences for each point. 1. Mrs Mallard suddenly feels like a schoolgirl at the beginning of a holiday. (‘The Story of an Hour’) 2. The narrator in ‘The Smile’ has lost the ability to distinguish between reality and illusion. 3. Ozzie learns something on the roof, namely that we are all ultimately responsible for our own lives. (‘The Conversion of the Jews’) 4. Larkin’s misanthropy is reflected in both his imagery and his language. 5. Even after death, Stevie Smith’s drowned man is not at peace with himself and society. 6. Jim Styan, the husband in 'By The River', is emotionally immature. Click here to send your answers to your tutor and print them out
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